<p>Anyone has experience using College Coach for college admissions counseling?
How did it work out? Was it worth it?
Recommendations or warnings on any other counseling services?
My daughter goes to a large public school with limited number of counselors. Her counselor doesn't seem to have the time or interest in helping her.</p>
<p>-hypermom</p>
<p>Couldn’t be worse than my kids’ “accredited” school counselor. We wound up hiring a counselor from another district (a district we knew that sent kids to great schools) who did it as a side business. He was very helpful.</p>
<p>A lot of people will tell you the information is all out there for free. Takes some time is all. CC is a great place to start.</p>
<p>Get references from people you know. We had good success with 2, but I know from others who asked that both are not taking new clients now.</p>
<p>Our friends have had mediocre experiences. CC has been a huge help</p>
<p>A lot depends on where your daughter wants to apply, and how much you want to help her with the process. Many counselors are glorified babysitters who manage the paperwork and nag the kids to get things done in a timely manner. If she’s applying to state schools or mid-tier schools, you probably don’t need one. If she’s looking at top-tier schools where essays, ecs and “hooks” are important, then you need an excellent one. Check references and educational background.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the best help you can get is with the essay - find someone (teacher, tutor) who can assist with that and you’ll get your money’s worth. Trust me, I’ve been down the road of college counselors and it wasn’t great.</p>
<p>And I agree, CC is a huge help. There’s an answer for every question on here!</p>
<p>Thank you so much!
Why do they charge such hefty fees? (seems all the info is available if you spend the time to look for it.)
I have seen the fee range anywhere from $5K to $30K!
So, was wondering what value added services they offer.
My daughter would be applying to top and second tier colleges.
My daughter needs a slight nudge.</p>
<p>-hypermom</p>
<p>My employer provides access to College Coach as a life-work balance benefit. This is a welcome benefit to me, because my sons received NO college counseling in high school.</p>
<p>The College Coach service we receive is geared to parents, not students. This is probably not similar to what you are looking at, but I thought I would at least share my experience with the company. </p>
<p>Each year, we have access to on-line materials, a “lunch and learn” (1 hour), and a personal one-on-one session (1 hour) that addresses the key focus of that high school year. There is also a help desk we can call.</p>
<p>I have found the service to be moderately helpful. Because of my own research, including CC, I have not learned a whole bunch of new things from their materials, but I have gained a few “nuggets” that were helpful. The on-line materials (generally powerpoints) were also more useful to my son, compared to books, since he struggles with reading, and loves using the internet.</p>
<p>The junior year service was a college list - dreams, matches, no problems. We already had a list started, so they included those schools as well. I found this honest assessment to be more helpful than the “chance me” threads on CC. They also indicated which schools had merit money, and where my son might have a chance to get it. </p>
<p>In addition, early in the senior year, they reviewed the common app essay draft. It was invaluable to have a completely outside set of eyes read my son’s essay. The reviewer had been a reader at a private LAC. She gave a few suggestions, but cautioned him not to change it too much because he had a strong voice that came through clearly in the essay.</p>
<p>The senior year service was financial aid. We will not qualify for need-based - the counselor looked at my FAFSA and said, “yep - you won’t get any need based with that EFC.” BUT, she was extremely knowledgable about all kinds of financial aid and loans, different college’s policies, and did provide me with some new knowledge.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the private sessions cost, but if financial aid (either need-based or merit) is critical to you, it could very well be that the cost of the counseling will be worth it due to a better aid package. (YMMV)</p>
<p>What I liked best about College Coach was the depth of resources they bring to the whole process. Each session was with a different “specialist” that knows that topic in depth. Again, I don’t know if they use the same approach in their private counseling.</p>
<p>And yes, the fact that I had deadlines to turn in questionnaires to College Coach did help nudge my son along!</p>
<p>Thank you mom2sons.
Yes, we also have the benefit thru our company.
THANK YOU so much for the detailed post.</p>
<p>-hypermom</p>
<p>We had it as an employee benefit and I watched all the online presentations. H went to the 1 hour meeting which produced the list of colleges (student fills out a lengthy questionnaire beforehand). D had not finished her SATs by then, and that may have made the difference. Their assessments were way off the mark for D. She did much better than they predicted. I’m glad we didn’t pay for the service and felt the materials in the videos was accessible elsewhere - through books, college websites and CC. We didn’t bother to run her essays through College Coach because we weren’t impressed with them and D didn’t want anyone tampering with them. She had her (public) HS English teacher read them over and made very minor changes as a result. </p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree it’s better than the ‘chance me’ threads because I find those to be the ultimate vanity. Of what possible value is an anonymous poster’s (often a fellow high school senior) assessment? </p>
<p>Take what’s provide for free and continue to use CC and do other research on your own. If your school has Naviance (ours didn’t) I think that would be a big help. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with spending money for a service if you have an abundance of money and find it comforting.</p>
<p>I agree the “chance me” threads are kind of ridiculous, but I understand the allure of them - </p>
<p>However I think the best predictor of admissions for any school based on numbers is the common data set that is published each year. The breakdown by gpa, scores, and ec % of value in admissions is very helpful. </p>
<p>Financial Aid counseling is available, for a fee also - though not nearly as much as for college admissions counseling.</p>
<p>left…
I’d glad to hear that your D did better than College Coach predicted. Was that also true for merit scholarships? I thought their assessment was a little harsh; we consider some of their matches, safeties, based on SAT/ACT. We’ll know for sure once S2 get’s his responses. </p>
<p>They did tell me that they base their assessment most strongly on (their recalculated) un-weighted academic GPA. This might be the right metric for ivies and top 20, but many other schools also use GPA’s as presented by the HS. This is where Naviance is a big benefit; unfortunately, our HS does not use anything like it, and if they did, no one from our school applies to the kind of schools on S2’s list. To me, GPA is the most inconsistent metric of all, and I agree with elizabethh that the CDS’s are the best resource by far.</p>
<p>Bottom line - get all the free advice you can, but do your homework, and have honest discussions with your kid about what’s important to them and what they can expect regarding financial aid possibilities.</p>
<p>They didn’t specify how they thought she’d fare with merit money, just noted which colleges offered it, but she did get one very generous merit offer. A friend from the same HS used a college counseling service, which the parents paid for, and her list was almost identical - yet the students interests/preferences were not identical. Made me wonder if both services were just providing a list of the usual northeast suspects. We also thought the assessment was harsh and after the whole thing was over I wondered if that was a ploy on their part - lower expectations, kid gets some offers, and then the family believes the service helped get them something decent in a brutal admissions season. I also don’t know if they define a reach school as one where a kid will be rejected or waitlisted - because she was WL at three ‘reach’ schools (but didn’t accept WL, so we don’t know whether they’d have admitted her eventually). </p>
<p>We saw no reason after getting the list to continue to take their advice, even if it was free. The bottom line is that she did much better in admissions than College Coach led us to expect.</p>
<p>“We saw no reason after getting the list to continue to take their advice, even if it was free. The bottom line is that she did much better in admissions than College Coach led us to expect”</p>
<p>College coaches/counselors are in business, and part of their success comes from the admittance rates for their clients. By encouraging students to apply to match schools, rather than pushing them to try for a few reaches, the ensure that their “yield” will be very high. I have heard this time and again from parents - “my student got into all of the schools he/she applied to,” having applied to no - or possibly one - reach/match, and inevitably the have worked with a college coach/counselor.</p>
<p>IMO, if a student doesn’t get rejected from at least 2-3 schools (assuming 9-10 applications, as most college counselors allow), then they aren’t reaching high enough.</p>