Did anyone hire consultants for help with college applications process? What criteria you used to select a consultant? There are tons of consultants these days with little to lot of qualifications. Would hiring a consultant to help provide an advantage when it comes to merit scholarships/honors essays? Does it make a difference for Ivy+ college admissions?
Posting this for myself & for all my friends who have students for 2025 class.
I have the same question. I am considering hiring a consultant who has been positively referred by a couple families I know, but not sure if it’s worth the cost…his hourly rate is $200. To me that’s shocking but people in California don’t seem to be bothered by the price.
It’s not out of the norm. But you should identify what you want the consultant to do, and get an idea of what it will cost. You definitely don’t want to authorize unlimited spending.
You can also ask people on CC for advice. There are people here with good advice on many types of schools.
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It’s not that high for an in person consultant in CA. We used someone referred to us who lives in another state and does Zoom consultations. That cost $80/hour in 2017-18, I think $125/hour in 2022-23 (had gone up with demand and experience). We used about 20-25 hours per kid in total, starting winter/spring of junior year. We found it most useful as a way of initially talking through interests then having someone else keep on top of applications, rather than constantly be hassling our kids. But we were involved in essay review too (and I think better at it). I don’t think it provided a major advantage in scholarships, D did win a full ride but did the essay herself (with our review) after brainstorming topics with us.
No paid test prep here, 10 hours or so of self-study on Khan Academy was perfectly adequate and they were all one and done (1540/35/1530 for the three kids). All took in spring/summer of junior year, it’s now getting very late for current seniors.
It may also be late to find someone good for this fall’s applications, popular consultants usually fill their available slots by spring of junior year.
Could you share who the consultant was that you used via Zoom?
Referrals are not allowed on CC.