Is Admissions Hero/College Vine worth it?

Would like to hear recent experiences with CollegeVine

I didn’t use College Vine, but I did use 2 other things.

One was college karma, which I think is run by people who used to run CC. I can’t remember whether it was $100 or $150, but they reviewed my D’s stats and ECs and talked to her a bit to go over whether her proposed list of schools was reasonable and they gave a list of other schools they thought could be a good fit for her. They spent a good amount of time with us, so I think this service is a loss-leader for them because they offer more extensive packages. I thought there was a lot of good things about that service, but I also thought it was a little more pessimistic than it needed to be FOR US. I think we had the benefit of geographic diversity and our HS has a particularly good reputation and strong relationships with some colleges. I think if we lived in a major metropolitan area, they would have been spot on. Overall, I thought they were very knowledgeable and their comments very helpful.

The other thing we did was we hired someone to help my D with her essays, and we used a recommendation from someone who was thrilled with that counselor’s services. I went this route because it was less expensive than college karma and I thought I was going with someone pretty good. Well, honestly, I’m pretty demanding, and I ended up cancelling the services. A small thing that bothered me is that I wanted the essays completed earlier, and the counselor set up a schedule that resulted in them being due in November. I should have been more involved in that process because I knew my D’s schedule and how everything would back up then due to her ECs. The bigger thing that bothered me is that in an effort to get my D to meet the word count limitations, the counselor edited out my D’s voice. I thought that the final product was bland and could have been written by anybody, and I didn’t hear my D’s voice at all. So I let the consultant go, and had my D go back to her original draft and start from there. Although my D was at first resentful that I stepped into the process, by the end she was grateful, since I was careful to limit my comments to those things that she should definitely keep because they reflected on her and her personality, and what things I thought could either be tightened up or could go altogether since they didn’t really say anything about HER. In the end she had something written solely by her and you could hear her voice all throughout the essay. So, I guess my point in sharing our story is you have to be careful. If you end up hiring someone, make sure they don’t do any of the real work and instead just have conversations with your kid about how they can keep writing to make their essay tighter and all about them.

If you really feel like you need a “coach” hire someone local and reputable. For far less money. And I would tell you that you don’t need it. You just need to write your own essays and be authentic.

Do they correct grammar mistakes and such?

A respected and locally recommended college counselor can be very useful.

For us is was helpful with delivering the realistic school admission assessments and keeping our student to the timelines. And also someone to vent to and get resssurance from as results started to roll in.

Also, in our case they had students gather in the summer in an essay workshop. Not to write, but to gather in groups and discuss their topics and ideas.

For our child the concept of us as her parents reading and editing to find her “voice” would have been untenable. Though I am sure that works fine for other families.

And quite frankly she is brighter and a more gifted writer than either of us.

We chose the moral support role and hired the pro. I am also pretty sure we would have ended up with the same choices in the end. DD had a very small and targeted list.

I think it depends on the student and the realistic skills of the parent.

We liked that the counselor had seen hundred of essays and seen what the outcomes had been. That was comforting too.

Anyone notice the recently created College Confidential accounts that were made specifically to talk about “College Vine.” Suspicious at best and more than likely spam

Could you please explain what the role of the PMs is? I’m thinking about using the CollegeVine service, but I’m concerned about the experience of the student counselors. They are still in college, so I am worried that they will be too busy with their coursework to make time for students. In your experience, how were they able to provide effective guidance and support to you?

The PM is the boss of the student “near-peer” counselor. He is supposed to be guiding the process. In my experience, he was not very helpful. He was moonlighting on top of his full-time day job, and he did not seem to be devoting the necessary time to his CollegeVine job. Moreover, the student counselor is the expected primary coach for application essays. But when the student counselor sent us an email with horrible grammar, the PM dismissed it claiming the counselor probably just changed the sentence structure around and neglected to clean it up afterward. First, there is no sentence structure in which “I’s” is the correct first-person possessive. Second, shouldn’t an essay coach know enough to check her work before submitting it?

The full overview of our CollegeVine experience is as follows:

CollegeVine may be ok for students who are “on target” in every respect. But for students who don’t have a simple story to tell, it doesn’t work. The algorithm used to determine appropriate schools cannot be adapted to special circumstances, and the mentors will not recommend schools that are not spit out by the algorithm.

At the schools recommended for my son, the 75th percentile SAT averaged 134 points below his score. Even at the schools considered a “reach”, the 75th percentile SAT averaged about 90 points below my son’s score. Test scores aren’t everything, but he has the grades to match. What he is missing is activities, due to special medical circumstances.

My son’s mentors clearly have no confidence in their own ability to help my son tell his story in a way that would overcome the lack of activities. It seems as though they may be coached to “dumb it down”, to better further their marketing pitch – which revolves around percentage of students placed into one of their top 3 choices. If they can get the students to aim low enough, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I had the sense the mentors’ compensation may even be tied to this, though I do not know that.

This issue was particular galling, as the salesperson had assured my son the so-called “chancing engine” (the placement algorithm) could be adjusted to take account of his circumstances.

Additionally, there were constant issues with the CollegeVine technology platform, creating problems in communication. Even their scheduling app only allows visibility to one mentor at a time, so you can’t schedule a meeting with both team members without checking each schedule separately.

Scheduling also was challenging, because the mentors are very much “part time”. The senior person on my son’s team has a full-time job, and is moonlighting as a CollegeVine mentor.

All in all, the company seems completely unprofessional, and ours was a completely disheartening experience.

We used CollegeVine during this past college application cycle and were very disappointed. It was expensive based on how much counseling services we received. The peer counselors were busy with their own school work or unavailable due to going abroad/internship. We had a few substitute counselors because of that. In my own opinion, these counselors don’t have adequate experience/responsibilities helping with the college application. I ended up with helping my DD by researching on CC a lot. I regret having using their services.

Can you please advise me how to find a private counselor for my child?

IMHO the best way to find a private counselor is via referrals from people in your area.

I am looking to find out about anyone’s experience with The CollegeVine?

If you read above your comment, you’ll see why so many are disappointed and see it as having wasted their money.

Agree with everything said above about Collegevine. Terrible experience!

same experience here. Totally waste of money and your children’s precious time. Wish I came here to read reviews before we sign up.

I would strongly discourage anyone from using College Vine because they over promise and under deliver. The danger is they lead you to rely on them, then let you down. If you falsely believe they are competent, you will find that you have missed deadlines. In our case, our “PM” quit or was fired in mid November after letting us miss major deadlines. I would recommend people either find a better service, or do the work yourself. In our experience, College Vine is dangerously incompetent. Do not trust them. You will regret it.

Our experience with College Vine has been terrible too. I want to share my experiences on a platform such as this, to ensure the others don’t fall into the same trap as I have been . Don’t waste your hard-earned money. Look locally for a reputable counselor, who will do a much more honest job. Wish I had done my research here before wasting our time, money and energy.

Agree with finding local private counselor or college advisor. When we looked for such a service, we sat in on a couple of College Vine-type presentations. Our impression was “ too good to be true” and outrageously expensive.

Talked to friends who had kids in high schools. Got a recommendation ( words of mouth is a way to go). Interviewed him and was impressed with how he came across. He charged per hour and only when he worked with our D. Helped her along as needed starting her junior year. During that 1.5 years, he proprably spent 6-7 hours total helping her at $125/hr, very worth our money.

You can ask other parents for recommendatins or ask high school counselors if they would recommend anyone. Then interview those advisors and check their credentials.

I feel that this type of help and advice should start earlier than a senior year. By senior year, it is kind of late.

Be very skeptical about such services. I know of a Ivy League student who just finished her freshman year. She worked for College Vine last summer with almost no training. It appears the company recruits current Ivy League students who seem personable, but who otherwise have no experience in college advisory. Moreover, they are not trained on essay critique either. So not sure what is the value proposition of College Vine.

Is there an enterprising lawyer out there who wants to certify a class action against CollegeVine? There are clearly a lot of people who believe the service doesn’t work.