My daughter is in her junior year of High School and we’re just starting our college application journey. We heard that many folks are leveraging services from professional college counselors…
My daughter has great aspirations to try to get into a top 25 school, and having spoken to a couple of these counselors, it seems they can help take some of the stress/anxiety from this whole process by pointing them towards specific directions but on the other hand, it is so pricey…so just wondering if it’s worth it… so if anyone has used those kind of services, would love to hear from you whether positive and/or negative… and if there are specific ones that we should consider/stay away from if we were to consider…
I think the best thing a professional consultant can do in most cases is help the student build a good college list with appropriate reaches, matches, and safeties, which takes into account student interests, personality, general preferences, intended major, and finances/ability to pay/need for aid. Once you have a good college list, the rest isn’t too bad. It’s just paperwork - annoying at times, but doable. But a good college list is worth its weight in gold. Of course, you can also get free guidance right here on CC…
We used independent college counselors for our two kids for a few reasons. The biggest benefit was having the counselor as a buffer between the parents and kids, another adult holding the kids responsible for grades, college application deadlines and such. The counselors were also helpful in HS course selection and college list building. It turned out that both kids were recruited athletes, for which I ended up leading that process, but we didn’t know that in freshman year of HS (when we hired the counselors).
My kid went to a boarding school, so a dedicated CC was part of the "package ". We felt her services were worth the tuition.
If you have not done this since you did it for yourself, so much has changed. She helped craft a good list of schools to consider and helped DS present himself in the application in the best possible light. She destressed ED deferrals, WL offers, etc. And her strategy kept us from messing up our relationship with our kid over this!
We didn’t use any help with the first two kids. For S23, we finally gave in an engaged one very late in the process – early August going into senior year. And the only reason we did it is because he wouldn’t listen to any of our advice and we hoped he would be more receptive to hearing it from someone else perceived as an expert. We only paid for a few of sessions.
In the end it was hit and miss, but on balance worth it. On the one hand, the counselor suggested the same thing we had about leaning into his exceptional EC in the apps, which he had been dismissive of when we suggested it and acted like it was a brand new idea when the counselor said it. On the other hand, we had asked the counselor to help him find more matches and do less reaches and on that front it was not helpful. The counselor got him to do even more reaches, calling them matches, and didn’t add any real matches or safeties (the counselor told him Rice would be “almost certain” for him, for example). We were annoyed about that. But in the end, I’m fairly convinced the emphasis on his EC made a difference with numerous very reach schools, so we’ll take the net win.
The Facebook group Paying for College is so helpful.
But in any case, there are private counselors who charge hourly rather than making you buy $$$$ packages. At least that way you’d be getting the type and amount of help you actually need (which might be hard to predict in advance.
Regarding private counseling: we did not even consider it. The vast majority of the kids we know have not—but—we do have very thorough college counseling at our HS. I do know some who have used private counseling who go to other schools, with mixed results. One colleague paid a ton : kid was above avg non-rock star at a mid level private school that sends a handful to top30 each year. Kid was shut out and parents frustrated because they felt as though they were promised success. They were WL at the flagship and rejected or WL to all other t30s. But got into schools and had options. What was very interesting to me is just from knowing the water-cooler minimum details, the scores were around 25th%ile for the flagship, below that for reachier ones, the kidwas not near top10% rank and had probably above avg rigor. With no hooks, the kid had a very low chance coming from a school where only a handful or slightly more get in to that level of school. They believed the promises of the private counseling service that they could “get her in”.
People on here love to say don’t aim for T25. I disagree—aim away if your kid is truly and honestly in contention:
—get data from the HS: do 5%, 10% or 20% roughly matriculate at such schools ?
—get your hands on a copy of the school profile. All schools send one to colleges.
—is your kid on track to be in the corresponding top % of kids based on rigor of coursework and rank? Both are important but all things being equal, rigor is more important.
—is your kid, at baseline, scoring at a minimum in the 97th%ile on standardized tests, without prep, over the years? Most schools do some sort of testing in middle school, or the psat8-9/10. In general, the vast majority of kids at the t25s are this range and up. At t10s, almost 75% are at the 99th %ile(pre test optional which skewed the true data).
—If your kid is NOT ticking the boxes on all the above this then maybe do not encourage the T25 schools because it is much less likely to be a realistic quest
—if they ARE, then investigate and encourage away, and you can likely find all you need on this website.
Best of luck!
I think the real benefit is that a good - and not all are good - private CC has info most of us don’t. Every CC I know has worked in admissions at more than one college, so has the perspective of a reader, and one who has seen thousand of essays and applicants. Most also remain connected – in fact, the colleges do tours specifically for them – and have an understanding of what certain schools are looking for, how they are looking at TO applications, etc. I will also say that none I know work with kids to craft them into what colleges want. They all get to know the kids and want to make a good fit by finding the right school. And every one I know also has stories about how they have ended up mediating with parents when they have had kids who knew what they wanted and it wasn’t what the parents wanted.
But for a kid who’s application to the local flagship or to schools that admit based on stats, there’s probably no value added.
I have a few friends who have used counselors to help the shepherd the process, keep the peace and put together a good list of safety/match/reach schools. I think they can be helpful if you aren’t getting good direction from your school GC or if the process is creating a lot of friction with your child. I’d be leary of any CC who promises to get your kid into any particular school.
As previously mentioned, it’s a policy that we don’t allow people to post recommendations for private college advisors here on CC. Otherwise people would create bogus accounts to recommend themselves or a friend, etc… Any posts recommending private advisors will be removed.
On a more helpful note, your best bet is to find local recommendations via a social media page in your area. There are of course big professional companies that are easily found with a Google search.
Speaking from experience, we used a private advisor by the hour (maybe 4 hours) for the first kid and not for the second. The advisor was helpful to a certain extent, but I am glad we didn’t use her extensively. I knew so much by the time my second was ready to start that no outside guidance was sought.
If you find the process unmanageable, have no time, are hopelessly confused, or have a particular situation you feel would benefit from expert help, a private advisor can be helpful. But I also agree you can find all the help you need here.
You can get a lot of info here, but not all that a good CC can provide, especially help knowing you personally and helping you package yourself.
Not everyone needs that. This community is great and knowledgeable but it’s not the same as a personal relationship with a person who is seeing your whole application and who has seen thousands as a decision maker.
For D, the advice was not particularly accurate or helpful. We didn’t choose to work with her again.
For S24, we chose a different company. So far, so good. They have created essay deadlines for my son that he has stuck to, they have encouraged him to emphasize strengths he might have overlooked, and they helped my son target his college list to include reasonable options.
Bottom line: none of these advisors can help your child get in to a selective college. At best, they can enable your family to make more informed choices, lessen child-parent stress, and help your child present their best selves on paper. If anyone promises you more than that, run in the opposite direction.
I think it is important to remember there is no barrier of entry for this profession - so it would be important to understand the background and experience of the counselor. What professional organizations are they part of (none would be a big red flag to me), extra training, yearly professional conference attendance, how many colleges do they visit/have they visited per year/over their tenure, do they specialize in one area like list building, essays, financial aid etc. What pricing structure works best for your family - hourly or a full package? Like most purchases do your research to find the right fit.
All families I know that have used these services had different reasons for doing so - and none were trying to game admissions and instead were looking for list building, someone else for the student to be accountable to (vs the parent) for the process, test and/or essay assistance.
Personally, I would avoid any company with the name Ivy, Dream or the like or using that as their hook.
Our kids had the benefit of an amazing college team at their independent school and it was our friends with kids at public schools that ended up hiring outside assistance. We did consult for 1 hour/$175 with a specialist in sports recruiting to run some scenarios by her (it was during covid) to make sure what our child was hearing sounded right. I had just found CC, but wanted to keep the details of their recruiting journey more general on CC and used CC more for my anxiety around the unknown
Last thing, our independent HS started with the students in 9th grade with roadmap ideas for HS course selection during a short presentation at the end of 8th grade - not high pressure, but informative. I had friends at other schools all wish they were thinking a bit about college at that time - whether it was around course selection, campus drive bys when in the area, volunteering etc - not high stress, but just a little tickle - this is another piece that some private college counselors offer in a package with a short meeting in 9th and 10th grade and then the “real” work in 11th to avoid surprises around language, math level or ?
or using that as their hook.