Has Anyone Used a Professional Consultant in the Boarding School Process?

Prep School Admissions
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<p>You have a good point, but then again, the applicant of a boarding school is not penning a novel, or writing a college admissions essay. He is writing a few essays in his own words to a <em>high school</em> and anything beyond his teachers and parents correcting the essays is unnecessary and dispensable. </p>

<p>Hire the ed. consult for a match for your child and how to navigate through tricky waters. Then if your child is unsatisfied with their essays, sit down privately with them. It should be enough.</p>

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<p>Maybe people are just talking past each other here.</p>

<p>While I agree that it would be uneconomical, inefficient and unwise to hire an educational consultant for the sole and express purpose of helping a student improve his admission essays, I think it would be absurd to have that resource available and set up a firewall between the consultant and the essays.</p>

<p>In the end, almost everyone who completes applications to the most competitive boarding schools believes that their essays were stellar. Just as everyone believes that they had the best interview ever. I'm sure that a few of the essays actually are stellar. But it would be silly to divorce external input from the essay process -- just as it would be silly for a parent to look at the extracurricular listing and decline to remind Child that s/he won the gold medal in the poetry slam dressage back in 5th grade.</p>

<p>If a student writes an excellent essay and it doesn't capture the essence of the student, it's not a useful essay. And it would be far more misleading for the student to send in that "untouched by adult input" essay than it would be for a parent or educational consultant to tell the student to go back and redo that work so that it gives the admission office a better idea of who they are considering. And I can definitely see a value in having an educational consultant steer both parent and applicant in that direction. A Pulitzer-quality effort that fails to reveal the true nature of the applicant may be too difficult for parent or applicant to refrain from submitting.</p>

<p>The essays are only partly about determining how well an applicant can articulate thoughts in prose form. Schools can get a much better sense of those abilities through the English teacher recommendation and the graded assignment and the SSAT essay. The greatest value to the application essays comes from how much personality and distinctive personal flavor the applicant can share with the admissions committee.</p>

<p>The applicants sweat over having chosen the "best" or most "original" historical figures to write about and the admissions committee probably could care less about "who" than about "why." And if a student comes up with a list of reasons "why" that are written to impress the admissions committee (as opposed to truly expressing their views and thoughts as though talking with their best friend), then that essay sucks -- no matter how wonderfully expressive and articulate it is. And I happen to think an educational consultant is in a far better position than the applicant or a parent (perhaps ESPECIALLY the parent) to redirect the student to remove the BS and inject ideas and concepts that paint a more accurate picture of the applicant.</p>

<p>I've helped a number of kids write essays for college. By helping them, I helped them write essays that better reflect who they are. I have no idea if THAT helped them gain admission, but it did help their application become the best possible reflection of who they are, what they can contribute, and what they aspire to. If that's unethical or worthless, I'd like to hear that from an admissions committee and not from a high school kid who believes it is important to make friends during the interview and write essays that will compel the admissions committee to hire a genealogist to determine if you're descended from the Bronte clan.</p>

<p>I just think the adults have one understanding of what the essays are intended to accomplish and the students here have another...and that disconnect proves to me that an educational consultant can provide value-added services regarding the essay component of a boarding school application.</p>

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<p>EXACTLY!</p>

<p>(but I have to say more than that because replies have to be at least 10 characters long.) :)</p>

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<p>Dyer maker,</p>

<p>Well said! All adults, whether consultants, teacher, parents, are concerned with getting the kids to write about who they are--it's not always easy for the kids. </p>

<p>I had a client who wrote a flowery and beautiful essay about a day at the beach in France. She thought it was outstanding. When I told her that most other clients use the "a day in your life" essay to tell about an achievement or a challenge they overcame, or anything that tells the reader about the kid---she finally got it. So although her essay on the beach and the waves was artsy and observant, it didn't help her case at all. That is something a consultant or hopefully any adult would help a student with.</p>

<p>I am vowing that this is my last reply to this topic!</p>

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<p>Edconsultant22,</p>

<p>I noticed you are in NYC. I am a parent of a 7th grader in Northern NJ and we are just beginning to navigate this process. Can you PM me some information regarding your services?</p>

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<p>My god, D'yer, you are brilliant. It will be a sad, sad day that you leave this board.</p>

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<p>D’yer Maker: How does one find those educational consultants that know the their way around the admissions process and the school cultures? My cursory searches have not turned up any educational consultant ratings/reviews.<br>
We are considering hiring a consultant and are on the west coast USA. It’s likely that the boarding school our daughter will attend an east coast boarding school as there are so many more located there it seems. Would we be better off hiring a consultant on the east coast? My thinking is that they might have a better feel for the school culture as their visitations might be more frequent and perhaps they have more and better personal relationships with school admins. Any thoughts are appreciated.</p>

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<p>@Nieves: If I’m not mistaken, the poster known as Mountainhiker is from the Western part of the US and used a consultant. Perhaps he/she will pop back on sometime soon to give you some leads.</p>

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<p>I used a consultant and it turned out to be a great choice. We never met in person, all our meetings took place via Skype and phone calls. </p>

<p>I went with a rec from someone here on CC and I knew we had a good consultant as she was well known and respected at every single school we visited. There were schools that I thought would be appropriate that she steered us away from after getting to know my child. We got a lot of inside scoop about different school cultures that was helpful to us in deciding fit. </p>

<p>I had no intention of hiring a consultant but I’m happy that I did.</p>

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<p>Ditto to what Momof7thgrader posted above. </p>

<p>Year One: we didn’t start the process until mid-December, applied to two very selective schools that we thought would fit our son’s needs, and ended up with a wait-list at Exeter, and a decline at Choate.</p>

<p>Year Two: We decided we needed help coming up with a broader list of schools to consider, and worked with an excellent consultant that was recommended by two families we were acquainted with. (All meetings were via skype or phone, and the process worked beautifully.) She really got to know our child (and us) and was instrumental in helping us come up with a strong, diverse list of about 12 schools to consider. We took 4 schools off the list for various reasons, we visited 8 schools, two schools came off the list following visits as not being a good fit, 2 more schools were great, but just not as strong as the top four. He applied to four (Deerfield, Loomis Chaffee, Ridley College and Thacher), was accepted at all four, and is a new 9th grader at Thacher.</p>

<p>What did the consultant add? Very strong, in-depth knowledge of many schools (including many that are rarely if ever discussed on this board), coupled with an outside, unbiased view of our child, which resulted in a really good feel for what schools might be a good “fit,” and more important, which schools might not. (For example, although he was wait-listed at Exeter, and was encouraged by Admissions to apply again, he chose not to this time around, because he discovered schools he thought were a much better “fit” for him, and that he decided he would rather attend if admitted.)</p>

<p>It is not inexpensive to use a consultant (figure somewhere between $125-$150 and up per hour, and probably around 20 hours or more of time), but for us, it was an investment that I’m very, very glad we made.</p>

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<p>We are west coast and used an east-coast consultant several years ago. When my first brought up the possibility of boarding school, we knew we had very few resources in our area. Of course we had heard of a few of the commonly talked about schools, but the consultant introduced us to many other possibilities and ultimately to the school that was a great fit. For us, it was well worth the price. I look at it as insurance, but not a guarantee, against making a huge and even more expensive mistake. You may PM me if you would like more info.</p>

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<p>We used an east coast consultant that we loved! She educated us on the application process, answered tons (and I mean tons) of questions and helped my daughter find schools that would be a good fit for her. She is now a very happy 9th grader at Hotchkiss. I would highly recommend the consultant we used. Private message me if you would like our consultant’s contact info.</p>