In light of the big college scandals, do you guys feel that in the future, it will be frowned upon by hiring a service and it is for the wealthy. Of course its legal, but dont want this to come back on my daughter that she got an unfair advantage. It might be ok now, but over time we are becoming a society that feels that way.
If it is widely perceived as unfair or undesirable (but not illegal or considered by colleges as unethical enough to cause rejections on that basis), then expect people to do it anyway, but not be public that they are doing it.
An analogous situation would be that legacies and relatives of large donors tend not to go around wearing clothing that announces their legacy or relation to large donors to everyone who see them.
No, as long as it is legal and/or there is no explicit punishment for it in the college application process, people will be doing it. I am a member of a local list serve for families with teens. It seems that almost everyone on that list has political views that are to the left of mine, and every topic (except one) that comes up is usually quickly overtaken by the social justice crowd. You want more gifted classes? Shame on you, you know who is usually excluded from those. You don’t want new and taller buildings (we are in an urban area)? Shame on you for supporting exclusionary zoning. You want those buildings? Shame on you for supporting gentrification. And so on. Care to guess what’s the only topic that always elicits a round of polite and to the point responses? Every year there is a roll call for recommendations of college consultants, and even the most loud “progressives” do not see any shame in using them. On that same list several (again, highly progressive, liberal, etc.) journalists proudly offer their services for crafting the perfect essay. I know, I know, it’s just coaching, actual writing, wink, wink…
I’ve been saying for years that if colleges really wanted to nip it in the bud, they could have required to list every bit of paid assistance received in conjunction with the application (and threaten to rescind their offer if caught lying). You had an essay coach? No problem, disclose it on your app and let us decide what to make of your essay. But the colleges are not doing that because they know exactly who their paying audience is and they don’t want to anger them.
Re: #2
There was some author who called stuff like that “opportunity hoarding” among the upper middle class.
I don’t think colleges will ever hold the hiring of consultants against the applicants. Consultants, after all, are just one way to get advice. Plenty of help and guidance are available to anyone (of any SES group) who seeks it out.
Middle class use consultants too. Perhaps not the $25,000 start-in-freshman-year gold package, but they do buy a la carte services for test prep, the polishing of interview skills, or for the reviewing of essays.
Even low SES students can get advice free here on CC. Public libraries have stacks of books about college admissions. English teachers are usually happy to proofread essays for the low, low price of a thank you note or small gift. Many public schools offer free or inexpensive test prep too.
A good portion of the advice a college counselor may give you won’t be anything that can’t be found in a book or on a web page somewhere. Hearing it from their mouth only eliminates the time it takes you to read hundreds of pages that don’t apply to you. A consultant can get right down to addressing your specific need.
Of course, if you’re parents are paying top dollar for a consultant to talk to you, you’re very likely to listen. If a teacher or guidance counselor carefully prepares some accurate and excellent, but free advice to present to the class, followed by a carefully-crafted suggested reading list, precious few are likely to follow up.
Another thing to consider is that many high schools do not have, or no long have, college counselors on staff.
At the more urban schools in my area, 500-700 students per counselor can be the norm. This can mean that they do not have time to do much more than upload transcripts and write general reference letters.
Students and parents, particularly first gen. or immigrant parents, know that they are behind the curve with college admissions and will tend to seek out assistance, which is more akin to finding a tutor for a faltering student, than blatant cheating in the recent spotlight.
Groundwork2022 makes some good points above, but my feeling is that since there are so many national variants of the college admission landscape, the fairness in hiring or not hiring a college consultant may not be the right question.
A better question might be about college access in light of skyrocketing costs.
@Groundwork2022 , I am not saying that colleges should hold it against the applicants, but with admission officers stressing how they want to evaluate everyone within the context, wouldn’t you think they should be interested in finding out who has been groomed for college admissions since 7th grade and who paid thousands of dollars to the essay coach? It is also not true that first gen and immigrant parents tend to seek more assistance. I know many such families, being an immigrant myself, and most of them don’t either because their kids tend to apply to colleges where it doesn’t matter that much or because they genuinely have no idea that there is a curve, so can’t know that they are behind one.
@hop, do you mean they have 500-700 seniors per counselor? That sounds insane.
When I went to high school, it was not 500+ seniors per counselor, but the counselors:
A. Had all kinds of counseling matters to deal with, not just college-related ones (this was when about a third of the graduating seniors went to four year universities, mostly state universities).
B. Had a few hundred each over the four classes from 9th to 12th grade.
Fortunately for them, the state universities did not require counselor recommendations.
@ucbalumnus 100 percent accurate and nearly describing my experience as well. 680 kids in the class. 500 graduated. 4 housemasters and 4 guidance counselors for the entire school. Divided alphabetically by last name and across all grades. 70% discipline/family matters and 20% drop out reversal programs and 10% class assignment changes and hs counseling. One college open house and auditorium event. If you were lucky you had a teacher explain the process. As a low level recruited athlete I had some hs coach support, mostly recent grad assistant coaches who helped organize the process for you. More of a mentor than a counselor. This was a medium sized city in Massachusetts. Certainly not the mean streets of a big city.
Funny we only had one ivy admit for the whole class. The son of the headmaster went to brown. He was a good student but not top of the class. Probably had access to better info at the time. And perhaps a legacy or some other connection. We were all happy for him and didn’t bat an eye. If you went to college at all you felt a bit lucky.
This was 25 years ago. I hope it’s better now.
My d went to a great school in a different state and environment. This was a school of choice that held a lottery that all the best students tried for and only had 400 students. They had 99% college acceptance rate for every graduating class since inception. Ivy league (more Cornell dart and Columbia the others for some reason) and MIT UCs etc. but it still wasn’t superb on-site counseling. We decided to pay up for the private help. It probably didn’t change results but kept our house a little saner and kept us (parents) out of the nittty gritty including her essays. She was also brutally honest and daughter cried a few times after meeting with her.
i have mixed emotions about it, having been on both sides of the equation. Perhaps a school funded full time counselor paid for by fees on a sliding scale based on income for parents who want this type of service?
I have never used either, but I suppose if I did, I would be looking very closely to be sure they were above board and verifying they are playing not just playing by the rules, but following the law. No side door or back alley deals for me.
The real task would be trying to get my kids to agree to this. I think some kids are going to walk away from parent’s offers to hire a consultant after this fiasco. I know mine would question my faith in their abilities. I can hear them now, so actually, never mind. It’s not worth it. lol.
No different that athletes getting private coaches or singers getting singing coaches. It all costs a ton and is only available to those that can afford. Why would an academic coach be treated differently?
I personally think hiring a college coach and all this tutoring is not exactly honest even though it is legal and accepted. It corrupts the system whereby money buys packaging of kids and whereby test scores can be fine tuned with money for this expressed purpose. A kid who does not have test prep or essay coaching and finessing is different than someone who required this to get that test score or caliber of essay. The issue is how do you tell it apart. While this has always existed to some extent, it seems far more extensive and extreme if there are parents paying tens of thousands for such service. I first heard of college consultants on CC and I was stunned.
@2more2go “It is also not true that first gen and immigrant parents tend to seek more assistance.”
I think you misunderstood me. I didn’t say that those groups seek out MORE assistance. My point was simply that guidance and assistance are available to anyone who seeks it. The method of delivery is less efficient if you have to spend hours reading books and web pages (vs. talking to a school or private counselor), but nearly all of the information is out there. I actually found these boards because I was researching private counselors for DD, and decided we didn’t need to hire one, because this site offers hours and hours of free college counseling. To those who look for it.
So the disadvantage is in the efficiency of the delivery of the information. Without a doubt, that can be a disadvantage. But is fixing that problem the best use of a college’s resources? OR, as @hop suggested, is the better question - the bigger problem - college access in light of ever-increasing costs?
^ Interesting point. In most things, thanks to technology, the information is readily available. Of course that assumes everyone has access to computers (which isn’t always the case). Just like tech is helping incredibly poor countries and villages around the world move out of poverty (because they have access to information), the less fortunate can essentially get the same college information by doing the leg work.
Is that fair? It’s not about fair, it’s about access and desire. At some point, the well off weren’t well off and they had to do the leg work. Today it’s just easier to get that process started.
Here’s an example. D is a performing artist and wants to attend a BFA program. These are immensely competitive and require auditions. The actual prep / college app process is insane (compared to regular college app process). There is a ton to know; timelines, prescreens, auditions, interviews, etc. Where driving blind on this because it’s all knew to us. So many have told us we should get a coach to ID the right schools per D’s talent, put together a great prescreen audition video, prep for live auditions, match academics, etc.
We may do that because we can. If we couldn’t essentially all of that info is available online. In fact the coach D was recommended to see has written a book on the very subject (really a promotion for his coaching business) but you can get it on Amazon for $10 and if that’s too much you can just piece it all together through different boards like CC.
College test prep material is all over the web. Learning guides in many subject areas are all over the web so you don’t really need a tutor if you’re willing to spend the time.
The efficiency issue is a the issue. Some will put in the time because it’s important to them. Others won’t.
Re: #12, #13
The information may be all over the place, but does a student or parent with no reliable guidance in the matter (consider a student whose parents did not attend college who attends a high school where few go beyond the community college or the local minimally selective state university, and the counselors have hundreds of students to advise on all matters, not just college) know where to start?
Just on these forums, how many students and parents ask about or make what appear to be naive assumptions like:
- FAFSA EFC is all we will have to pay for college.
- Out of state public colleges will give good financial aid.
- Do I really need both of my divorced parents' finances for financial aid?
- Is $100,000 of debt worth it (or possible)?
- My 4.5 weighted GPA is good enough for the Ivy League schools (don't unweighted GPA because my school does not give it).
- More AP courses is always better (should I take AP statistics, AP human geography, and AP environmental science instead of precalculus, foreign language level 3, and physics?).
- What is the PSAT good for?
- SAT subject tests, what are those?
Of course, many more students and parents do not find these forums in order to find out that their naive assumptions are incorrect.
@rickle1 “No different that athletes getting private coaches or singers getting singing coaches. It all costs a ton and is only available to those that can afford. Why would an academic coach be treated differently?”
Admission coaching is a different animal. An admittance coach can actually change your essays in ways that make them not solely yours, sort of like a singing coach actually hitting the high note for you in the audition. In addition, if you get a singing coach or an athletic coach, you become a better singer or athlete. If you get an admittance coach, you become better at being admitted, which is a a skill of very limited use in life.
Ultimately we are all responsible for our futures (in a free and capitalist society - yes there are other threads embedded there). For example, nobody guided me to CC. I had never even heard of it and just stumbled across it while searching for college related stuff. Doing my own research. What it took was curiosity. Some will argue that my curiosity stems from being college educated, coming from a family that places a high value on education, unfair advantage, etc.
I think that’s condescending to those who haven’t been as fortunate, implying they are not curious or capable of exploring on their own. Most people with access to the internet know how to google things they care to google. Others don’t have access. That’s a real issue. For most of us it’s about putting in the time.
I think it is a personal choice for every family whether they want to hire outside help. You never know the dynamics of a family or their personal situation. Also a college will never know if you hire a consultant. They never have any contact with any of the colleges. The only person that has contact with colleges is your childs school guidance counselor. Of course in the Varsity Blues case that wasn’t the situation but in legitimate cases the colleges have no idea. I also don’t think you hire a consultant to get your child into a better college but help guide them through the process, help create a list etc…