If you (meaning anyone reading this, not @Coloradomama in particular) are a middle-class white family with college-educated parents, and your kids went to school with other kids in that group, you didn’t just let the dice fall. You have special dice that come up with the right number most of the time. And that’s great – I was born into that group, too. We have to recognize that our kids have gotten 17 years of special help that most kids don’t get. Just having parents interested enough to look at CC makes our kids extra fortunate. Applying to college without a private counselor does not undo a lifetime of support, modeling, and guidance.
“We did it without a college counselor. My oldest is a senior at Tufts and my middle daughter is a junior at Stanford. We knew that my middle daughter would be competitive for the top schools. She attended a public school and had her English teacher check her essay. Otherwise, she pretty much did everything herself. She applied to Yale EA and was accepted and then applied to Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Northwestern (to see about merit money) and was accepted to all. We have no legacies and no ethnic pull. Her stats were exceptional and she showed an interest since 8th grade in math. All of her admit letters mentioned math. I think that if your kid is extremely strong, you don’t need a college counselor. If your child is academically talented and doesn’t have a hook, get a counselor. If your child has taken a practice ACT/SAT and the results could be better, spend the money on test prep. With this daughter, we knew she would score close to perfect on the SAT so we hired a tutor for five sessions and she nailed it with the tips - perfect score.”
It seems that the things have changed a lot since your daughter’s application four years ago. If today you presented the CC with the same stats like “…Her stats were exceptional and she showed an interest since 8th grade in math. All of her admit letters mentioned math…” the forum members " would have crushed her dream for free…". We had a kid last year on this forum with perfect SATs ACT and GPAs who made to USAMO three times in a row, he was rejected by every Ivy/Stanford and other top tens. The only school that accepted him was U of Arkansas.
That’s why I think getting a consultant nowadays probably makes a lot of sense.
JZ you have cited an extreme example. I don’t think the typical smart kid needs a counselor unless going to Northwestern instead of Princeton is going to be a crushing blow, or if ending up at Middlebury instead of Harvard is going to be the biggest tragedy in the world.
For many kids at the top of the applicant pool, admissions is nowhere near the %$^& shoot that people here like to moan about.
Will a PARTICULAR kid get into Harvard, Yale and Princeton this year? None of us know that or can predict it. But if that kid is a competitive admit for HYP I’d be willing to make a secondary application list (and the particulars will depend on the kid, his or her interests and talents) where I’d be willing to make a serious bet about getting into many (not most, but many) of these schools. A kid with HYP stats and a nice “package” (an EC or two, doesn’t have to have cured cancer, some “sparkle” besides taking tests) is a virtual walk on at a bunch of terrific colleges.
The solution isn’t getting a counselor to get the kid into HYP (because even the 25K versions can’t and won’t guarantee that). The solution is getting the kid excited about Vanderbilt and Emory and Rice and Pomona (obviously, the further from these places the kid lives, the greater the chances of admissions). Then the kid can apply to Harvard and not be also looking at a string of rejections.
The counselor at the public school has too big of a caseload for individualized attention.
The private counselor has visited nearly every college campus in the US.
Private counselors know how the system(s) work at various universities.
Private counselors provide an extra pair of eyes, ears and polish on applications, essays, resumes, deadlines, scholarships, etc.
Private counselors have a demonstrated resume of success and recommendations from other families and students.
Private counselors meet regularly with students to discuss among other things, programs, internships, scholarships, school coursework and scheduling, etc.
Families at private high schools in our area pay a tuition of $43,000 +/- and hire private counselors. So what's a few thousand dollars when the public education is free and keeps you in the hunt with the students who attend private school.
Can parents do it without a private counselor? Absolutely. But if you can find a good counselor that knows their way around the entire multi-year process, then the price of admission, IMO, is worth it.
My S has now completed the admissions process - went from applying to TOP 10 schools in the major that he was hoping to attend - to getting into his state school (UT Austin -McCombs school of business), Rice and wait listed at Berkley.To some kids, this is the first school on their list - to mine, it was the last school. To me, getting into McCombs is a BIG DEAL. I know quite a few kids who would kill to be in his shoes.
My question here is this…he did not use a counselor (not that we could really afford an expensive one) - and wanted me to do the FAFSA with him (I had posted on here last Spring asking about the need to pay someone to fill in the FAFSA and I got a very definite NO from a lot of the parents on here). So I went with that advice.
My feel is that even after being the 11th ranked student in a class of 800, he feels that he got stiffed. I told him that on several occasions that academics alone won’t cut it.
I feel that because he went through the entire process himself and did not want to really do a ‘good-fit’ search or applying to smaller schools that would have provided more $$, he may have missed some opportunities that he could possibly qualified for. Now that he is on his way to one of his choices, should I start thinking about getting a paid counselor for my youngest, who, unlike my older S, is NOT organized, has to be goaded always to keep his HW up-to-date - but manages to keep 90+ in his grades.
No one can guatantee anyone into a tippy top. And no one can spin straw into gold. But what a good, honest, well informed counselor can do is help you understand the values and uses of that straw, see it differently.
CC talks a lot about the privileges and advantages of the most elite preps. But realize even those GCs are not getting all their students into tippy tops. They steer plenty to other tiers. They help redefine ‘fit and thrive.’
Math- if your son was unwilling to look at “best fit” types of schools in addition to the list he created himself, how would an outside counselor have helped? You can lead a horse to water and all that…
If you are spending money you need for tuition to help your younger kid get organized-- I say go to Staples and buy a binder and big plastic file box and sit down with your son and strategize on the best ways to use them in his college application process.
Every thousand bucks that goes to a counselor is a thousand less out of your pocket to pay for books, lab fees, etc.
mathewjn, I have one of those kid who had good grades, but required nudging and scaffolding at home to keep on top of things. (He has ADD-inattentive and significant executive function issues, but was also in a highly selective competitive admit IB program.) He got to an excellent college and did decently through the first year. After that, as the work got harder and more organization of schoolwork and LIFE was required, he fell apart. I wouldn’t focus on a “top admit” so much as a school where your S can get support if he needs it (and will he ask for it? Mine wouldn’t).
In retrospect, I needed to recognize (and help my son to do so as well) that S needed to be allowed to reap the consequences of his issues, even though they were due to LDs. He needed to figure out for himself how he was going to manage. It was not clear to me in the throes of IB just how much he was depending on DH and I (and a dear GF) to keep the ship of life afloat. We looked at his grades and HW and he was coping reasonably well, but we were providing background assistance with the rest of life’s tasks. Done totally out of love and support, but I don’t know that we did him any favors.
Having BTDT, I would make sure your D learns those life skills in conjunction with the academics, and focus on schools that will enable him to manage BOTH successfully.
I’ll admit I met with 2 counselors at the beginning of this last application cycle (spring of Junior year). Neither were too expensive, $2000-2500 if I recall correctly. At the time, DD didn’t have any particular college that she was interested in with the exception of RISD for a Fine Arts degree. We definitely couldn’t afford RISD so I looked to at a counselor to help her find a suitable fit.
In the end I chose to forego the admissions counselor and use CC and youtube to create a list of colleges. I started by asking by asking her to give me 5 states that she wouldn’t mind going to college in. This seems superficial, but at 16 she had no affinity for any particular college but knew the type of climate she wanted. This narrowed our search down and we came up with a list of 12 schools to apply to. She got accepted to all 12 including 3 Top LAC and 2 premier state flagships.
I’m very happy we chose to do this on our own and know it brought us closer with a better understand of each others strengths and weaknesses. If approached right, it can be a very special time with your child as they take that first step out it to the “real” world.
Two in college now, each is over the moon happy with their choice, it is absolutely the right school for them, but each would have suffocated if they had wound up at each other’s school. No consultant either time. I found CC sometime in S1’s junior year, and started listening and learning. By the time S2 was ready – looking at LACs rather than large flagships – I knew the drill. S2 was easier in some ways, because he was an “all rounder,” plus looking to be a recruited athlete. The one thing I did with his essay process was work backwards from the story to tell – most of the LACs on his list emphasize the importance of diversity on campus, and he was just one more upper middle class white male in the midwest who was lucky enough to lead a pretty privileged existence. So we talked about what he could bring to a campus which values diversity, brainstormed anecdotes and stories from his life that would illustrate those attributes, and he wrote the essay from there. While there were no reaches on his list because we needed merit aid to fund our full pay status, and his list was shaped by where he was actually recruited, he received substantial merit awards at each school he applied to.
What @CountingDown said as well. It’s fine to offer support, especially navigating the crazy world of hundreds of college choices. That requires time and executive function your teen may not have yet. But you don’t want to prop your kid up in order to get them into a top school. Facilitate sure, but don’t groom, prop, etc. You want them to wholly own an experience they can actually manage once they get there. “Top schools” are great for some, but truly miserable experiences for others. Getting into one shouldn’t be the holy grail.
I have not hired a consultant myself, but I have investigated them pretty deeply before I decided I needed to do the research work myself to best help my kids.
As for those wondering if hiring one is “gaming the system”, I am reminded of what was said to me by a very famous British record producer when I asked him for help with a band:
“You cahnt polish a tuhhhrd.”
Forgive the indelicacy and phonetic dialect, and have a great weekend.
If you (meaning anyone reading this, not @Coloradomama in particular) are a middle-class white family with college-educated parents, and your kids went to school with other kids in that group, you didn’t just let the dice fall. You have special dice that come up with the right number most of the time. And that’s great – I was born into that group, too. We have to recognize that our kids have gotten 17 years of special help that most kids don’t get. Just having parents interested enough to look at CC makes our kids extra fortunate. Applying to college without a private counselor does not undo a lifetime of support, modeling, and guidance.
A couple of Observations now that we are done DONE with the college application process. @Hanna
Whether public or private school--- the majority of kids/families I know used some amount of private college advisors or test prep services... whether they admitted to doing so or not (I had one parent swear her child got a 34 ACT "all by herself by studying over the summer"... then my kid sees her kid at the test prep place in September...). I think in anything competitive many people want others to think it "just happens." And for the majority of kids without being "special" it does not just happen!
An un-hooked, great student will rarely be accepted to a top school without great essays AND great connections. Again most people will not fess up to all the things they do behind the scenes to get their kid into the best school possible. Especially if they have spent 100k + on private school education... there is somewhat of an expectation that their kid will go to a top school.
We know/have known several kids (NMF, Valedictorian or top 4% of competitive high school, Eagle Scout, amazing actors etc.) who did all of the prep, essays, testing etc. on their own. They all got into great programs... but none were accepted into the IVY programs or selective programs they had really wanted.
Lastly, while I hope not the norm... several kids we know gamed the system. Suggested things in their essays, racial profile, even in interviews that were not true... just to have a shot at the elite schools. Kids talk so we got an earful from several of my kids friends. It is truly a winner take all at any cost attitude for many families out there... which I think is really sad...
But to OP original question I think using a college advisor is definitely necessary.
My kids went to a hs where the vast majority were these privileged kids (and we’re defining that as, in part, parental awareness and degrees.) A few got admits to tippy tops, some to great top 25 sorts, but the vast majority went to fine, but not so known colleges. It wasn’t the lack of special counseling. It started with their own hs records.
This thing about one’s “story” is still bugging me. The essay isn’t a bio. It needs to show what those colleges are looking for, the attributes. So I liked what midwestmomofboys wrote: you learn what those colleges want/like/need (beyond stats and some long list of APs,) then gauge your possible match and find a way to show it. Not so hard, imo. PCs are not the only folks who can do this.
My mom did have a PC for my brother, decades ago, who had so-so hs grades (at a top hs,) had been in and out of the comm college, with worse grades, and only knew he wanted a school in a warm location, near a beach. The lady did point him to the right colleges, he landed at one with a very good CC rep, today. But this wasn’t “grooming,” hand-holding, telling him how to think or any tricks. And her consults cost under $200.
I have mixed feelings about the use of consultants. I think that they can be useful if the counselors at your kids schools are not quite what they should be. I also sometimes think that the kids who would benefit the most are the ones who can afford them the least.
My sister is a college consultant and tutor. She was mostly unable to work with my daughter throughout her college application process because of health issues. However, she and I have been discussing the whole application process for years. We did hire a tutor for my daughter for the ACT’s. The rest, she with help from me and the school counselor did herself. She applied to 9 schools. She was accepted at 3, weight listed at two and rejected from 4.
She had a very balanced list of reaches and matches. There were no safety’s. Some of the programs were particularly difficult to get into. I think my sister would have had her apply to one more, a safety.
I think about 20% of her classmates hired consultants. It is a personal decision.
I suspect that many of the parents and students here who have been devastated or outraged or simply plain baffled by outcomes would not have been so with professional guidance. While I am not saying that necessarily means a CC is necessary, it seems that their guidance through a process that continues to evolve rapidly can be helpful.
Many kids are getting their guidance from parents who went through the system decades ago when schools like Columbia admitted more than half their applicants.
It’s a personal decision, of course, and it depends on so much from quality of GC, time available, aspirations, etc.
I think no one person can say if a private counselor is right for a student. In my case, it’s laughable how much my parents didn’t help in the applying process. They didn’t really have an opinion on where I applied as long as I liked the school and applied to both the schools they worked at. They didn’t even edit my essays and I filled out the Common App mostly by myself. A few days ago, I sent in my deposit for American University, and I don’t think I would have benefited that much from a private tutor(I did have an sat tutor for a few months).
However, my brother probably could have. He was a NMF (didn’t study and got a 35 on the ACT) but he didn’t get into any Ivy he applied to. However, he got into Johns Hopkins for biological/bio-med engineering with the intent of going to med school. With a bit more guidance, he may have been able to make some more informed choices, but I don’t think he was ready to apply yo colleges. He chose to go to an in-state public close to home on a full ride that has one of the best program compared to other schools in the state. I think our situations worked out well, but we were also lucky. Good luck to all those who are applying to colleges! It’s a stressful process, but believe that everything will work out and get excited for the places you get into.