Hiring Admission Counselor

Parents Forum
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One other thought I had when reading some of the replies is it is about the high school your child is attending. Our DD is comfortably in the top 10% of her class but when her school publishes the list of colleges being attended by graduating seniors, we are underwhelmed. Not to sound snobby or anything but her goals are a bit loftier than a state school or mediocre local private college and it seems that our guidance department does a great job of funneling kids to the same 8-10 schools every year. In our area are a ton of private high schools and other top schools that send students to much better colleges and we felt our daughter deserved the chance to go to a better school too. If the GC is busy with too many students or students with disciplinary issues, or family issues, they just don’t have the time to help students who don’t need “help”. We feel hiring a private counselor was in her best interest because they knew how to identify schools where merit aid would be available and she would have the kind of experience she was looking for.

As a side note, we have a list of 10 schools she will be applying to and according to Naviance, maybe 6 students have applied to any of them in the last 10 years from her high school. If you are looking for anything other than what EVERYONE does, it is comforting to have someone with knowledge and experience helping you to navigate the journey.

1 Like
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When we went through this process 2 years ago, we got a stats review from collegekarma.com. They used to have some kind of connection between with CC but I don’t think there is anymore. Anyway, my kid fell into the same category that it sounds like your kid does; great grades and scores, so now it’s all about the holistic aspects of the application. I thought the stats review was tremendously helpful, and I really appreciated their feedback on what schools would be safety, match and reaches for her. In categorizing the schools they also mentioned what it was about my D that they thought would be attractive to particular schools, and what they thought my D would like about those schools. Since I’m from a geographically under-represented area I think they were a little more negative than they should have been, but if we were from the suburbs of NY/SAN Fran/DC etc, I think they would have been spot on. The stats review is so inexpensive ($175) (it must be a loss leader to get you to buy their other services), that I think it’s highly worthwhile even if you decide to go ahead and hire the counselor you’re thinking about.

Let me tell you about my experience with an essay review person I’d hired because it didn’t go well and I think there can be something to learn from my mistakes. She came highly recommended to me; my friend loved her. For me, though, I thought she over-edited my D’s essay so it was no longer my D’s voice. I think its critical that your kid’s essays be in their authentic voice. For my friend, her D wasn’t a good writer, so she appreciated the extensive rewrites. So ask the recommender what exactly they liked and disliked about this person to get a better idea for fit. The other issue I had was that I thought I could just turn the whole process over to that person and I’d stay fully out of it. Well, shame on me for not realizing that this just isn’t who I am. I really wanted to just delegate the day to day but supervise the process. When I found out after the fact about their agreed upon time-line for writing the essays, and I didn’t like it because I thought the process started too late (resulting in a time crunch at the end), now I was coming in as the bad guy. So my advice, know who you are and who your kid is, and really assess what role you want to play and confirm this with the consultant.

3 other points.

(1) You are too late to “package” your kid. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing! Don’t beat yourself up about this. Presumably your kid did the activities that they wanted to do. So look at those activities and look at the class choices etc, and figure out WHY those were the choices and then look for schools that are interested in kids with those attributes/interests. And activities aren’t just school ECs. If they stay up at night writing music, that’s an activity. They need to think about why that speaks to them, and how that fits in with who they are now or want to be.

(2) some people mentioned looking at Naviance to see where the kids from your HS get into. This is a good resource for some folks, but wasn’t for us. At our HS the kids were all so different from another so you don’t know if the kids who got in had hooks -athletic recruit, URM, legacy, 1st gen- or not and whether they were in a comparable position. Also, a lot of kids applied only to the state school or where they’d get scholarships because of finances, so it’s really hard to tell where those kids would have gotten into if they’d have applied. Final comment about Naviance is you need to see how far tbavk the data goes. It seems like each year Admissions has gotten just that much harder, so that the kid admitted last year might not get admitted this year.

(3) before paying for a package, see if you can do something hourly for some general advice, and see if they’ll credit that to the package. I’m saying this because you want to make sure this person is really listening to your kid and seeing them for the individual that they are, rather than giving the same advice to every kid who likes science (as an example). IMO holistic Admissions is all about showing your individuality/personality, and you can’t do that if your counselor packages all the science kids the same and all the math kids the same etc.

Good luck!

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A counselor will not make a B+ student into an Ivy admit. But a good one will figure out where that student will thrive.
Otoh, a counselor may be able to help that super stellar student present himself well enough to be admitted to an Ivy.

I really dislike the idea of a counselor who makes your kid into what a top college wants over a 4 year high school career. A good counselor should be able to help a rising senior articulate who they are and how that fits with the choices they have made. The whole app needs to hang together, and that happens best when a student is self aware. So I agree with @melvin123 – getting a counselor now need not be seen as a disadvantage. I also agree with the posters who suggest that you explore whether you need everything that’s included in the full $4600. You may. You may not.

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“One common problem many families have is that we simply do not know that much about many, many excellent colleges. There were a number of colleges that we only learned about in the course of research that many families simply would not be aware of”

I would agree with this and would recommend paying maybe for this information on an hourly basis, if you don’t want to pay for the comprehensive package. These counselors tend to be a lot more honest than even some guide books. I’ve used Fiske and think it’s very good, but even he’s not going to say a college is surrounded by a dump, or cutthroat, or unsafe, or in the middle of nowhere.

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Honestly, if your EFC is 16K, spending 4.5K on an advisor would be a very poor use of funds IMO. Especially at this late date. I wouldn’t have been comfortable spending that and my kid is very high stat and our EFC is sky high.

Maybe consider budgeting for 2-4 hours IF you really need it. If you have the ability to research, I honestly think you can do just as well on your own. Maybe save a few dollars for essay editing if that might be helpful.

The best thing you can do is have your kid apply ED to somewhere you know your EFC works. Have a solid safety option that works financially.

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My kids attended a school with an unusual demographic. About 85 percent upper middle class to 1 percenters And 15 percent low income. The school college counselors were understandably focused on working with most of that 15 percent. (The top 20 percent of that demographic was handled by a privately funded group working to get those kids into the tippy tops). So, there really weren’t the resources for my kids and we used a private college counselor who if nothing else reduced tons of stress and kept us from having to have to be involved at all. She gave excellent advice re the programs our kids wanted and helped them brainstorm essay topics. For us, worth every penny.

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My DD is a senior this year and while her stats are excellent, we feel that some outside help with essays and “strategy” might be useful. Does anyone have suggestions for hourly service counselors?

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The counselor I used charges 15-25K, depending on packages and when a student signs up. I signed her up when she was junior. The team re-evaluated D2’s college list whenever her stats changed (new GPA, test scores, honors, etc), and also when we changed her top school choices (from west coast to east coast). It was a complete package, from high school course selection, summer activities, ECS to essays and applications. I was very busy at the time that I didn’t have time to assist and D2 was also not as inclined to take my input as D1.

Under $5K is a very good deal, as long as you know what you are getting with the package. Even as a senior, the counselor could still help out with the college list. I don’t agree with about not wasting money on a counselor if you need FA. If he/she is good, she should be able to find schools with good FA and merit aids. The money you could get on FA may pay for the fee.

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How have people found counselors to use? Did you do any comparison shopping, or just take people’s word on it?

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I asked friends for references, and met with a few local counselors and ‘interviewed’ them. One also ran some group info sessions, which is smart. Many will not handle financial aid, those who do often run FAFSA sessions at local libraries as a way to market/get clients.

Lots of IECs in my area, with fairly wide variety of price ranges…most expensive are around $10-12K for all 4 years of HS, those who will work hourly (not all will) range is $150-$300/hour.

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Helpingmom40 and Driverof3, do you mind share your admissions counselor info? My S is currently a junior, I am trying to hire one, it seems you are happy with your counselor and the price is acceptable.

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@nappergreene- I would suggest that you use @ before helpingmom40, so that she can see your message. :slight_smile:

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@califmom23 Thanks! I am new here, still learning :slight_smile:
@Helpingmom40 @Driverof3, do you mind share your admissions counselor info? My S is currently a junior, I am trying to hire one, it seems you are happy with your counselor and the price is acceptable.

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It sounds a lot like a woman in the Providence area named Christiana.

She’s fantastic and tough in a helpful way.

If you want to be fairly hands off but make sure your student is on the right track and on time. She’s worth every penny. The writing workshop with other students is really useful as well. Most importantly choosing schools and being realistic about the process. That’s what a good counselor can do. Our d really listened to her and would have naturally bristled at dad’s thoughts. Even though I had plenty of behind the scenes contact with out counselor which was good for our nerves as parents.

We did the all the tours. We shared things with her together as a group. But they developed their own relationship which was great.

If it’s someone else. Can’t say for sure. But it allowed us to have a some input but not be seen as the 24 hour reminder. It worked for us as a family.

You PM me if you have any other questions.

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@napergreene I’m sending you a PM

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@privatebanker Thank you for your info. I am very new here, it seems I could not do PM yet.

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@privatebanker,@helpingmom40,@napergreene, I am also new to the site and I would like to get the info on college counselors. The ones around here are so expensive. I looked up how to PM and it says that you need to have 15 posts before you are allowed to PM. I would appreciate it if someone can PM me. I don’t know that I have much to contribute now, other than a lot of questions. Thanks in advance.