Most kids in my neck of the woods (and I’m in the allegedly prestige obsessed Northeast you hear so much about) apply to our state flagship and maybe an adjacent state. The top academic kids from the local Catholic HS’s apply to ND, Holy Cross and Georgetown, the rest apply to the less competitive Catholic colleges (Providence is very popular). The local prep schools have a great reputation for college counseling, and parents know that’s part of what they are paying for.
If that leaves the top 10 kids at the public HS’s in the region needing a private counselor AND being able to pay for it (not necessarily a slam dunk, since many of those kids are the children of recent immigrants- smart, ambitious, not affluent) that is WAY under 26%!!!
SkiEurope’s citation is interesting. I bet we could find competing statistics (as in “26% of kids who need financial aid admit to hiring financial aid consultants”)