<p>I am just starting this thread out of curiosity, as I am (thankfully) finished with the college admissions process for my kids. A very old friend of mine lives in an extremely wealthy community where hiring these counselors seems to be the norm and where many students from the highly ranked public school aspire to be admitted to top colleges, and she and her husband hired a counselor to help their child. I talk to the friend only infrequently, but when I do it seems that she is may not be totally keyed in to all of the details of the admissions process, although she is an extremely intelligent and highly competent professional in her field. Anyway, in September she told me that the counselor had "helped her child to choose" the school to apply to Early Decision. The school is one of the top 10 LACs. I did not get the feeling that this school was one that the child fell wildly in love with and applied to against the counselor's advice, but that it was a school which the counselor recommended applying to. I don't know much about the child's record, except that in passing I was told that the SATs were "a little below the average" for this school. To make a long story short, the child was not admitted to the school (not sure if deferred or rejected) and is now applying to a bunch of other schools. My friends told me that the counselor did things like helping prepare an activity sheet to give to teachers writing recommendations and making sure a draft of the essay was written in the summer. She also said the counselor helped to get a friend's child off the waiting list at a college because she knew the right people in admissions to call ?!? My question is, based on this limited information, which may not be complete: What, if anything, do these counselors actually do to help their clients? From what I know, it seems like a big waste of money with a disappointing result, at least in this case. Am I missing something here?</p>
<p>MotherOfTwo,</p>
<p>I don't know anything about the college consultant issue, but if I read your post correctly, you daughter has been admitted to her ED school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yahoo!!!!!!!!! Congratulations~I'm so proud of her and happy for you all! ~berurah</p>