In terms of reaction time testing, some high school students may want to argue that playing fast-action video games is a way to train for such testing, whether or not it improves intelligence in a way useful in college (relative to other activities that could be done instead of playing fast-action video games).
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1689&context=source
@socaldad2002 I’m thinking the same thing, when you calculate the net cost of a college education, spending money on getting our son into the best college possible makes too much sense. You got 1 shot @ your path and it’s important to get off on the right foot with the best college possible.
Wow, $250 a hr! My son mentioned a service that offer full range of services with current college admissions staff and it’s nearly half the cost! God bless fellow father!
I will take the $250.00/hr and just make up some stuff and tell you where to send your kid 
@ucbalumnus this was sorta the argument when my kid would be playing 3 hrs /day with friends in high school. Actually gave me articles on how it relates to engineers etc etc. I told him the second your grades drop it becomes unplugged… That never happened. B-)
I’d love to know what “best college possible” means to you, collegedad.
The kids I know who have used the pricey counselors definitely did not end up at Duke, Harvard, MIT, Cal Tech. They ended up at Denison, Wittenberg, Holy Cross, Lehigh, Wake Forest. Fine schools all, but knowing the kids, none of these schools was an insane reach based on who the kid was/academic performance/aspirations.
What worked? The kid who thought he “belonged” at MIT found his peeps at Lehigh; he was never going to get in to MIT so having a counselor do an early redirect was a huge help. If that’s worth dollars to you and your family then terrific. But you need a dose of reality before you hire an outsider. Even the most expensive and most experienced counselor is not going to take a Chevy and turn it in to a Maserati. And I see some families break the bank, assuming that this is how the pricey counselors operate. And they have the first family meeting and see Bucknell and Drexel and Northeastern and American and Goucher on the list, and not JHU and Amherst and Swarthmore and the bile starts to rise.
As one friend told me two admissions cycles ago: " We paid to get her in to Hofstra? Like any decent student at our local HS (they live on Long Island) can’t figure out how to get in to Hofstra?"
“Even the most expensive and most experienced counselor is not going to take a Chevy and turn it in to a Maserati”
No one is suggesting this and it’s really not how any family i now uses a private counselor. Unless you have interviewed and actually used a private counselor, your just guessing as to their worth. I know plenty of kids who have used them and they are going to great colleges including Harvard, Duke, Vanderbilt, UCB, Washu, etc. Maybe they would have gained admittance without the help, we will never know but you get one shot at applying to undergraduate colleges and i can’t think of a better use of money than for educational expenses.
@collegedad1965 what grade is your child in? Just curious because there are different levels of work that a counselor will do depending on the child’s grade.
@socaldad2002 I’m very surprised by all the neg commentary on admissions consultants, would’ve thought many here have used them especially in a Parents forum. Then again, imagine many parents’ children aren’t shooting for elite universities.
Regardless, we are in the same boat, though I’d to spend less than $250 a hr and $150 sounds perfect. My son recommended a site that his friends are all using and it provides admissions services with current admissions officers @ top 15 colleges @ that price point so naturally going to give it a shot.
May I ask the name of your consultant? Word of mouth is always a great rec IMO.
What are “admissions services”?
CURRENT admissions officers? You mean individuals who are currently working in the admissions offices of the top 15 colleges? I highly doubt that. First, conflict of interest. Second, they would not have the time. You sounded too smart to fall for that.
And it’s a “site,” not private, one-on-one guidance?
You are going to give it a “shot”? You only have one shot. Once you hire someone, by the time you determine they are not good, it may be too late in the game.
Something is fishy. Hire someone recommended by another parent who has gone through the process start to finish. Not a “site” that some of your son’s friends are using.
@brantly I’d post the website, but this forum is heavily moderated despite its claim of an open forum. Regardless, multiple friends of his use the service and love it. As for your skepticism, I agree and plan to chat w parents of one of those friends to get more intel. Seems to good to be true actually.
I think it’s pretty clear that different counselors target different things. For example, some like to talk about how much total merit aid their students secured. While that may be appealing for a lot of upper middle class families that can’t afford their EFC, it results in advice to target a very different set of schools than a college counselor who is helping families for whom money is no object get their kids into tippy top private schools. And a counselor may also push the private school experience (or just some of their personal favorite “below the radar” schools) over public schools even if with $25K pa merit off a $70K COA it is more expensive than the $35K instate flagship.
Another reason for hiring a counselor may be if your kid doesn’t know what they want to do, especially if their HS guidance counselor is overworked/unhelpful. Again counselors have their biases which may or may not align with the way your family thinks about things. For example, encouraging a focus on something practical that will lead to a good career (so for example, my D18 was told she should consider majoring in engineering because she is good at math, but in the end she’s actually majoring in ballet).
So the first thing I’d try and understand is how much a counselor works with families with the same aspirations and expectations as your family. That’s why personal recommendations are so important. But those may be misleading if the friends giving the recommendation have kids or family attitudes that are very different to yours. For example your friends may want a smaller private college and you don’t care, or they may want their kid to find a practical career and you want them to pursue what they are most interested in, or they may have very different budget limits or their kid was fairly average and your kid aspires to top schools or vice versa. Counselors should be adaptable, but many are better at working with some types of family profiles than others.
From what you are saying about this “service”, it seems more likely to be facilitating current college students (who may be helping out in the admissions office as an on campus job) to help potential applicants through the process of writing essays, test prep, interviews, etc. We had a friend whose kid really valued that sort of advice and found it easier to work with a near peer, but I believe it was just arranged privately (and much more cheaply) with a local student who was at Berkeley.
And more importantly that’s very different from the broader strategic considerations of where to apply to, what is a balanced list, etc. Do you actually have a college list already, know what your reach, match and safety schools are, what you are prepared to pay, what major your son wants to apply for, etc? The peer assistance might conceivably be useful to him after that point, but probably not before.
@collegedad1965 You can post the search terms so we can find it ourselves. I just did a search with the words you used to describe it. Didn’t come up with anything similar to what you described.
A current admissions officer at a top 15 college who is moonlighting as a private counselor would last five minutes before being escorted to the door. SAT tutor? Yes. Private guitar teacher? Yes. Admissions counselor? Clear conflict of interest. Stanford allows its admissions team getting paid on the side to coach affluent HS kids on how to get in to Stanford? Not a chance.
Calling the BS patrol on this one. Caveat Emptor. I worked one semester collating application packages and compiling statistical analyses on admit/rejects. That didn’t make me an admissions officer. It made me a college senior with a fun and interesting work-study job which did not require waking up at 6 am to make waffles in the dining hall (and paid the same. All work-study jobs at my college paid the same).
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