“I imagine if a kid needs parents nagging to apply to colleges, he or she would not have accomplished a profile good enough for top ten colleges.”
That is simply untrue but it’s a common misconception. My kid was still 16 ( summer before senior year, she would turn 17 at the end of August) when she was in the process of working on applications. She was a top student with a perfect ACT and excellent EC’s but she wasnt quite emotionally there to have to deal with the process without either I) parental nagging which I had no interest in or ii) her total willingness to work hard and meet all the deadlines set by a non-parental adult telling her what she needed to do. We used a private college counselor whose value was keeping me out of the process.
And she was totally ready when she started a top 10 college as a newly minted 18 year old. There’s a big difference in that 15 months and the idea that if they aren’t quite there at 16 than they for sure won’t be at 18 is frankly ludicrous
@suzyQ7 we used a consultant for my DS BS/MD applications this cycle. We are more than thrilled as he has been accepted to 5+ programs and some of his classmates who have higher class standing and ACT/SAT scores have been rejected at the same programs.
It is pricey. the company we went for my DS charges $50K for a 4 year program (approxmately $12K) per year which includes everything such as SAT/ACT prep as well…
We did not know about them until last summer so we went with the one year comprehensive program for 1 program and then added on services for additional programs. It has been expensive but well worth it as my spouse and I are both not in health fields and wouldn’t have been able to support my DS properly.
I agree no one can promise to get your kid into one of their top 3 choices, unless they so modify those choices that you’re down to those with a stats-based selection process. But, refocusing your kid’s targets to what’s truly more reasonable is one thing good private counselors do.
“…how do you actually get honest assessment and good advice without consultants?” You take your own savvy approach, research everything, and don’t get sucked into the search for praise, nor fall for “it’s all a crapshoot.” .I.e., you make this very rational and comprehensive. That inlcudes safeties.
“My DH once told DD that in order to get into these great schools, you have to be smart enough to figure this out for yourself.” I agree with this, in this respect: if you’re looking at tippy tops that value activation, vision, solid critical thinking, you need to be that sort of kid. Not one who takes this lightly, goes on hearsay, and assumes that what works in his hs is what works for the leap to a most-competitive college.
I had friends who spent 25k each x 3 kids. And where those 3 ended up at were not top 25 colleges, though they found their matches and were happy.
Many adcoms can tell when an app is too polished. Many consultants don’t really have the admissions experience they suggest, or not recent enough to know what’s going on now.
A good counselor can help a kid craft their story from the facts and to write a compelling personal story. I personally consider myself good at this ( and do some volunteer work doing it) but I couldn’t do it for my kids because many kids don’t like hearing this from a parent. I take special pride in my suggestion to my cousins serious intellectual daughter to write her esSay which started: “I am Lisa Simpson” because my cousin is a nice guy and his wife is sweet but they have the intellectual interest and curiosity of Homer Simpson. The whole family loved this idea and they sometimes call her “Lisa” now though that’s not her name. When she went for a merit scholarship interview the admission officer told her it was his favorite of the year. My cousins daughter said she just never would have thought of herself this way but that it was perfect. A good counselor can help you find your story.
I work part time as a college consultant, both for myself and for a company that works with Intl students applying to American colleges. I definitely don’t charge even close to what people are quoting here, but then I have only been at it for five years, and want to make it affordable to moderate/low income families. Most families pay by the hour. I don’t make promises about any colleges, but do work with a lot of high achievers who get into top colleges, but that’s not my goal. I love helping students find the right fit colleges for them.
I get students coming to me in all different grades, as I also do general educational consulting and homeschool specific consulting. Right now, I have as many 9th graders as 11th graders. Yes, it’s helpful for families to start with a consultant before senior year, but I’ve had kids come to me in October of senior year because they were overwhelmed with the process and needed help. I even had two transfer students come to me in March. The most successful students are the ones who are the most open, honest and communicative, and who communicate regularly with me through text, phone, skype, and in person-whatever works.
I love what @maya54 said: a good consultant can help you find your story. I wrote an article recently on that very topic. Kids are all different, too. Some are very protective of their writing, and want little to no intervention. Others feel they have nothing to say until someone is able to draw them out. Many need help with organization and to do lists, and most students I work with just prefer to work through applications with someone other than a parent.
My oldest son was helped for free back in 2011 (through a particular connection because of our low income), and it was a wonderful experience. My work as a consultant just sort of happened after that (though I have a background in education) by word of mouth.
A good, supportive consultant who champions your student, yet helps set realistic goals and expectations thereby lowering stress, is golden, IMO. (But College Confidential is a wonderful resource, and there are plenty of people who do just fine without private consultants).
The people I know who have hired private consultants have ended up with a mixed bag of results.
The parents who think little Susie is destined for Georgetown and end up paying the consultant who ends up getting the kid into a nice range of Hofstra/Adelphi/Seton Hall/Providence. The parents were delusional from the git-go, so the consultant helped get the family through what would have been a disastrously stressful senior year and everyone ends up more or less speaking to each other.
The parents who think little Johnny “deserves” something better than the state flagship- stats notwithstanding, and the consultant ends up discovering a couple of out of state “gems” which they think nobody has ever heard of, and everyone’s ego is intact.
The kids I know who have ended up in top 20 type schools (my own included) have not used consultants (we did not, not the kind of thing I would pay for even if it had been in the budget which it was not). I think these services are great for helping kids who are one or two notches below the “top kids” in a HS who might get lost in the shuffle if the guidance department is focused on keeping kids out of foster care and testifying in abuse cases (which many GC’s are) so they really can’t help a solid B student with ambition learn about some great options.
But I think their utility for the uber competitive schools is vastly overrated. For one- by junior year, most of the kid’s “story” is set. You aren’t taking a smart, thoughtful kid who likes to stop and smell the roses and manufacture them into a fire-eating varsity athlete, regional debate champ, physics olympiad winner in a matter of months. And two- the highly polished, edited by multiple grownups and workshopped to death essay is easily spotted and just as easily ridiculed by adcom’s.
My own kids essays were somewhat cringeworthy as I look back. Each kid had two readers- their favorite HS English teacher who just made a few suggestions on structure and syntax but didn’t do any real editing, and their guidance counselor who grunted “this is fine”. I read them after the fact and indeed- cringed. But they were authentic and vibrant even though somewhat juvenile in the way that something edited by a grownup would not have been.
And they did the trick. Your kid isn’t Graydon Carter or David Remnick, and if the essay sounds like something that should be published in the New Yorker I think adcom’s see right through it.
we should have hired a pay by the hour for our oldest son. Our public school counselor was useless, we thought he’d be competitive at top 20 schools. In retrospect, his essay was good, his supplemental essays weren’t very good and the app didn’t tell his story. In the end, he was admitted to a top 20 lac and a top 30 university but we could have saved him a lot of heartache by improving his app and moderating his choices. I did receive some good advice on CC but in the beginning, it’s hard to figure out who really knows what they’re talking about.
by the time it was S2’s turn, we had it figured out. he was admitted to several schools with the lowest gpa in our hs history (according to naviance) because his story was so strong (and he had a high sat score).
“the highly polished, edited by multiple grownups and workshopped to death essay is easily spotted and just as easily ridiculed by adcom’s.”
Yes. Good consultants don’t let these see the light of day. It’s a special skill to teach a 17-year-old to write like a 17-year old and produce something excellent and authentically 17. Sometimes I spend my whole day removing SAT words this kid has never used in conversation in his life. This isn’t a comparative literature dissertation!
If you’re thinking of hiring a consultant, you should expect to see samples of student work with the consultant’s commentary so that you can evaluate the process, not just the results.
We, quote fortunately, had a college consultant friend who proofread DD’s essays. Her essays were actually quite good as written, but her English teacher didn’t think they were. The consultant verified our opinion that what the HS teacher wanted was not going to work for colleges.
My kid wrote an essay about a program she started at her school. The English teacher wanted her to take a “small moment” out of that and expound on it. We wanted the kid to submit the story from beginning to end…and the consultant agreed.
Kid did the “modification” for her English class but never submitted it to any college.
Sometimes you just need verification and support.
Sometimes you need guidance.
Sometimes you need a person to nudge things along.
Before you hire a consultant, be clear on what you want from them…and what they expect you to do on your end if you contract with them.
To be honest, there are great college consultants out there…and lousy ones. But the big thing…know what you want and need…and know what the consultant offers and expects.
we hired one that was reasonable hourly and I truly believe really helped, especially with the Essays. My D was stuck and in the end got a beautiful CA essay that was recently noted by a school she got into. Also having the consultant, which D met with once a week, gave my D someone else, other than mom to be accountable for, as far as getting everything done. All app’s were in by Nov 1st. D has used the consultant since here and there for advice on adding things when appropriate. We also did use an ACT tutor, but once again did not break the bank. Overall spent less than 1.5K for both. (on a side note when D has been getting acceptances and rejections, the first person she texts is the consultant, after telling us! She really is grateful for her). The GC at the HS would never had been as helpful, with so many kids that they have to deal with, and being D’s 4th GC in 4 years at the HS.
No college consultants for our kids. For one thing, they weren’t reaching for prestige – or for merit scholarships – but rather for a set of excellent colleges that “fit”. For another, one kid was interested in art schools and only art schools. The most critical criterion for admission wasn’t essays but ability in art, as reflected in the portfolio and preparation.
We edited the kids’ essays for clarity of expression, but otherwise had little input. For each the submitted essay was their original version, lightly edited for style. We made it a point to favor authenticity over elegance of expression; focusing on their lived experiences and achievements rather than aspirations.
We weren’t able to persuade either kid to prep for the standardized tests. But they gained experience by doing them. beginning from “talent search” in middle school for the oldest one. Their test scores were plenty good, and not likely to be the deciding factor in (denial of) admission.
I’m a long-term participant in CC, and before that in the Princeton Review forum. I made sure the kids had a range of plausible colleges on their list, with varying “degrees of difficulty” of admission. Both were very satisfied with the outcomes, and ended up with 5 or 6 “acceptable” offers of admission.
I know some of their classmates were not happy with the outcomes, and what they lacked as much as anything was adult supervision in preparing their materials and thinking through the importance of having a well balanced list of automatic admits, semi-reaches, and true reaches. Their parents provided little guidance. School counselors were overworked and incapable of advising well. They even discouraged students from applying to more than 2 or 3 colleges. But since we live in a college town, with many families working in higher education, the counselors probably assumed that most parents would handle these choices and the preparation of applications well. I think most of them did handle it well, each family operating more or less independently.
College consultants were helpful to us at several points. The ones we used were not as expensive as the high priced ones that are being discussed here. Examples of how consultant helped:
In 8th grade, we used a consultant to assess where our D1 was in terms of what was the range of realistic colleges. The consultant based on that assessment on her transcripts, WISC, standardized test results, a PSAT score (it was 182), a writing sample, and a long discussion with D1 about her interests and goals for herself. The consultant thought that D1 needed to decide whether she wanted to go down the most difficult path with all Honors and AP, or take a middle road with somewhat less rigor. Consultant told her that through 8th grade she was typical of a kid with realistic chances at top 20 colleges. The consultant thought that D1's PSAT score was very good for middle school, but said that they see many better scores.
Consultant worked with D1 to develop a high school schedule that was aligned with her goals. Consultant encouraged her to focus on core courses such as English, math, & science. Consultant also guided her to keep PE on her schedule, and add a study hall to manage the work load and her athletics.
Consultant recommended that D1 ignore the high school's advice to take the SAT at the end of Junior year. Consultant recommended that she take the SAT at the beginning of Junior year. She prepared over the summer, and took the SAT and then the PSAT together within 10 days of each other. That was helpful and got it out of the way early.
It seems that there are only less than a handful of parents here who have spent $10k plus for the senior year application. Over the weekend with many of your great feedback and suggestions in mind we contacted a few private admission counselors who had good track record for top ten schools. My criteria were that they either had gone to the schools themselves with long experience in this business or they were AO at the schools. The initial consultations ($500+) seemed encouraging—they didn’t dampen my DD’s high perhaps unrealistic hopes, but only time will tell.
I imagine with elite schools being ever more competitive to get in and costing over $250k, the $10k looks like a small amount if it simply buys you a piece of mind. My DD has already been working hard for the last three years. I have read enough of heartbreaking stories on CC over the last few seasons to know that we do not want a year from now to wonder if we could have done more to avoid some less than desirable outcome.
@Hanna, I had two students, both of whom ended up at Stanford, whose intelligence and language use was vastly beyond my level. I basically left their essays alone, and worked with the parents on homeschool documents, since both students were privately homeschooled. I’m glad Stanford saw them as the real deal because they most certainly were.
Here are Blossom’s three suggestions of what to do to avoid heartache:
1- Do not start discussing and visiting colleges without you (and spouse if you have one, NCP if you are divorced) sitting down with your tax returns from the last few years, your credit card bills, retirement statements from work, checkbook if you still use checks, etc. Come up with a realistic, granular plan for where the money is going to come from. If you want heartache- tell your kid “if you get into Stanford we’ll come up with the money” when you’ve got 7K in her college savings plan, are maxed out on your credit cards every month, and have 60K in your retirement account despite having been in the work force for 20 years.
2- Do not start your planning by doing a deep dive on Harvard, and then figuring out that while you’re in Boston, you’ll “swing by” Northeastern. Lock in an affordable safety first- a college you can comfortably afford without raiding your retirement funds, and a college which every indicator on the planet says your D will get admitted to. Then you can get all excited about Directed Studies at Yale or some fantastic interdisciplinary program at Hopkins.
3- Do not ever, ever, ever use the term “dream school”. That is probably the single greatest trigger for PTSD among both parents and kids once admissions start to come in. Your D doesn’t get admitted to “dream school” but the dumbest and most vacuous kid in her HS did? Your D DOES get admitted to “dream school” but you can only afford it if you sell a kidney and move to a one bedroom apartment on the bad side of town?
There is no dream school, there is no dream spouse, there is no dream job. Life is filled with trade-offs, and becoming a grownup means wrestling these trade-offs to the ground and then making a decision;. The old-timers here can quote you chapter and verse of kids we know in real life who went to “dream school” and then had to come home sophomore year and commute to a local, non flagship public college because the parents ran out of dough. If the kid had gone to one of the “better fit” merit options from the git-go, kid would have graduated from said school. But no- dream school. And there’s no more merit for a sophomore year transfer. So kid lives at home and takes the bus to class.
You will not get peace of mind until you have figured out what you can afford from savings, current income, and your borrowing capacity as a family if you choose to go that way. Plug your numbers into a bunch of colleges and see what comes out. If you are gasping at what you see, you need to retool- NOW before your D starts to fantastize about a bunch of options you can’t afford.
The most successful students are the ones who are the most open, honest and communicative, and who communicate regularly with me through text, phone, skype, and in person-whatever works.