This is the whole enchilada right here. If this is true, not only are all of these rich people wasting excessive money on these consultants, but every parent on this site is making a HUGE mistake by wasting time and money on the pursuit of any educational path for their child that does not involve community college.
If every single community college student has the exact same opportunities (through enough effort) that every IvyPlus student has, the amount of people making reckless financial decisions and wasting massive amounts of time is enormous (especially around here).
Disagree with this? Is there a part of you that thinks there is value in attending a highly selective institution? If that is the case, for someone with the money, spending $100K+ on a consultant with a decent batting average is money well spent.
The most interesting part of this discussion is that so many people want to exist in the middle ground when there really is no middle ground.
Oh! I actually know about this. As mentioned on another thread, I attended a gifted school between 4th and 12th grade. Admission was based on a series of IQ tests then a sort of psychological interview - all conducted at the school districtās expense with a consultant they hired for this purpose. Because the bar for admission was high, obviously most students did not meet it. And that really p**sed off some parents who felt their smart kids deserved the advantages of an accelerated and enriched education.
So what they did was hire their own psychologist to administer the IQ tests to their kids and - surprise! - when the person they paid who knows how much administered the tests, suddenly junior was a super genius.
There was a psychologist in town who was well-known for providing this service.
So, yes, you could certainly pay for this advantage and essentially buy your way in.
But hereās the kicker: I was (and am) close friends with two people whose mother was a teacher at the school for over 20 years. They told me she ALWAYS knew. She always knew who had tested in with the district consultant and who had tested in with the private psychologist. Apparently it was obvious who just wasnāt quite up to the work at the school.
Which, ultimately, is very sad for those kids who were pushed into it via their parentsā money and misplaced ambition.
Edited to clarify that this was NOT a private school. It was (and still is!) a public school. That was part of the controversy - public money is being used to educate a small minority of students, so some parents whose kids did not get in were very resentful of this fact (which is understandable, of course).
I think there can be value in attending a highly selective institution. If S24 should be admitted, Iāll happily pay for it. But what I see as the value is the educational experience not the expectation that my son will do materially better, career wise, than he would do attending a less selective institution.
I think herein lies the rub. People have (very) different definitions of value. For some itās limited to including nothing other than literal ROI. How much did you pay and how much are you now earning?
For others, value includes a great many other things. I recognize that there is great privilege inherent in including other things.
Where I live, the private schools that require this kind of testing will only accept the scores from the group of providers they work with to do their admissions evaluations. The issue here isnāt with some provider inflating the scores- the issue is with parents sharing the questions and answers!!
I think because this particular school is public, then they have to make these allowances for alternative testing for those who believe the district testing somehow wasnāt accurate or fair to their kids. I donāt know. My point was simply that you could in fact pay money and suddenly your kid was gifted - in way similar to how you can pay enough for a college consultant and suddenly your kid is Harvard material. Not in all cases, of course, but in some. These unfortunately seem to be problems that can go away if you throw enough money at them. And that is actually not always in the best interest of the child.
Earlier, I quoted someone who felt that any opportunity available for a Harvard graduate is available to any student who goes to community college. An accurate definition of āvalueā in this case would be ANY benefit attainable by someone at a highly selective institution that is not attainable by someone currently in community college.
If any such benefits exists, then this begins to justify an effective consultant.
Yes, public schools would have different criteria.
That said, while there are likely some providers who need an ethics tune-up, there are also those (we knew who they were in my area) who seemed a tad overly generous with asking additional questions/clarification if a student gave a 1 point answer so it might then be a 2 point answer. That can add up, if done too much, to inflate the score, even if it does show that the student knows the information.
I understand your point to be this: Letās assume attending a highly selective institution has SOME added value. If a family truly has money to burn, why not burn it on buying the best possible college consulting, so that you can make the kidās chances just a bit better?
This would make logical senseā¦ except for the problem that excessively smoothing the kidās path through the college admission process might also have actual downsides for the kidās fundamental self confidence and personal growth. Basically, the helicopter parenting problem.
An easy one is being surrounded in every class every day by very bright kids. This is easily borne out in CDS. Thereās a difference between a school with a 25/50/75th percentile SAT of 1300/1400/1500 and 1000/1100/1200.
Yes of course there will be super bright, high score kids at the latter. And youāll find more of them in certain majors and in higher level courses. But those are the exception, not the rule.
Of course, some people may not care about this, or see it as a benefit. In fact some may consider it a detriment for various reasons!
Personally I feel extremely strongly about this particular thing, but I fully acknowledge, accept, and respect that others feel otherwise.
ETA: Iād also echo some other ideas already mentioned, and more as a general response to the thread overall, that a lot of the reaction here is based on the extreme price. $500k or more (remember the $120k is per year!) really rankles a lot of people - some here even called it akin to Varsity Blues. But private HS tuition is apparently less bothersome. Hourly test prep even less so than that. People seem to draw their lines of outrage at points as they see fit.
In some cases the IEC is expected (rightly or wrongly) to be the āpaid nagā. Often the parent doesnāt want to or in some cases probably shouldnāt be in that role.
In a somewhat analogous situation, there are executive function coaches who do this (provide structure, reminders, cues, ticklers, etc) for students and employees who may have attention or organizational challenges.
To me it is not about whether the consultant charges $1k, $10k, or $100kā¦ unless the price is actually a burden to the family. The question for me is whether this very high level of hand-holding actually benefits the student, and also how does it affect the entering class at the selective institution, if the student is going to be surrounded by others who were similarly hand-held?
Agreed. And I think the difference between these overpriced āIvyXXXā named consultants and the Varsity Blues scandal is that in the case of the Varsity Blues, they were blatantly lying/cheating to get students who might not otherwise have been qualified into some of the top schools. In the case of these uber expensive select consultants, I believe they are already selecting only top students with the combined grades, scores, ECs, etc to be in the strong running for these schools, fine tuning them, and presenting them to the top colleges. As we see here on CC, many college applicants donāt know what they donāt know WRT the college admission process, and the guidance and strategizing can help them. And the colleges donāt mind applications from very strong, qualified full pay students.
Thatās interesting! We certainly expected (and got) high end personalized counseling from our private HS. But obviously if you donāt, it might make sense to then hire someone if you have the means. Probably not someone who cost $120000+, but maybe a fraction of that.
Iām of the view that by and large the vast majority of these kids are more than able to handle the schoolwork itself at these places. The process doesnāt magically vault them into schools at an academic level they cannot handle. These schools are far more difficult to get into than they are to be (and even thrive) at.
And are you equally concerted about what impact private high schools have? Or hourly test prep? On these entering classes?
Given some of the parents I know, I do think that in some cases a buffer is an extremely good idea.
Iām not so concerned when an intervention means more education, such as better classes, more individual attention, and test prep that is more educational in nature.
Iām more concerned when an intervention means packaging the kid better for admissions, shaping the kid to fit an idea of what AOs want, or reducing the kidās own initiative and involvement in the process.
I do feel that all of these interventions (private schools, test prep, college consultants etc.) exist on a spectrum where some are more educational and foster increased personal growth for the kid, and thatās greatā¦ while others may simply smooth the path and reduce the kidās opportunity for personal growth.
For parents with resources to spend on their kids, I think it can be a balancing act making these choices.
I posted a long time ago that many IECs in a manner of speaking āinternā at prestigious schools so that they can matriculate later into this lucrative profession. The post was met with its fair share of snark and eye rolls. Oh well!
Do the smart thing. Ask your kids to study hard for standardized tests and get fat scholarships. And to the 2-3 parents here that can afford to payā¦good for you. Hope it works out!
I second that observation, at least to some extent. Our college counseling staff has been pleasant, well-informed, and very available to the students, even during the Christmas vacation. And I trust that they write eloquent guidance counselor recommendations and carefully screen teacher recommendations. Compared to an overloaded counselor at an average public school, S24ās counselor has provided a lot of time and hand-holding.
That said, in terms of more individualized, in-depth strategizing, I have found the counselors a little lacking. There was no up front discussion of merit aid options and whether they would be of interest. The college list suggestions seemed a little unimaginative - individualized mostly just based on size of school, location and area of interest (STEM, art school, engineering, liberal arts). There was not much of an attempt to identify any unique programs, scholarship opportunities or the like. Interestingly, there was also no effort to steer students away from the beaten path. For example, students routinely seem to apply to the same Ivies while a couple of others get little or no interest. Why not steer some students in a different direction? The counselors may have good reasons - maybe students from our school have had the most success at the popular schools in the past. But I suspect that it is helpful to take the road less traveled on occasion, especially as a strong student from the type of school that colleges find impressive.
In addition, there seemed to be no effort to avoid clustering of applications at one school. S24 was almost indifferent between a couple of top ED choices and made that known to his counselor. After he applied to one of these top choices, we learned that any number of his classmates had applied as well, which we would not have expected based on past data. Hardly anyone applied to the school that would have been S24ās other choice, and he would have applied there had he known. Now, it may not have made a difference. I also respect that the counselors are trying to give the kids agency, especially in the ED1 round. But it would have been nice to have a heads up.
In a nutshell, I wouldnāt totally rely on the college counseling staff even at a very well-resourced and connected private school. Which to me means that I want to be an informed consumer and do some research on my own, not that I want to run and hire Command Education.
I donāt knowā¦ I think parents should have this role in their role as adult / parent / etc. It seems just like the super wealthy are just āoutsourcingā this to this fellow (or others). Really thereās nothing preventing a parent from doing exactly what he is doing for their own kids, no?
Research in advance. Find out what classes to take in high school. Test prep for SAT with their own kids. Ensure in good activities they are passionate in. Apply early. Write well thought out essays. Work the angle to have good letter of recommendations lined up 2-3 years in advance.