<li><p>Is it possible for a college that it success can create a drop in number of applicant who apply to other colleges as applicants think that they have no shot in that college. Biggest example is these hired consultants who advice people to apply to a less selective school and improve their chances. Thus an elite college may actually have a drop in applicant applying in early or RD rounds, while their opponent elite colleges receive a big jump in applications for early or RD round. This has happened in the past, but I am sure there is a correction in next year’s cycle. </p></li>
<li><p>Since so much window dressing is happening by the elite consultant, what happens to students who can not afford even low priced advice and thus have achievements but not necessary marketing strategies to highlight their achievements? Thus kids with lower achievements but big emotional essays or truly expensive but saving the world kind of summer activities edge the truly motivated accomplished kids (like an IMO/ RSI / or kids with similar achievement). </p></li>
<li><p>Is there a way college can say that a consultant has advised a kid on how to fill the application? Some consultants’ works nor from middle school and charge a whopping fee? What would happen to kids whose parents can not afford these marketing gimmicks?</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li> I am sure that the first effect exists, but I think it has been swamped by other effects that tend to increase the number of applications to elite colleges (not the least of which are a growing number of qualified kids, who have more information about the schools and their supposed superiority). If all the kids equivalent to kids who applied to the Ivies a generation ago were applying now, they would probably all get even more applications. But I don’t expect applications to drop anywhere.</li>
</ol>
<p>1a. Expensive consultants are positively democratic compared to what you used to have to do to get in to some of these colleges – e.g., make certain to have ancestors named in the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and top-1% prosperity thereafter.</p>
<p>1b. It’s hard to do the game theory on this, because information is so imperfect: Kids overvalue and undervalue their chances all the time, and admissions committees are fundamentally unpredictable. In any event, the cost of applying is quite low – a few hours of effort, a little marginal exposure to anxiety and psychic scars from rejection, and about $100 some of which is waivable – and the benefits are seen as great . . . even greater the lower people’s chances get. Do you notice how lottery ticket sales slow down as the prizes roll over? No? And there, everyone knows that each bet has, on average, a negative value. In the college admissions lottery, each marginal application probably has a positive value on a risk-neutral basis if you think the college is worth, say, $4,000 more than the next best realistic alternative.</p>
<p>1c. What’s the moral difference between hiring a consultant and going to Andover and being guided by some wonderful master teacher? You probably get some extra benefits at Andover, but it costs a lot more. If the consultant is doing a good job, he or she is doing real mentoring, and producing real benefits, too. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I’m sure this happens. I’m sure this accounts for a tiny percentage at best of admissions to any particular college, or to all of them collectively. I’m sure the admissions committees at the various colleges discount obvious packaging. I’m sure that some of the packaging isn’t obvious, and that there’s a cat-and-mouse game in which the cutting-edge packagers try to stay a step ahead. In some cases the achievements are real and the kids get in on their own merit, and maybe would have without the consultants. From my little vantage point, I see enough truly motivated, accomplished, but unpackaged kids getting accepted that I don’t have a sense that the world is fundamentally askew.</p></li>
<li><p>Kids whose parents can’t afford marketing gimmicks – say, my kids – apply and get accepted or rejected.</p></li>
</ol>