Is private college counseling the key to getting into a top school?
IMO, no. Have a great application profile (including great scores/grades/ECs) AND applying to the right mix of schools is…and even then it might not happen, depending on your definition of what a “top” school is…
Top schools look at your profile and decide where you fit academically and within school goals for your potential class to make an admissions decision. You should expect denials from these schools as admission verges on miraculous. If I had invested 2 cents in this bet, I suspect elite schools are annoyed by these counselors. So if you meet admissions requirements comfortably, apply. Save your money for a consultant for text books and ice cream.
Not “the” key, but could be helpful for some applicants.
I think they will help you get organized, give you options, get the package together, and hopefully give you an honest assessment and realistic expectations. I think for many establishing realistic expectations is the most valuable. You can get this yourself on CC without spending thousands of dollars but you have to work at it.
Agree with @milee30.
I am amazed frequently at the mistakes many make with respect to college applications’ strategy & with the structure and content of essays.(Although I realize that not all college counselors understand how to use essays effectively.)
Be careful with the professional college essay tutors. One student I remember here at CC who was denied from most of her top schools said that the essay was heavily edited by the tutor and it ended up not HER essay at all.
A private counselor is not the “key” to getting into a top school. The “key” is the student.
I am personally not a fan of private counselors but my opinion takes into account that our public school had a good guidance department and my kids developed relationships with their teachers. If those were not present a private counselor could provide some assistance.
Our guidance office sent out a pretty detailed schedule of when things should be done (ex. standardized testing, application deadlines etc.). Getting a good schedule of when things should be done would be something private counselor could easily set a family up with if the guidance office doesn’t provide that. Having parents and the student agree on a timetable upfront was helpful to us.
In terms of choosing colleges to apply to – I invested in Fiske and Princeton Review guide books. My kids and I went through the books as well as Naviance to come up with a list of schools to start with. We then got additional input from the guidance counselor. We ran net price calculators, visited and came up with an application list with reach, match, and safety schools. If the guidance counselor is not helpful having a private counselor give the application list a review could be helpful – but you can try asking advice on CC for free first
In terms of essays – kids wrote and then asked a trusted English teacher to go over the essay – they were sure to let the teacher know that they were happy with the topic and were looking for help with things like grammar issues, any holes in the logic of the essay etc. My D also asked her teacher to help her cut her essay down a by a couple of lines to meet the requirements of the common app. Both kids got good feedback and their essays remained basically intact (just without grammatical errors etc.). I’ve heard of private counselors taking over the essay process to the point where the final product is not the students story in the students words. Agree that this is something to be very careful with.
Great help… thanks…
@HiToWaMom : Agree that experienced adcomms can spot heavily edited essays easily. I am not a professional essay editor, nor do I endorse using them as the applicant needs to express himself or herself in his or her own voice.
But even professional editors often misunderstand how to use effectively a college application essay.
OP, you have gotten some succinct and extremely worthwhile responses here. I think @SevenDad 's original response, combined with @lvvcsf’s statement that a counselor could help manage expectations (as opposed to help get into a “top school”) are particularly useful.
One other thing to keep in mind is that most counselors seem to have a comfort zone re: schools they are geared toward. For my son, a current high school senior, we initially hired a private consultant, who was helpful in providing us a lot of information about LACs, but did not have as much experience with OOS public schools or Honors Colleges. When it became clearer that my son didn’t want to go to a LAC, we stopped using the private consultant and were happy with his admissions results.
Whether or not an applicant is hoping to get into “top schools,” it would behoove the applicant to spend a good amount of energy finding a school that s/he likes that is a likely admit and financially feasible, and a counselor could be helpful in that regard.
You do not want another’s writing. College applicants need to know what to include in their essays, not necessarily how to write one.
Edits for grammar & punctuation are fine, but the work product needs to be that of the applicant–not of a ghost writer.
My Both twin D want to go for Med school, traditional route or 7/8 direct admission. All depends on what they are offered…
A good private counselor can help you formulate a good list of colleges and help you present yourself well to them - i.e., help you figure out how to tell your story effectively within the constraints of the common app. If you have something special you need to work with – medical or learning accommodations, etc., – a counselor can be effective in helping you find places that can be supportive and can often make inquiries on your behalf.
A good counselor can help you find your voice, not be it! And because most have seen tons of applications (many are former AOs), they can be good reviewers of an application. Most of us just don’t have that perspective!
It’s not necessary, though, to use a private counselor to be successful if you do your research. And I would definitely stay away from ones who wanted to be really involved in essay writing.
It depends. Depends on what kind of applicant you are (not stats wise - how resourceful you are, how willing to reach out to everyone that might be of help, etc.) and what kind of resources are available to you otherwise, e.g. some HS guidance counselors are phenomenal and some are less than mediocre. I have some experience with private college counseling - my work offers it as a benefit; granted, it’s not the kind that people pay tens of thousands $$$ for. Where I found them most helpful is the essay review, but not just any essay, the specific kind - “why school X?” As a parent, I also found them helpful in that when they said something, the kid seemed to listen more than he would if I said the same thing.