My parents got me a professional college counselor because I was…uninspired…in my grades my freshman year of high school. I was immature and didnt realize they mattered and being the know-it-all 14 year old I was, I wouldn’t listen to a word my parents said. The counselor helped me to realize that I needed to be taking my grades seriously if I wanted to get into a good college and I genuinely don’t think my admissions process would’ve been the same without them. I loved the experience and my parents also sent my younger brother as well and plan on sending my sister when her time comes!
I see two main advantages to a top college consultant.
- If you're not a legacy or recruited athlete, it can be difficult to know where to fire your single ED/EA bullet.
- There's an art to writing essays. A former Ivy adcom would have insight into what makes a good essay, few other people have.
Beyond that, it seems most of the rest of the app is what it is. You are a legacy, URM, first gen, or recruited athlete or not. You have the stats or not. You come from a feeder school or not. The counselor can’t change that.
And to add to Roethlisburger’s excellent post- your kid is either talented in music or not. Or visual arts or not. Or is a standout performer in your community Shakespeare troupe or not. Or on track to win the National Latin prize or not.
The notion that the counselor can turn a kid into a star is a little crazy.
In my community, the parents who are the most satisfied with their private counselor results are those where the kid has had disciplinary issues (an objective counselor can help the family navigate that) or where one parent thinks the kid is destined for Yale like grandpa, the other parent thinks Dartmouth like daddy, and the kid is barely keeping up at school. Having an outsider who can defuse some of the family dynamics seems to be really valuable.
But get a kid into Harvard who isn’t Harvard material? That they cannot do. They can “sell” CMU like crazy so that when the kid gets in there it feels like it was the first choice all along. They can break through the “ivy or bust” mentality so that the kid gets excited about Conn College or Skidmore or Smith or another school which is a much better fit for this particular kid. And they can introduce a kid from Scarsdale to the joys of St Louis and Houston and Richmond so that there isn’t so much “bunching”, i.e. every kid from the HS applying to the same three schools in Maine, Vermont and Pennsylvania.
Is that worth the money? I dunno- it’s not my money. It wasn’t for us.
We did not need a consultant, but I know several people in complicated situations who benefited greatly.
Neither of our kids had a consultant. That said, the private HS that S was attending did have all the students write essays suitable for using in their applications in English class. Also, their HS college counselor was available to the students and did know each one of them, as did their grade level counselor. We had suggestions from the HS college counselor about which schools were likely to give merit aid to students with stats like S’s and he was quite accurate. The private HS also had a good relationship with many of the Us that the HS kids wanted to matriculate at, so that was another bonus.
D was a transfer from CC and just applied to ONE U as a transfer without any help from me or any adult (tho she did let her friends read and edit her essay). She was admitted to that one U and saved us a lot of heartache and admissions fees.
None of my sibs used any consultants, but all attended private HSs which had decent counselors.
Yes, @Massmomm. I am currently working with a number of students who have had very unusual educational backgrounds, and I believe it has been very beneficial to have someone help them sort through it, helping them see the pros and cons of certain choices the student needs to make, and helping them put everything together in the most positive light, highlighting strengths that they didn’t even consider.
Also, TBH, many of my families are just so grateful for the support of someone to come alongside them for a wide variety of reasons…the parent with 7 children who is overwhelmed and grateful for someone else to take the reigns… the student who can’t decide whether to independently homeschool or continue in a charter…Or the parent of triplets…and so on.
Lots of reasons people use private consultants. Not everyone who uses them is looking to get admitted to an Ivy.
We hired recommended affordable consultants for our kids. We saw the improvements in their applications, and they both got into their first-choice schools (not Ivies). Could they have done without? We’ll never know.
We hired one but not to the tune of some of the crazy quotes posted. First I got a list from a local HS tutor (has a booming small business, I trust his judgement very much) who is well regarded in the community. I called each one. The one who I felt had the most to offer I hired on an hourly basis initially. I’m very good with research so that part of the process I could have easily done myself. The value has come in essay workshops and ongoing one on one essay coaching. There is also a common app workshop coming up at the end of the summer. I do have another parent friend with a child who has since gone on to college. Their D wanted to do the entire process on her own and parents did not do any research or use a consultant. Her D applied only to Ivies a few top LACS and state flagship. They needed some FA but did not get enough and their D never thought to consider any schools that offered merit. In the end she was only accepted at one LAC with no merit aid and state flagship. She ended up at our state flagship full fare (not cheap in our state). I think it is working out okay but wish that parents had done some research or at least talked to a consultant. Their D was definitely a candidate for big merit. The merit likely would have made the cost of a consultant worth it. I think for people who don’t have time it is a good idea to at least spend a $100 and talk to someone knowledgeable for an hour or so. Many of us here on CC are already engaged in process but many parents are not.
Hi,
My consultants didn’t work for us after spending $6950.
we just used them for my son. We signed up with them September 2017 when my son was entering senior year. He was a very good student within top 5% of the school. He had many extracurricular activities. He was interested in applied math and finance and wanted to go to one of the top schools in east coast. My son himself had done a lot of research in terms of requirements for these programs and made sure his resume was very well loaded… We were assigned to someone who was suppose have been with Duke admissions for over 10 years before he started doing college consulting. He looked at my son’s choices of college and didn’t change anything from the list. My son was very diligent in doing everything that was told of him. But, he was distracted with numerous other commitments and always got back to us very late on his reviews of my son’s essays. He was working for only the top 5 colleges in my son’s list. He did few corrections to his essays and then the essays were forwarded to the reviewers, who didn’t correct much at all. Long story short, they couldn’t not get my son into to any of the top 5 colleges. When I questions, the answer was as follows:
- your son;s didn’t do any research - I don’t know what research he could have done. My son did summer internship in a financial firm during and before that took summer classes on financial engineering in one of the local colleges during summer.
- they blamed us for signing up only in the senior year and not earlier which is lot more expensive and my son did all his activities since 9th grade based on what the colleges were looking for in incoming students.
3.Dan also said that my son’s top4 of 5 colleges were IVY league material and coming from a very competitive school, and community, my son’s would have never gotten into those schools. Why didn’t they suggest this in the beginning and done some research and suggested different colleges for my son. 5th college in the list was Duke which were he was an admission officer for 10 years. He couldn’t even get him in there.
Any way, my got in a very good school which was #6 in his list and is happy about that except that we wasted $6950.
If I were you, I will not go with them and I don’t think they can succeed in doing what they promise in their ads.
I will do all the research myself and talk to other students who have gone to good schools already and talk to some professor from colleges. By the way I am a professor myself in a college. Hope this helps and Good luck!
There are good reasons to hire a college consultant…and there are not so good reasons
No one should expect to pay tomget their kid into any college. In this case, we don’t even know th top five colleges on this list. If they are all Ivies or the like, they are not guaranteed acceptances for anyone.
This might or might not be important depending on the college/major.
Really if you signed on as a senior, the college counselor would ONLY have been able to help with the college choices (which you seem to have already made), and the application process.
No one…repeat…NO ONE should expect a college counselor to get a kid into any college. They should,help the kiddo with presenting himself in the best possible light…but so what that this guy graduated from Duke? That doesn’t guarantee admission to Duke. The top 4 or 5 colleges were “Ivy Material” implies they were highly competitive with a very low acceptance rate. The college consultant can’t change that.
College consultants can be very valuable. If hired early enough, they can help tweak a kid’s EC. Not change them…but tweak. For example, they might see a high interest in something and suggest seeking leadership in that. By senior year…all of that is already done.
College consultants can help tweak annessay, but they can not and should not write the essay. It has to be the student voice coming through. They can suggest topics, modification of topics,etc. but the college consultant should not be re-writing essays. Your kid needs to do the essay writing.
Many college consultants spend a LOT of time with the student, giving ideas, and suggestions. Sometimes this does not get conveyed by the student to the parent. OR the kiddo ignores the suggestions. It happens.
As noted upstream, the best college consultant suggestions are by word of mouth…suggestions from others who have been pleased with the PROCESS…note…not the outcome (although that is important too).
In addition, I would suggest that any parent using a consultant still be actively involved in the process. Otherwise, you can’t advocate for more help or whatever…if you just let your kid handle it all.