While there are some internationals willing to pay ridiculous amounts for Ivy admission, I think the deal puts The Ivy Coach in an especially disgusting light due to the level of fees involved. Perhaps from their perspective this is free advertising to their intended market.
I have read the posts from The Ivy Coach for a few months and they make no secret of the fees they charge so I am not sure why it is considered disgusting? I could not imagine paying their fees but if someone else has the funds and wants to do so it is fine.
This from their website today:
“We’ve been quite open over the years about the right way and the wrong way of going about making donations to colleges. It may surprise our readers to know that our students have very rarely in the over quarter century in which we’ve been in business made any donations to colleges. And the simple answer as to why is because they don’t have to. They don’t need to donate millions and millions of dollars — or any dollars at all — to colleges in order to improve their child’s case for admission.”
Perhaps their clients do not make donations as they do it on their behalf, but in any case no different than letting in many other categories of students.
@jym626 No one forced the family to sign the contract in the first place. I don’t see where the family was bilked out of anything. This family agreed to pay even if their kid had not been accepted anywhere.
That fee is outrageous. Maybe to this family its a drop in the bucket, but its still well in excess of the usual and customary. Maybe the family doesn’t care. Maybe they didn’t do their due diligence. Maybe they assumed the IEC could bribe the schools. Caveat emptor. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, maybe it was intended to be used for a “donation” (ahem, cough). But any ethical IEC should not be party to that.
Here’s another ridiculous argument on the part of The Ivy Coach
Gee, so they lost out on the opportunity to milk other very wealthy internationals at the same outrageous price? Cry me a river. https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/02/12/suit-reveals-elite-college-consultants-charged-family-15-million
@jym626: That is typical legalese used to bolster claim for, & to establish, damages.
That goes without say, @publisher. It’s just a really ridiculous argument. They are trying to trump up “future damages”. They are dong a fine job of damaging their own reputation with what comes across as greed.
Prep schools, colleges & universities as well as test prep companies have been focusing on the Asian market for well over a decade now.
People are free to enter into or decline to enter into contractual relationships. This is not the case of an unsophisticated consumer being duped by a slickster.
No need to preach to the choir. They deserve each other. Straw man arguments are unhelpful. No one claimed they were unsophisticated or duped. That said, the whole transaction smells.
Also, @jym26: Not trump up “future damages”; it is to establish “actual damages”.
Have no idea what your comment about “straw man arguments” is about ?
“For example, Jared Kushner.”
Its easy to mock the Kushner admission but you also need to bring the people (qualified or not) that got in based on power - Amy Carter (Brown), Chelsea Clinton (Stanford), Malia Obama (Harvard) and has already been mentioned George W Bush (Yale, Harvard Business). So money and power talk, and if you have both, you’re in wherever you want to go.
@Publisher You are adding comments that aren’t in discussion and then arguing against them. Its a straw man argument. You know that.
And they may claim they turned down other fools who were willing to pay $1.5 M to buy help them get into college, but its not very believable.
But if they got some to pay that price, it can reset the bar for their standard fees. That said, they can try to charge whatever they want if they can fine people willing to pay it. It stinks form both sides.
Sorry, but I still miss your point.
I don’t want to argue, but they have to prove with reasonable certainty that they lost out on other business.
The fact that the consultant group filed suit indicates legal activity as courts cannot enforce illegal activity.
Familiarity with the high-end Asian market will be relevant to issues in this lawsuit.
Do you have access to the legal proceedings/filings behind the paywalls? They would be an interesting read.
Sorry, but I don’t really understand your posts. But you seem to be angry at me. If I somehow offended your, I apologize & assure you that no offense was or is intended.
@publisher They can argue breach of contract, but IMO, since their fees are non refundable, they haven’t had any other damages in terms of lost income.https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■/consulting-fee/
If they felt that with this goldmine family their practice was full and therefore couldn’t take on another client this year (or whenever they signed the family), the only loss is the money from this client. If the high pay family had terminated services somewhere during the contract time, IVy coach could have picked up another student (likely one with a year or 2 of HS left) so they could have seen increased income.
I am not angry, but, to be honest, some of your posts come across as condescending. Perhaps the word “milked” might have been clearer than “bilked”, but I felt bilked was a reasonable choice as I used it to mean Ivy Coach was ripping off the client. Yes, the client signed the contract. Their choice. Again, the whole thing just smells. Makes me want to wash my hands even typing about it.
To clarify, the response to the bilked wording was made by someone else. But the straw man argument was saying that this was not an unsophisticated consumer being duped by a slickster. No one said that.
I have read the complaint. I am stunned this has not gotten more press: Here are the facts, and some reading between the lines on my part:
- In 2016, a girl, of a wealthy Vietnamese family, attended The Lawrenceville School (a top tiered private boarding school) in NJ for at least her sophomore year and some or all of her junior year.
- On December 25, 2016, girl's mom signs a contract with Ivy Coach. Per the contract, Ivy Coach agreed to help daughter apply to 5-10 different boarding schools and 20 colleges. Query: Why would this girl need to leave Lawrenceville midway through her junior year? The $1.5 million fee is payable in 4 installments: $250,000 pre-paid; $500,000 due on signing (December 25, 2016); $250,000 due December 1, 2017; and $500,000 due December 1, 2018. The girl's mother only paid the first two payments--$750k.
- Girl transfers to Solebury School in Pennsylvania. This is a lower-tiered private day and boarding school in New Hope, PA. The school has 235 students in grades 7-12. So, basically, there are about 40 students in each grade level.
- Solebury's testing profile is as follows:
SAT Reading/Writing: 560-650
SAT Math: 555-640
ACT Composite: 23-27
This is a very mediocre testing profile for a private school. With these figures, only about 5 students per year would have Ivy League qualifying test scores.
- The complaint indicates the girl applied 22 schools. They are as follows: Amherst, Brown, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, NYU, Northwestern, UPenn, Princeton, USC, Stanford, Tufts and Williams. According to the complaint, In December, girl was admitted to an "Ivy League institution." From other posts, it appears she was admitted to Dartmouth.
- Ivy Coach's contract provides that it will assist with "teacher, counselor and other letters of recommendation." Just my speculation: Solebury allowed Ivy Coach to write/revise this girl's letters of recommendation.
- Who knows what was paid to others, such as those at Solebury or Dartmouth, from the $750k to get this girl into both schools.
Wow, @Overtheline! Thanks for the summary! Do you think. the student transferred to a lower tier prep so she’d be the top of the middle instead of the middle of the top (as they say)? Or do you think she was being dismissed for some reason? One has to wonder if a student of this caliber will make it at Dartmouth, or once again have to transfer to a lower tier school.
Forgot to mention earlier— anyone can file suit. Whether or not it has merit to go forward is another thing. I hope this gets thrown out on summary judgment.
Looking at Dartmouth’s retention and graduation rates, the smart money’s on her graduating as getting in is the hard part. Assuming you have the $$$$, graduating isn’t.