How good are college consultants?

Parents Forum
61

@corinthian , Your Speech and Debate example is right on. After judging many PF debates it is so sad to hear debaters deliver the “team case” written often in close consultation with a professional coach while really not understanding it or receiving the benefits that come with the research needed to write a good case. The hard work that your child has done to learn the ropes will no doubt pay off later in life, and that is more important than any win/loss record, even in the nats circuit.

@much2learn ,I never had the feeling that a reputable college counselor would suggest that a client fabricate an essay. And I certainly don’t feel it is wrong to present an applicant in the best light. What would worry me is packaging that does not represent “the product.” Maybe I need to remove my rose colored glasses ? For the most part peoples experiences, as related in this thread, seem pretty positive.

62

I guess I’m of the opinion that anything that’s genuinely relevant to your application should be inquired about. Why do they ask information about your parents, like where they went to college? How is that any more relevant than whether or not they hired a pricey consultant to walk you through the process and “package” you or help you prepare your essays? They both give “context” to your application.

I realize there’s no way to “even the playing field” for every applicant, and obviously the playing fields differ dramatically between schools. But why guess about something as significant as a paid advisor when you could just ask? Is there an element of “plausible deniability” going on here, as in they don’t WANT to know?

63

So where did Deepak go to college?

And what was the local engagement to back this up? See, a lot of folks think one centerpiece project is so exciting. But a whole pattern has to emerge.

I realize we only get a digest here, but they tell us he showed his film and raised some funds- what, where? He showed it at his hs and collected $200 or his work was used in some national campaign? Not suggesting it needs to be national, at all. But one single thing isn’t necessarily a push.

In Kim’s case, whether they helped her find the research doesn’t matter so much, if she did what she says. Intel proves she was vetted.

Neither description begins to reflect holistic.

64

@singersdad I was not suggesting that college counselors are fabricating essays. It had been expressed that perhaps how much help a student received with their essays should be disclosed. I was attempting to point out that asking that question would probably not be helpful because, unfortunately, there is no way to verify this fact or many other facts on the application. I think it is likely that by asking a question like that, you just end up punishing the most honest kids and rewarding the biggest liars. :frowning:

65

I don’t think there is a way to account for the use of a paid consultant that is fair and even handed. I don’t know anyone at my daughter’s small public high school that has been “packaged” by a consultant, and I assume most of the applications from our high school have an authentic feel to them. Neighboring school districts do have an extra layer of wealth to them, and it is more common for parents to use tutors/consultants/anything that can give their kid an advantage. So, should the application reader deduct points if it is apparent that the student took advantage of some connection, or received assistance along the way? Should the experience of working in dad’s medical office or mom’s chemistry lab be diminished? I know there is unfairness, big and small, all the way through the process. Realistically, it would be difficult to assess the impact of an advantage or a disadvantage. There are too many variables.

66

@lookingforward‌, Deepak ended up going to Penn after taking a gap year at the recommendation of The Ivy Coach.

http://theivycoach.com/college-admissions-cases/

I’m not sure what exactly you mean when you say “Neither description begins to reflect holistic,” but it’s pretty clear Deepak failed to impress any school “holistically” (since he was denied by EVERY holistic school he applied to his senior year) until he hired The Ivy Coach and followed their extensive advice.

But an adcom DOES know if a kid worked in mom or dad’s lab. That’s precisely my point. Again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with using ANY connection at your disposal. What I’m asking is why don’t adcoms seek to get the fullest picture possible by ASKING the applicant to disclose certain things. I would argue if they’re going to ask if the parents went to college (and where they attended) and what they do for a living, why wouldn’t you ask if they employed a PAID consultant to help their kid with his application? It’s a simple yes or no question, and a “variable” that seems a lot more relevant than a lot of the stuff that comprises the “holistic” picture.

67

D2’s college consultant specifically told D2 not to do a summer program that’s paid for if possible. He told her to compete for a program that will pay for her to go. It would show adcoms she is a competitive applicant who does not depend on her parents to create opportunities for her. Now, D2 did come up with her own topics, but she discussed them with her essay tutor to make sure they are appropriate. She wrote all of her essays and the essay tutor looked them over to make sure they have the right tone and the right message is coming through. The consultant also helped D2 on how to leverage some connections she had at her ED school. They (it was a team of consultants) worked very hard with D2 on her actual application. I compared D2’s application with D1’s (no private consultant). D2’s application was a lot more polished and better crafted. Her EC and award sections were very well presented and D2 couldn’t have done it by herself. On the other hand, there are a lot of parents who are very good at presentation. They probably could do a lot of it themselves without paying someone to do it. The issue here is that not every parent can help out. So where do you draw the line.

68

Lucie, I meant we don’t see the whole picture, just this centerpiece (if it’s on IC’s web site, sorry, didn’t go there.) I guess they did help him.

69

I wouldn’t have any problem with schools asking for disclosure of a consultant’s help. I don’t think it would be that instructive, because consultants vary so much and the same consultant gives such different help to different students. But if colleges wanted to know, that’s fine with me.

70

This might offend the posters who believe that packaging is an unfair practice, but my personal bottom line is the end product is always better than your typical application that includes a long series of activities that make little sense and fail to transmit much of an “image” to the audience. One reality is that many students are REALLY busy compiling long lists of small activities. They serially join clubs at their high schools, run for some leadership positions, dabble in a bit of EC such as serving soup to homeless people (mostly ONE time) and are told that this will work. The biggest issue is that (again IMHO) the readers simply take a glance at the list of activities and conclude “Nice set of TYPICAL HS activities” but then look for something memorable that allows them to make a distinction.

Let’s face it. Schools establish guidelines for acceptable students in terms of GPA and test scores, and usually find enough candidates (sometimes many times over) who meet the “requirements” and then have to rely on the “rest of the application” to separate those candidates. The essays are a good start as some writers can go right to the heart of the reader with stories that have NOTHING to do with the grades and scores (an error often made in essays) and start building an image that goes beyond the grades. Then there are the LORS which (hopefully) cover both work in school AND known activities from outside the classroom. And finally, there is the list of activities that provide the best opportunity, and especially if such list shines with true EC and with one or two PROVEN success stories.

Good consultants can sift through the stack and information and make sure to develop into a pointed application that leaves few doubts about who the student is. However, this is NOT the exclusive domain of highly paid consultants as many of them have been very generous in sharing their experience through websites and books. One can do just as well by reading through the books of Hernandez, Cohen, Hughes, Bauld, and plenty of others. And all of this for a few dollars.

Alas, all the above, while available is overlooked by the overwhelming majority of students who make the MISTAKE to listen to the amateurs, the charlatans, the teachers who are really clueless, and to the overworked GCs who are NOT able to apply the type of granularity required by a great application. Hence, you see the sea of Lake Wobegon applications that are purported to be good enough, badly written LORs that mean nothing or are destructive (as in Little Susie has good grades and works so hard at it,. Little Aaron is such a diligent student) and a hodgepodge of “20 hours a year” activities with nothing that grabs the attention.

In the end, and I hate to bring this up, but I do NOT think that adcoms are great experts at ferreting out the “packaged” applications, and for one good reason: the good consultants are molding the applications in a manner that responds directly to what adcoms want to see. And their results allow them to refine their approach on a timely basis. I did read the comments about the person “who worked in admissions more than a decade ago” as an attempt to reduce that “knowledge” but that misses the point entirely. Those people DID understand the process from the inside and have been able to monitor the changes through stables of candidates. On the other hand, most adcoms who do the basic work have … moved on as it is a young person game.

And a game it is! Some just play it better than others. My conclusion is that people who have the money and can afford the better consultants should DO it, as the applications WILL benefit from it. People who cannot or are unwilling to hire someone CAN get very close (or even better) by following a DYI approach, but the caveat is that one has to be able to set aside the huge amount of POOR advice (especially in their direct circles of friends and family) and take the time to understand the process. I do not think that this works very well when people start in the 11th grade, but works extremely well when starting … before the first day of HS.

71

@LucieTheLakie - Yes, they know you are working at mom or dad’s lab. Even if they know that, does that diminish the experience of working in the lab, even if the opportunity was handed to them? Let’s say the applicant wants to major in chemistry, and has done some lab work and can speak to that experience and what they learned from it. Even if they are perfectly clear that it was mom’s lab, the experience is the experience. Now, if another student has to work hard to get the same job because they are not born with such advantages, perhaps the committee gives the advantage to that student.

And I agree with someone upstream who pointed out that asking if a student used a paid consultant will not necessary elicit an honest response.

@oldfort makes a good point. Some students don’t need to hire a college consultant because they have parents who can help polish the application. That would be like a hidden advantage. It can’t be accounted for.

My brother’s 2 kids attended a top high school in Metro NYC. The GC there truly knew how to package kids. She was a gem. A nearby private school has an amazing guidance department - they truly guide the process and help kids shape their resumes. Our GC knows how to the press the button in Naviance to send letters. These are the variables I am referring to; parents, guidance counselors, your zip code, your uncle the doctor…there is no way around it.

72

Regarding the disclosures, I agree with Hanna completely. I do not really think adcoms are “that” interested in such information, unless the application appears to be completely over the top and raises suspicions. Fwiw, there have been many stories of foreign applicants who show both low verbal scores but have essays that could have been penned by Grisham or Hemingway --actually Hemingway’s prose might not have worked well!

As far as the full disclosure, there are probably ways to answers truthfully without raising the flags. What does the help with “filling the application” really mean? Does a writing coach used in the 11th grade count? A pro to help with dyslexia? A soccer coach? A mentor in the lab?

My take is that one can retain a number of “assistants” to help the student, and still not trigger a positive response about “who helped you” with the application.

73

@VMT, you’re making my point exactly. Of course working at mom or dad’s lab doesn’t diminish your work in any way. But what if an adcom discounts that work as the benefit of “privilege” compared to the kid who appears to have gone out on her own to make similar (or more impressive) contacts, even though in reality it was her highly paid consultant who made that connection on her behalf? One connection (the parent one) is disclosed (intentionally or not); the other isn’t. Never mind the poor kid who really is left to her own devices!

@xiggi, I thought I distinguished that the difference (as I see it) between spending money to improve oneself (quarterback’s coaches, summer programs, etc.) and spending money to make you look better on paper to an adcom.

Obviously, most kids will have “assistants” helping them along the way; what I’m talking about is using the services of professional editors and former Ivy admissions officers to “package” you. I mean some of these services sound pretty close to hiring a press agent or a PR firm (and charge accordingly). Presumably the most skilled professionals know how do it so as not to raise any red flags, or else what exactly is the family paying for? If I were an adcom, I would just want that information disclosed up front before I evaluated the applicant.

It’s understood that parents are involved to some degree (for good or ill) in overseeing a student’s application. It’s also pretty much assumed that at “certain” schools, the college counseling office helps package the student. It’s assumed/understood/a given. I have no idea if they also assume kids at a certain level use paid consultants as well. IMHO it would just be better to ask than assume.

I guess I just don’t understand why adcoms wouldn’t encourage as much transparency as possible in the hope of making the process as fair as possible to potential applicants.

74

I will say that if I were ever to hire a consultant…and we literally didn’t have the money…it would have been the Ivy Coach…i enjoy her newsletter and her articles…very insightful and they ring true…

75

I suspect if I were a college counselor, I would say that what I was doing was helping kids improve themselves – focus their interests, get their activities in line with their interests and ambitions, make the most out of their lives, communicate better with others – and that their success with college applications represented substance, not mere presentation. Or perhaps I might say that I was helping kids do a better job expressing who they are. That may be “looking better on paper,” but really it’s more like “looking like yourself on paper.”

(My kids never used a counselor. Maybe they should have. But things worked out great for them anyway.)

76

To a certain extent, professional assistance with the applications mirrors what will happen in one’s later working life. When you need help with a process that is difficult, and new to you, you might use a consultant. I would hope the adcoms recognize that. They themselves are probably using consultants to help increase their yields.

77

Agreed, @JHS, but if all the college consultant did was ‘help you help yourself,’ why not be transparent about it? Why not give credit where credit is due? It’s the lack of disclosure that leaves one to wonder what the exact nature of the relationship was.

78

The folks I know who admit to using “packagers” have kids with a disciplinary issue, some other blot on the record, and the packagers are useful in both guiding the kid to a college where he/she can be admitted warts and all, AND in spinning the issue. These are not kids who would have been a stretch at JHU who then waltz into Harvard because of packaging…

Despite the spin that the college consultants give themselves, I am skeptical of what they can actually accomplish. Turn a solid B student in Princeton material? Nope. I don’t think that building houses in Honduras is making that happen. Turn a solid C student into a Fordham admit? Nope, not for all the ghost writing and activities packaging in the world.

I just don’t buy the hype they’ve created for themselves, and I feel sorry for vulnerable people who feel that their kid is at a disadvantage if they don’t want to or can’t hire one of these consultants.

Last year one of the kids in my neighborhood confessed that she’d been seeing one of these high priced counselors since she started HS. It made sense- all of a sudden the kid was doing activities she’d never been interested in before, was taking the ACT (we are in solid SAT territory) AND doing an online course for a language not offered at her HS and taking college trips to all sorts of interesting and off the beaten track kinds of places. Full pay family so not on a quest for exotic merit aid.

Where is she now? Binghamton. Not a knock on Binghamton at all, but when you live in the NY metro area it’s not exactly a hidden gem kind of school, and you most assuredly don’t need to pay for four years of college counseling to end up there.

So I’m not convinced that other than tell a kid with a solid academic record that they should apply to their state flagship plus some reach schools, that the counselors have a story to tell for most of their clients. It takes a LOT more than a well written essay (even if it’s completely ghost written by a professional) to get into U Chicago. A lot more. And I think the majority of people who pay for the big bucks counselors have very unrealistic expectations when it comes to their kids.

Kid got suspended junior year, with an otherwise strong academic record? To me, that’s worth hiring someone who knows which colleges will just toss the application into the auto-reject pile vs. which ones will carefully consider the entire kid. But take a kid with Hofstra-like grades and scores and pay big bucks to get them into Columbia? That’s not happening, no matter how many zeros are on that check.

79

I don’t disagree with you at all, @blossom, but clearly firms like The Ivy Coach are targeting the families of kids who are among the many who have the grades/test scores to make the cut at elite schools but are lacking that something “extra” that causes them to stand out in the crowd.

80

Lucie- and I’ll bet that their clients are ending up at Lehigh and Smith and Wake Forest-- just as they would have without the fancy packaging. These are great schools- I realize that a parent drooling over Dartmouth might view Smith as a lesser alternative for their daughter- but I’m still mystified as to how these Ivy Coach folks wave their magic wands over ordinary 17 year old kids.

It is hard to fake some of the stuff that gets kids into Cal Tech and Yale. It’s not just gloss and spin- it’s actual accomplishments in the real world. The kid who invented the new test for pancreatic cancer? I saw him interviewed on TV- he was so “real” that a college consultant would have stripped all that awkwardness and childlike wonder right out of him. Fortunately his parents seem equally clueless and authentic, so that’s not happening.

But I think people who think that hiring someone with the name “Ivy” on their business card is going to get pleasant but ordinary junior into Ivy, absent all the other stuff- well, that’s sad. Not my money so they can do with it what they like. But even living in hyper college obsessed NY metro area- I’m seeing a lot of people somewhat disabused of what the college consultants have done for their kids. And while I know folks who have hired one for the eldest kid, I don’t know anyone who has gone back to the same consultant for kid number 2 (or beyond).