Question about Consultants

Prep School Admissions
1

My daughter has only applied to two schools, local to us in CA, one as a day student (due to geographic requirement) and the other as a boarding student. Many of the students at her private K-8 day school have also applied to one or both of the same schools. One of said students has also applied to a number of East Coast schools, one of which is Lawrenceville, employing a consultant through the process.

Yesterday, this student told my daughter that her consultant had been in contact with admissions at Lawrenceville, who asked if it was her first choice. It was implied that acceptance was on offer if the answer was affirmative. My question is: is this a typical scenario? Do consultants enjoy different access to admission offices?

I understand that the ship has sailed, but I’m curious about this process.

2

This is not a common scenario, but it could happen. I don’t think a offer would be guaranteed, but it would be beneficial

3

We worked with a consultant from a highly regarded educational consulting company in the Boston area when my son applied to boarding schools a few years ago. He helped guide the application process, make sure things were on track, reviewed all the essays and made minor comments and edits, and practiced interviews with my son. He offered to help with the list of schools but we already knew which ones he was going to apply to.

There were no back doors because he didn’t contact any of the schools and we never expected him to.

4

Consultants can be very helpful, especially if you are a working parent and don’t have the time to do all the research about the private school admissions process. They also might have some access to AO’s that you wouldn’t have. That said, having a consultant also suggests that the application should be in great shape, and an AO might be more impressed by a good application coming from a kid who doesn’t have a consultant. I’m sure it depends on the school, the AO, and the consultant, but I don’t think a consultant necessarily gives anyone a significant edge in admissions.

5

I feel like a rube seeming surprised that a consultant might have different access to the AO’s, but I am a bit. To be clear, the candidate in question has impeccable credentials on every level, so I’m not specifically questioning her viability as a candidate. I understand the idea that having resources means one can afford things like a consultant, but it just seems off that those consultants might add any kind of advantage beyond process and editing concerns (eg deadlines, essays, etc).

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6

The short answer is yes, there are consultants who have connections in the admissions offices of several schools. These relationships tend to be quite symbiotic; the consultants are good at knowing the idiosyncrasies of schools and at identifying those where an applicant will thrive, and the applicants they support are generally aligned with what each school is looking for.

An AO may reach out about interest for any number of reasons. It could be that a coach has a certain number of students who can be supported and they want to make sure those are being optimized, it could be that a student didn’t seem like they were interested (i.e., double legacy at another school, main sport not at this school, different geographic preference, ) and they are looking for clarification, etc., The consultant, to maintain credibility with AOs, is likely to give a straight answer on this.

Put differently, the consultant may be less of an advocate than you might guess, but they can be a good source of additional information - on both sides. Unlike a student going through this once, they do it year after year with several kids each time and need to maintain credibility. I don’t think they change the outcome in many cases.

Some counselors at private k-8 are in similar situations. Imho, the biggest downside of having no counselor, private or school, is that your list of schools will probably be less well – tailored than it could be.

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What I find odd about this is that the AO knew who to call. At the college level, I believe people hide their consultant and deny having one. For boarding schools, I now know that having a consultant is common, and can confer an advantage, as the consultants know very well how to position a candidate. But at some point, they obviously identified themself to the school (or the candidate did), because the AO knew who to call. And this communication obviously benefits rather than detracts from a candidate.

I know this will not change, and I no longer have any children who will be applying to prep schools. But it just doesn’t feel right to me. My child got very lucky in that his genuine interests and talents were very appealing to schools. These were not academically impressive endeavors, but very genuine (and, frankly, fun) ones, and I think that carried the day. If kids here read his app they would be surprised. No awards or crazy perfect scores. We have never engaged consultants at any level of education. I love the idea of a service that helps a student find the right fit schools. That is transparent, makes sense, and is certainly valuable. It is the application curation and back door conversations that give the ick. Because places are limited and admissions is thus a zero sum game. You get one of the 100 places that year or you don’t.

I just wonder how many kids out there were amazing, but not gently polished by an outsider, and lost a spot to a kid who was. I appreciate @gardenstategal‘s perspective that the consultants might be clarifying details. But why don’t the schools just call the parents? What is in it for the schools to have the consultants involved? Because it obviously isn’t frowned upon. It seams they are encouraging less authentic applications by supporting this third party service. Help me understand why?

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8

So the consultants are basically just guides for the applicants because the process is very confusing for some, and you are required to inform the schools if you have a consultant because they need to know if you are the one who did everything or if you got help

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9

So first – why not ask the parents? Because the parents will almost always say yes, it’s my first choice because they think that’s how they get in. The consultant might say, well actually, the kid really wants to go to Cate, but the parents pushed some East coast alternatives, and of those L’ville is #1. The kid may be admitted either way, but L’ville now knows that the chance of yielding this kid is closer to 50%. This matters even more if FA or merit is involved. But if the answer had been, no, not terribly interested in L’ville – they have family in New England and would prefer that their kid be near them if she leaves the West Coast, someone else gets that spot at L’ville. Remember thar a kid with a consultant is almost guaranteed to get in somewhere that’s a good fit. That’s what you pay for – not as many acceptances as you can garner!

AOs also know the folks at all the local day schools that need to place kids for 9th and they are probably talking to some of them too. K-8 schools have to be good at this. In fact, they may organize tours especially for them to make sure that the counselors know more about them and which students are good fits.

Know too, that there are kids who use consultants whose lists end up with a bunch of schools that are not uber-selective, and the AOs may want to know if they were a back-up or if the interest was serious because those schools want to accept the kids who will attend and allocate their FA or merit dollars accordingly. Why try to entice a strong candidate to their 6th choice?

Do I think having a consultant helps? Yes - they get to know your kid and can help guide them to the right places to explore. And it may not be ones you’ve heard of. Will they help you put your application together on time in a way that reflects who you are? Yes. Will they counsel you on what to look for that youmightnot be considering? Yep. But after that, no, it’s not an advantage.

And again, more students are like @cheerfulmom ‘s. Although many probably did not have a parent who understood the process and options as well.

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10

Building on the points that @gardenstategal made, I think it’s important to recognize that counselors—both private consultants and those at K–8 or K–9 schools—have different incentives than individual applicants. While applicants are maximizing outcomes for one child (and potentially siblings), counselors are generally looking at a portfolio of students. Schools, in particular, want strong outcomes for a broad range of students, not just one individual.

This creates several areas of potential friction:

  • Portfolio Management: If an AO calls a middle school counselor to ask about a student, they are likely discussing more than one candidate. The MS wants every student to have a good exmissions result, which can lead to a bit of “horse-trading.” Counselors look at the entire group of applicants to determine the best overall outcome for a whole graduating class (from 8th grade).

  • Timeline: Before March 10, counselors are likely pushing for a good outcome for all graduates. Once decisions are released, they can advocate for specific students more easily.

  • Credibility and Relationships: Both school counselors and private consultants face these incentives because they often have long-standing relationships with admissions offices. A counselor can ruin their credibility if they push hard for a student who ultimately rejects the offer. For that reason, they are less likely to make the kind of “blanket” personal commitments a parent might make. This makes counselors more trusted by boarding schools, but it also means they may not serve an individual candidate’s interests as aggressively as a parent would.

Finally, parents have relatively few “checking mechanisms” to prevent them from telling multiple schools that they are the “first choice.” Unless they have other children applying to the same set of schools, AOs have few ways to penalize parents who make commitments and don’t follow through. For that reason, AOs take “first choice” letters from parents with a grain of salt unless the commitment is confirmed by a school counselor—who does face a significant impact on their credibility if they renege.

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11

If I recall correctly, there is a question about consultants, agencies, and community organizations on some but not all boarding school applications. So for those schools, the admissions office knows from the application if the family hired a consultant or if the child is applying member of an organization like ABC that helps low-income kids with private school admissions. It is also possible that it is a question that isn’t on the application itself but it gets asked during interviews.

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12

Among the top 8 or 10 most elite prep boarding schools some tend to give particular consultants more flexibility than do other schools. For many decades, this appears to be the case with Lawrenceville.

Flexibility is often found with prep schools which offer a PG (post graduate) year.

If considering hiring a consultant, ask if that particular consultant has a close relationship with any specific school or schools as such relationships are not always obvious.

Nevertheless, unless there are unusual concerns, such as disciplinary issues or weak grades or SSAT scores, a consultant is not necessary. In my view, consultants can be useful at matching students with appropriate schools.

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Thank you, all. I appreciate the detail and perspectives. I am certainly glad that I did not know then what I do now, as it would have been unnecessarily intimidating.

I hope future parents reading this do not feel that a consultant is essential if the cost is beyond reach. A diamond in the rough is a diamond nonetheless.

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14

To all who responded, and especially @cheerfulmom , who named the “ick factor” in this, this thread highlights issues of access, both for private schools and college. For BS, if you move in certain social circles – maybe even just because of where you live, but maybe because of the sports your kid plays, the school they attend, etc– you may have a leg up in this process through your knowledgeable network. (If you have the time and social capital to engage with it, that is – not a given!) If you attend a private K-8, exmissions are likely to be supported by the school. If you get into a program like ABC, Prep for Prep, for example, they will provide guidance and support because they know what you don’t! Yes, there are resources on line, but you need to know what and where they are, and you need connectivity to access them. This whole access issue will repeat itself for college in several years for this same cohort. Consultants aren’t the problem, but how some people, address it.

This thread is really a distillation of a much bigger issue. It’s why many FGLI kids have trouble finding their way to college and then may struggle to stay in.

I wish I had the answer for how to remedy this inequality. There are lots of patches out there - imperfect as they may be to mending the whole system – and all I can hope is that those of us here, who have made some commitment to helping others on their educational journey, will do what we can, whether it is supporting scholarships, giving time to organizations that provide access, and contributing here to those who are seeking advice to supporting others.

I will share that one of the reasons I have stuck around here is that as we went through this journey with DS, I felt like “I wish I’d known that” was a daily refrain, so loads of gratitude to everyone here both asking and answering questions and sharing experiences. We’re one patch in the imperfect information quilt.

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15

Yes, this is a fairly typical scenario, as all top schools care about their initial yield. The higher the yield, the less paperwork it will be, and the easier it will be to manage the wait list, athletic programs, dorm assignments, etc.

Certain senior consultants have, over their career, established strong relationships with admission officers, and even directors. The conversations can be two way: (1) Consultants will advocate their candidates (clients) to the AOs; and (2) AOs will try to gauge the level of interest/commitment to the school by way of the consultants. In the latter scenario, AOs get to enhance the initial yield, which is desirable.

Given that the consultants have a strong need to maintain a relationship with the AOs, they usually tend to convey highly reliable messages. Imagine if a consultant told a school, “Yes, this student will DEFINITELY attend if they get accepted,” and failed to deliver enrollment in the end, then the bridges would be effectively burned.

As you could well imagine, a competitive school may say “There are several students that we like from your pool. We will only accept your child if our school is your top choice.”

A more subtle way of asking your level of commitment is: “If we were to extend an offer to your child, will they attend our Revisit Day?”

Other positive signs include hearing from a specific coach or a music/debate director, which typically takes place around this time, or slightly earlier.

Consultants come in various shapes and sizes. Some only help you put together a list of schools, while other could be VERY, VERY involved - they try to curate the student’s profile in ways you would never think of, for exorbitant fees. For example, some might ask your student to change their sports or musical instruments in 5th grade just to cater to certain schools. I am not a fan of these consultants, but they are out there milking big bucks - particularly from Chinese and Korean families who believe that boarding school is their only ticket to a T10 university in the US.

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