In my experience CollegeVine’s algorithm does not work. We paid CollegeVine $2000. They helped us select 14 “target schools” (which is supposed to mean 40% - 60% chance of admission). My daughter has a 1470 SAT and a 4.2 GPA from an IB school. She got into zero of her target schools. CollegeVine provided a college junior to help review the essays. The college student provided about 20 hours of work. So we paid $100 / hour for bad information and bad results. To their credit, CollegeVine refunded 100% of what we paid. They know they screwed up, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. Get a real college counselor or trust yourself. CollegeVine is a bad choice.
Wow that sounds just horrid. Glad you are getting the word out about College Vine.
A lot of tutoring services do that too, hire college kids. It is much cheaper for them to hire a junior than a college essay expert.
Sorry, but sort of lol using software to determine where to apply. It is probably interesting to look at, but I wouldn’t just go by its recommendation.It would probably be OK to just pay for the software recommendations and not the essay service, and not make decisions based on it. You were taking it too seriously.
Obviously, most people don’t use private college advisers, but it would work better if you used a good service that provided advice on where to apply and help with essays or an independent professional or professional that provided those services.
There is a place that provides SAT software and also offers tutoring about a 4x markup. Some of these national services do that. The are “Ivy” tutoring services and provide you with students now at top schools and charge like a 4x markup.
You are usually better working directly with the professional or going to a local college advising or tutoring service.
Not knowing anything about CollegeVine, is there any particular reason you put all your eggs in one basket? I’m assuming that your daughter’s GC was consulted, correct? What about your other reach/match/safety schools?
Yeh, that is my opinion. Even if you aren’t going to pay for a private admissions counselor, it seems like a mistake to take software recommendations at face value. The GC, friends, this site, etc. could suggest setting up a list with safeties and even safer safeties.
I looked at the Collegevine predictor and compared stats of college’s website freshman admission profile and collegevine overestimates your admission chances, making some schools that are truly target sound like safety schools which ate not, ie Cal Poly SLO.