How do you "package" a kid?

Parents Forum
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There are families who will shell out $100k to $300k to help their kids get into HYPSM. I actually come across very rich people who want to send their kids to top 10 (what they think are top 10 colleges) in my line of work. I actually think if I get the kids early, I could help them achieve their goals. My wife actually told me several times I should consider this line of work. I wouldn’t go into this line of work, but if I did, I would only do it on the following fee arrangement: $100k with expenses separate and a bonus of another $100k if the kid gets into top 2 colleges. I would limit number of clients to around 7 to 10, but would never charge below this amount. I am sure there are consultants who work on this type of fee arrangement. Note I am not in this line of work but just giving you how I would charge.

Having said this, I believe ultimately, spending time and showing your love to your kids to create good memories together is more important than your kid getting into a top college. Also, every kid has a different time schedule of motivation, self realization and growth. One thing I do like about USA — there are things I don’t like — kids can go from CC while working part time, to good UG and then to a great graduate school or take time off, grow and decide to return to school. Or learn a trade and do well.

For us, we just hoped our kid would get into one of UCLA/Berkeley. Everything else was a bonus. But no question we encouraged him to try different activities until he found what he liked. I would never encourage him to pursue an activity for two years just to get into a top school. But if he likes the activity and it turns out that such activity also helps to get into a college, more power to him.

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I understand what @Wheaty is saying. I hope, nothing I posted came across as critical of him because I certainly didn’t mean it. If I had a child with a true passion that really demanded a certain undergrad experience, and I had the means and knowledge, I would probably do the same thing.

What I have really learned from this thread is the value of figuring out how to let the application really tell the story of who each child really is. I will have to give that a lot of thought and more research. I appreciate all of you who share your experiences, especially those of you who have shared specifics about how to accomplish this. Thanks everyone.

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@Dustyfeathers I hear you and in some cases there is truth to what you are saying. I think many of you have the wrong opinion of this process. Here’s an example of what I do…

About 7 years ago a very good friend asked me to help him with his godson who we will call “George”. George was a sophomore at a large public school, single waitress mom, no money, 2.5 GPA really thin everything else. No direction, no plan at all about even going to college (what’s the point?). I mentored and prodded him with weekly academic calls. How did the history test go? What’s due tomorrow? At graduation he was a 3.0 with no AP’s. His application highlights were his essays and extraordinary EC’s.

He applied to 17 colleges and got 12 acceptances (some really nice surprises). George is graduating from the U of Arizona in June with a degree in business (finance) from Eller. From no college at all to a much better outcome.

Is it crazy? Yes. Is it plastic? I’m not sure. Did this process change the arc of a person’s life? Yes, 100% yes.

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^ This is very different than the MIT applicant.

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Yeah @Wheaty I agree with @twogirls . The example you just gave is not at all the same as the MIT applicant that you mentioned earlier.

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I agree. You want the right college for your kid. You don’t want to contort your kid into something they are not. That said, sometimes a kid needs a nudge. My older son the computer nerd would probably have been happy to just mess around teaching himself Linux and playing games. He still spent many, many hours doing just that, but we did see to it that he did more interesting things as well.

But the other thing is if you have a very, very bright kid. The kind who you really think would thrive at the HYPMSC sort of schools - you know they have to bring something more to the table than getting A’s in their sleep and stellar SAT scores. But they don’t know it. Or at least they probably don’t know it in 9th or 10th grade. I don’t think I was a helicopter parent, or that we packaged our kid, but he didn’t turn down opportunities. (Saturday lecture series at IBM, Saturday program for high school students at Columbia - both from teacher recommendations.) We knew he could waste his summers doing nothing. We reached out to someone for a week of job shadowing - they were so impressed it turned into a part time job. Stuff like that.

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@twogirls Yes MIT has awesome advisors and they are doing the real work. I help where I can. For example, I found a prominent MIT alum that has influence at out target program and he agreed to help. But yes the MIT advisors are really really good, The grad path is very different from the undergrad game. I’m a rookie on the grad side.

To those saying George is very different from the MIT example… yep night and day. All of my clients are unique and they all have different goals which keeps me very busy.

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@Faulkner1897 guided me to this thread as he (pretty sure it’s a he) thought I’d be interested in the topic. I was.

@gallentjill, @123Mom456 ZEEMEE is just the Common App’s way of providing what the Coalition App allows for – a way of showcasing some a student’s work and abilities. It is absolutely not necessary, and I suspect that 99% of the Adcoms out there won’t bother to click on the links, or if they do, they’ll watch about 5 seconds of a video or read the first 3 sentences of a kid’s short story. They will NOT be impressed by professional multi media presentations, although I’m sure many parents will be willing to fork over vast sums of money to have them produced. And they are certainly not necessary for college admissions – for elite schools or otherwise.

@websensation hit the nail on the head a couple of pages back with his description of character development/portrayal, and what does and does not constitute “a good packaging.” Ultimately, you want something that’s going to stick out in the mind (or heart, if you will) of the person reading it, and that can present a clear picture of who the applicant is and what makes him/her tick. They can accomplish this by making the commonplace special (as did the girl that wrote about her philosophical musings during her trips to Costco), and/or by creating a well-written and compelling narrative, preferably with a consistent theme or – as I like to think of it – a leitmotif that leaves the reader with something to hang his/her hat on when scribbling 3 or 4 notes about a candidate.

At the end of the day, you want the applicant to be the one that the Adcom is inspired to lobby for in front of the admissions committee. Remember, these people are reading hundreds upon hundreds of applications (according to a 2015 article in “Inside Higher Ed,” Adcoms in private schools were reviewing upwards of 650 applications on average – probably double that at publics). A student should want the app to have them take notice. Ideally, they should show a bit of a sense of humor, an ability to think outside the box, and even a willingness to take some risks. At the end of the day, you want the applicant to be remembered “Oh, that’s the ____ that kid likes to ____”

I think that meaningful ECs that tie into a coherent narrative are key. Another very important this to do is to establish close relationships with teachers and mentors. Teacher recs count WAY more than people give them credit (and, no, they do not have to – nor should they – be school-specific). They should, however, support the narrative and hopefully discuss the impact that the student has inside and outside the classroom. I like to think of it as a bit of a jigsaw puzzle – the GPA/stats/hooks are all of the end pieces that frame the picture, the ECs are salient images within the frame, and the essays should weave everything together and create a coherent image.

My D was a spikey humanities kid – academically, she reached the highest possible level in two foreign languages and was able to take three AP/Honors literature classes in her senior year. Her summers were spent discovering and feeding a new-found passion for art history and museum studies that included a museum internship and an art-related TASP seminar. She showed both a desire for collaboration and an ability to lead, created a program in one of her main ECs for the middle school, and was active in diversity leadership / promoting the rights of the disenfranchised, including – and especially – the disabled. She did these things because they interested her and she was passionate about them.

Her ECs were directly or tangentially related to her passions and they helped to paint a picture that accompanied the story she told in her CA essay. That is how she “packaged” herself, with the operative word being herself. She did that for TASP got into every school she applied to, including HYPS and several full tuition scholarships at top 20 schools, including Vanderbilt, USC, and WashU.

I have not (yet) figured out how to parlay this into making a living, but I like to think that I am an editor par excellence (that doesn’t know how to italicize on CC), and have been spending my time and my empty nest paying it forward with anonymous CCers, children of friends and neighbors, etc. whom I have been helping pro bono (again, no italics). So far, I’ve been hearing pretty exciting news for some of the kids I’ve worked with and am anxiously awaiting further results rooting for all of my kids.

Eventually, I might try putting together a portfolio and try to make a living doing this (hey, @websensation – maybe you and I should team up and join @wheaty’s ranks?!? I need a business partner!)

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@mathmom All those things you nudged your kid into doing seem like wonderful enrichment opportunities in their own right, not simply stepping stones to an Ivy. I would have done the same with my kids and in fact I did. Helping your kids find challenging, stimulating activities in lieu of sitting around playing video games is a far cry from contorting your children to fit into some specific mold.

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It’s funny to me when some describe a kid who just pursued his/her own passions, but you don’t realize how what you note DOES match what the college seeks- in much more specific ways than “just be yourself.” That gal who loves petting the kittens at the shelter and writes a hearfelt essay about it, may very well be telling the wrong story for that college. True to herself? Yep. Showing her match to what that college “looks for?” May very well not be. Top adcoms aren’t looking for buzz phrases, “that gal who loves kittens.” They’re looking for the pattern of attributes, including drives, energy, follow through in the right ways.

The more you understand what a college looks for, the better you can highlight your right aspects. And hey, if you want to be X and someone suggests this or that experience, nothing wrong with that. It’s not robbing you of yourself.

I don’t think knowing an alum is much key to a stem grad admit. Those programs need kids whose (research) interests, academic strengths, and experiences align with the particular dept and its faculty. But if that alum works for NASA and gets her an internship, so much the better.

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@Wheaty - your clients are not different. They are all exactly the same. They have a goal of accomplishing something and you help them achieve it. For whatever reason, they couldn’t figure it out on their own and sought help. That’s awesome. Without it neither example would be meeting their definition of success. No different than any other valuable service.

Some people use a CPA for simple tax returns, others use them for complex tax issues. I’m sure there are many who would say the simple return could have figured it out on his own and who cares about the rich guy, He’s rolling in it anyway. The reality is, they both seek help and a CPA provides it. So do you! Well done!!

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@LoveTheBard If I ever do decide to go into this college application consulting business, I will definitely let you know. As any good attorney and doctor knows, to achieve a high success rate, one needs to be good at picking clients/patients who are sufficiently motivated to try hard. This might be a good complementary business to what I am doing anyway. I am going to first spend some effort to see if there are interested potential clients. I will PM you with what I find out.

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One of the biggest values college consultants bring is their knowledge of campuses, which most of them visit throughout the country, and colleges people never heard of that could be good fits. They also try not to make the top-10 colleges (whatever ranking you choose) as the goal because they how tough and random the process is.

Most of them say point blank, if you think they’re going to get their kid into Stanford or Harvard, they should look elsewhere.

websensation, bard, your kids got into Stanford, you won’t be able to say, be as unique as my kid (tautologically impossible of course) and you can get in, if that’s your plan! You make very good points though on the essay and how it can weave things together.

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I work as a college consultant, and I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “package” or even thought of that word. I’ve had students get into Stanford, MIT, Princeton, etc., but that’s not my goal. My goal is to get to know students, find out who they are, help them to know themselves better, help draw out their “stories”, help them to become better communicators, better writers, encouraging them to think about where they can and do serve others, all in an effort to help them put their authentic voice forward in order to find the best fit colleges for them so that they can thrive where they are planted.

My most “successful” students are the ones who are most open, honest, willing to have good conversations, who are willing to dive beneath the surface and take risks, who take feedback but might give me push-back if something isn’t aligning with their goals/their thoughts, and who allow their unique story to come through their application.

I don’t make promises; instead, I encourage my parents and students to manage their expectations because college admissions is a fierce business. These kids are terrific, and getting accepted or rejected by any particular college will not change that.

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My D’s GC only smiled and nodded at my D and every school she mentioned. Guidance was not provided by any stretch of the imagination. My H and I applied to college in a different era and we had to do a tremendous amount of work to figure out how to approach this in today’s world. She has been accepted to three state school Honors colleges thus far but I am not sure if her apps will get her into any of the private schools she applied to. Our guidance may not have been enough.
We have a friend whose son was accepted to only one of the eight schools he applied to. This kid had tremendous stats but it was a no everywhere.
It may sound “artificial” but if you have the money and want to maximize the chances for your child to get into a particular school then I think it is worth going to a consultant.

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Any parent and student that has already gone through the admissions process will have very definite opinions in regard to " packaging".
I believe we can safely agree that this is more of a consideration or at least something that is more widely discussed relative to admission at highly selective colleges.
This is so highly charged emotionally for so many of us! There are elements of the admissions consulting industry that many of us find distasteful. How it can seem so contrived, how offensively expensive it can be, how it feeds and contributes toward the desperation that exists for many students and their families.
I am thankful that we were not completely aware of the extent of these things when our daughter was in high school and was involved in the admissions process. We really valued balance. There was an awareness of building a stronger admissions resume but not a preoccupation with it.
We were not willing to aggressively steer her in a manner that had her lose who she was and lose a balanced high school experience.
We were lucky. Who she was and her natural interests and drive and authenticity were appealing to “some” of the schools that were her reaches.
I have such compassion and empathy for any student and family who is attempting to navigate this process!
I am also always available to anyone here who would like a sounding board to have a conversation about any of this.

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Our approach as parents was to raise a good citizen/human being. If that had a favorable impact on college admissions- terrific. But we were not willing to sacrifice our own values and aspirations for our kids for the sake of college.

I know HS kids who do no chores around the house. Not because there’s a household staff- both parents work at paying jobs, and then end up with ALL the meal prep, laundry, leaf raking, etc. Kid’s time is “too valuable” for chores. I know HS kids who get an automatic pass on religious services (if that’s part of the family tradition), grandma’s 80th birthday, helping a cousin who has just had major surgery, or whatnot because EC’s and academics consume every free minute of every day and week. Kids who don’t write thank you notes for birthday gifts to the aunts and uncles. Etc.

The fact that they are being “packaged” (the Classics kid who fences, or the Robotics kid who is first chair violin) does not impress me terribly. First of all- because not every “packaged kid” is going to be successful at his or her quest. Maybe U Chicago doesn’t need another fencer next year (they always love Classics kids-- but maybe not this one). Perhaps MIT already has its choice of violinists in the applicant pool, all of whom love Robotics. And second- you get exactly one shot to raise your kid. There are no do-overs. I’d rather my kid trudged off to community college but was a participating member of a community/family/society/civilization than produce a Harvard matriculant who made every decision about what to do or not to do based on fidelity to his or her “brand”.

When does the kid get to take a walk around the block, shovel snow for the elderly neighbor, read a book for pleasure, call grandpa to chat if every nook and cranny of his life is consumed with being packaged?

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@lookingforward

If I had a kid who felt that working at the shelter was their most defining achievement, I would want her to go to a college that valued that aspect of her personality. There must be colleges out there that would say, “we want that girl who loves animals and is willing to devote her time to them instead of doing the classic resume building activities.” Wouldn’t a college like that, regardless of name brand, be a better fit?

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When I think of competitive colleges, I don’t think loving animals is the sort of relevant bullet they look for. Even if she wants to be a vet, there can be activities more central and a broader sort of self awareness she could convey.
And you did previously mention an interest in top colleges.

I’m not sure, blossom, just how crazy your circle of hs families you know is. Yes, some are so driven with Ivy fever that they lose perspective. But that’s the first problem. Being exclusively hyperfocused, not really normal, is no tip for a tippy top. If anything, being a high energy/vision kid who’s still normal is very appreciated, looked for.

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When everyone around me drives an SUV, I worry about buying a small car because in the case of an accident I will be crushed. This is the issue.

My D attends a special magnet/dual enrollment type program and some of her friends don’t even know how to make eggs or clean anything. Several of her friends said that their mothers don’t let them use the kitchen. She makes plans to go to a movie or go to lunch on a day off and more often than not the plans are canceled because her friend’s parents say no. So my poor kid plans and plans and plans to be successful at a social outing 1 out of every 5 times. (This is minor stuff…a movie at the local theater, for example) Most of her friend’s mothers are tiger moms. Grades and ECs are all that matter.

When your child ends up in these hyper-competitive environments, it is hard not to worry that our kids will be crushed if we don’t follow the tiger mom ways.