https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/reader-center/college-admissions-consultants.html
‘I’d Die of Guilt if I Did That:’ Families Who Hired College Consultants Discuss Where They Drew the Line
When paying for admissions help is a standard practice in a community, parents and children say they feel pressure to keep up.
By Lela Moore
March 15, 2019
collects the experiences of many parents and students with college consultants. Maybe CC parents and college applicants could share their experiences.
My kid’s friend’s parents did hire one. They are affluent but first generation immigrants and this is their family’s first kid in college. They themselves didn’t attend school or college here. They tried to get help from school counsellor but it’s a huge public school with few overworked counsellors and there is no real guidance available. Their hired counsellor is a marginally competent retired guidance counselor and hasn’t helped them any more than I got here from random posters. I pity them for getting the tag, paying $20/hr for 10 hours and getting no advantage.
Actually our school’s reduced lunch kids got better guidance as they have a dedicated guidance counsellor provided by the district and most of their parents grew up here and attended school here and some attended college as well or other children or family did.
Our experience, and those of families we know who also used counselors, are the same cost and type of assistance as the $2-$3k counselors mentioned. I thought a friend of mine in SoCal was exaggerating about $1k per hour and $15k packages until i saw the kind of numbers for the “legit” services mentioned in the scandal, which some in the article linked above have paid as well.