Dear parents/students.
Any inputs and advantages of choosing college admission consultants/experts will be helpful for getting into Ivys and other schools of choices and appreciate your feedbacks and experiences.
First, know that getting into an Ivy is a longshot, no matter how good the students stats and ECs are. Second, know that there are many many excellent schools all over the country which aren’t considered “elite.”
Honestly, by far the best counsel we got for college admissions was right here at CC.
^^ this!
There is no place else on earth that has collectively the decades of experience in college admissions that the posters here on CC have. Seriously. I’ve been here for 12 years and many others have been here even longer. And advise from CC is FREE!
There is a consultant on this forum who’s very, very knowledgeable. You could PM her @Hanna.
I personally have had to do with only 2 consultants. One was OK, good for instate opportunities, but not much else. The other one was… well, less than brilliant. Gave questionable advice and inadequate guidance.
You could do better educating yourself by reading this forum. Years and years and years worth of experience and insight – free.
there is also sybbie!
I agree that you can get some great advice here on cc. I did! Also, there is a ton of info elsewhere online about various schools.
But, we went through this process last year with our son, and he was hoping for the tippy top schools. He had all the great stats, ECs, etc - he had worked really hard. I helped with researching schools, visits, etc. but the one place I felt at a loss to help was the essays. And when you read some of the other threads, you see how many people think essays are the tipping point among the many excellent students. My son is a good writer. I just had no idea what separated an ok essay from a great one. So, we hired a consultant just to help with this. He sent her drafts of essays we thought were great, and she just kept advising on revisions. Finally, with only about ten days before the EA deadline, she said I need to be honest. He can keep tweaking the essay but I just don’t know if it will get the job done. She encouraged him to keep trying. He eventually came up with a new topic and sent over a very rough draft. We were all shocked when she excitedly said YAY you did it! A few revisions later she called it a “home run”. At the end of the day, he was accepted to many top schools and attends Yale. We will never know if his earlier essays would have had the same outcomes. And it was a very frustrating process for my son. But we trusted her experience and crossed our fingers. We spent more money than I would have liked, but a small fraction of a semesters tuition. I guess I felt like he had worked so hard that I wanted to do something to help him. The essay was completely his. Nobody did the work for him, but the expertise was potentially valuable. By the end, I could sort of anticipate the feedback, so we did not use the consultant after the first few schools. Interestingly, my son had access to a second consultant through another school program. When he sent over one of the earlier essays, he didn’t love it either. His style of feedback was different, but hearing " keep trying, this isn’t great" from two people who do this for a living made us believe it a bit more.
So, while for most of us I don’t think a consultant is needed for formulating a list, etc, there may be specific areas where outside expertise is helpful.
When considering college counseling, think about what you want out of it. Do you want the counselor to just help you come up with the best college list based on your kid’s credential and help with the application (essays), or do you want the counselor to guide your kid so he/she could have the best possible credential to apply to colleges. If it is later, I would look for a counselor (organization) with access to a team of people who were ex-adcoms, as well as essay and test tutors. This type counseling would start much earlier in a student’s high school career. They would help a student build his resume by suggesting courses to take, which ECs to focus on and summer programs to participate in. Of course, EC/summer program selections would be based on a student’s interest, and course selections would be based on the student’s ability as well as what college adcoms would be looking for.
CC has a lot of good information, but sometimes there is also misinformation, and you would often need to read through pages and pages of posts to get a nugget of information. CC can also be very politically correct, and posters sometimes are reluctant to tell it as is for fear of getting piled on by other posters. I hired a good counselor for my younger kid after a very brutal college process for my older kid. It went a lot smoother and less stressful for us.
I have a friend whose counselor overwhelmed her son and reduced his motivation (yes, she takes some responsibility for the situation). Now this is second hand information, to be taken with a grain of salt, but buyer beware.
Finding a good consultant is like finding a good therapist, take recommendations, but interview them beforehand to make there is right chemistry.
The counselors in my area seem to specialize in taking a kid whose (delusional) parent thinks they are getting into Dartmouth and getting them excited about Colgate or Hobart. Then kid gets into Colgate- voila, kid into first choice college.
So sure there’s value there (as there is in the counseling on how to “spin” a series of school suspensions, how to handle some trouble with the law, etc.) but not in the way that outsiders think. The counselors don’t “get” a kid into a top college. The kid gets him/herself into a top college. But if the parents have a weak grip on reality, the counselors can help bring them back to earth.
And the prices are not for the fainthearted.
You absolutely do not need a college consultant if you are willing to do a work. Tons of free information here on cc. With the help of cc over the course of 3 years I was able to guide my high achieving student from intercity public school to be admitted to the multiple Ivys and such this year.
@oldfort nailed it. There is a plethora of good and bad information you can find online, including in this forum. And, there are good and bad independent educational consultants (IEC)/private counselors. If your high school program/counselor leaves you wanting more, and you feel overwhelmed with the process on your own, then it may be a good idea if you can afford and find a good independent/private. There is no regulation but there are professional membership associations, including IECA and NACAC. IECA has a great list of questions you should ask:
http://www.iecaonline.com/PDF/IECA_12-Questions.pdf
A good IEC will not make guarantees/promises or feed your fear of having to get into a top US News ranked school. They will calm your fears and help your student find the best fit schools based on their particular situation. They will provide you with information and resources that will save you time and stress. If IEC is the path, then earlier can sometimes be better, because they get to know the student and help them choose the high school/ec path that matches their skills and passions and helps them stand out. It shouldn’t be about artificial “packaging” but about helping them find their true passion(s), voice and path.