People who spend huge amounts of $ on private college consultants are wasting their money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy shit people-stop the helicoptering! Follow your kids lead. Drops deadlines or applies to school that doesn’t provide YOU with bragging rights, so what. Talk with them about expectations and finances, but that should be early and often.

Signed,
Parent to keep to kid who handled their own college process and got into their dream school.

You write terribly. Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC may have gotten into his dream school without the consultant, but I do believe some of the advice we got from her was valuable and helped us tip the scale in his favor.

Some of the advice she gave us:

Each year we looked at course selections and advised on best course load to demonstrate rigor. Coming from her vs. us (his parents) made an impact and he was much more open to listening to her advice vs. having us try to guide him.

She helped us navigate getting accommodations for the ACT (we already had them for college board). With ACT, you have to actually register for the test before you request accommodations. We registered even though we knew he wouldn't take the test on that day (he wouldn't be ready) and requested accommodations. Then we rescheduled the date once we got the accommodations. This way, he knew how he should prep for the test based on the accommodations he was given. It was a one and done and he scored quite high.

She got us hooked up with an excellent tutor for test prep that was in our price range (only $150 per hour) and came to the house.

She provided him with checklists and deadlines of things to complete, i.e. send ACT scores to schools, have draft of supplemental essay done by this date, complete this section of common app by this date, etc. It provided structure to the process and we were able to be more hands off.

She helped him brainstorm ideas for essays and guided him toward the best approach, subjects to pursue. She proofread essays for punctuation/typos. She did not adjust content, other than to suggest taking out or adding concepts...but no actually editing.

She helped narrow down a list of colleges.

He made out quite well...got into a top 20 which was his first choice. He didn't want any ivies.

This is what I want to do for my son, who is gifted yet learning disabled, and will need a lot of guidance to help him pinpoint which colleges have strong disability offices and how to survive the organizational nightmare that is the college application process for people with low processing speed and time management issues.

I have read quite a bit on the subject and talked to public and private counselors, and can tell how uninformed the critics are. If they have neurotypical kids with strong executive functioning skills, then wonderful - they won't need to pay for colleges consulting services. For a minority of us, we are forced to pay to avoid shutting doors for our kids. My son works really hard. He's the type of kid to refuse any editing on his essays, but he'll spend a crazy amount of time on them, and any other work that comes his way. Any help around the edges we can give him to bolster his weaknesses, he has earned, from deep motivation and resilience despite his special needs. I have no ethical qualms whatsoever in employing someone to narrow down a college list, keep him on track and offer guidance on accommodations and services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP -

I can't tell you a damned thing about those expensive consultants who get kids into ivy league schools.

I can tell you about our experience. I paid a reasonable sum to have a person functioning as a competent guidance counselor because our school did not provide competence there.

The consultant helped our child articulate what he wanted from college, and helped us tell engineering schools apart (it is actually more complicated than I would have thought
and rank between 10 and 50 really doesn't matter). My kid was able to make judgments about where to apply and then where to go that was based on real characteristics about the educational environment, and not whether or not there was a beautiful gym, a chick-fil-A on campus, or any other stupid things.

My son wrote his own essay. They did talk about it, and he got some feedback, but all good writers get feedback.

Your kid wants to party and get laid in college. There I helped articulate that for you.

Why are you so unpleasant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child is in any decent private school you should not need a private counselor: the school college counselors should be good, and should be able to help them identify colleges that are good fits, help them strategize about how to put their best foot forward on the apps, etc. If your child is a top-performing kid at a top public school, same.

The ONLY situation in which a private counselor might make sense, if affordable, is if your child is at a huge public school and is middle of the pack (meaning counselors, though likely excellent, may not have as much interest/time for your kid), or if your child is at a not-so-great public school AND you yourself do not have the time or cultural knowledge to be helpful (you're an immigrant and unfamiliar with the system in the US, whatever).

I'm curious, why do you think a top kid at a top public school doesn't need a consultant? It's large, so the school counselors will not be able to help much. Do you think the kid's accomplishments will shine through even if poorly presented? Let's take Blair magnet or RMIB program as an example -- there are multiple top kids there, many of whom would be a good fit for top schools, but only some of them will actually get the offer. Why is it that you think a consultant wouldn't help with that -- or with figuring out which of the top 30, let's say, would be a good fit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid wants to party and get laid in college. There I helped articulate that for you.

Thanks for making DCUM one of the rudest forums on the internet.

You must be a DCUM newcomer. This ain't nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy shit people-stop the helicoptering! Follow your kids lead. Drops deadlines or applies to school that doesn’t provide YOU with bragging rights, so what. Talk with them about expectations and finances, but that should be early and often.

Signed,
Parent to keep to kid who handled their own college process and got into their dream school.

Humble brag.

[Anonymous]

My DC handled their own college application and goes to a no name university, whose main virtue is that we are paying very little. DC otherwise has drive and persistence and will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Every delusional parent thinks their child is a precocious maestro when the reality is s/he's just another dime a dozen bore with solid grades and a striver mum pulling strings behind the scenes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your kid wants to party and get laid in college. There I helped articulate that for you.

Thanks for making DCUM one of the rudest forums on the internet.

You must be a DCUM newcomer. This ain't nothing.

Hey PP, thanks for the vote of support. The rude comment about getting laid was in response to my thread about how our consulant was helpful to us. I hate when things veer off course due to rude people (who are just prematurely bitter seventeen year olds, I bet).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every delusional parent thinks their child is a precocious maestro when the reality is s/he's just another dime a dozen bore with solid grades and a striver mum pulling strings behind the scenes.

Well of course the delusional parents are deluded. The rest of us, not so much. Be nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every delusional parent thinks their child is a precocious maestro when the reality is s/he's just another dime a dozen bore with solid grades and a striver mum pulling strings behind the scenes.

Then why are you here, bothering to respond?

I hate when things veer off course due to rude people (who are just prematurely bitter seventeen year olds, I bet).

+1

[Anonymous]

To counter the influence of paid consultants I think you will see an acceleration of the trend already started to accept more minority, low SES, first in the family to attend college, Questbridge kids accepted -- and you can see why. At least they aren't literally buying their way in.

[Anonymous]

Prestige undergrad is only half the battle. The real battles, more and more sorting, begins after stepping on campus. Depending on the school, there are exclusive fraternities/sororities, or final/eating clubs at HP, respectively.

There are certain hyper-exclusive student business/consulting clubs that funnel to Goldman Sachs and McKinsey. You have to be groomed and prepared to interview for those like a few weeks into your freshman year!

Then of course there are fellowships, internships and grad schools.

I'm much more impressed by a UVA or Wisconsin senior I hear is heading to medical school than some unimpressive Ivy Leaguer who's heading into "consulting" for $60,000 a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To counter the influence of paid consultants I think you will see an acceleration of the trend already started to accept more minority, low SES, first in the family to attend college, Questbridge kids accepted -- and you can see why. At least they aren't literally buying their way in.

My impression is that schools are already accepting as many of these as they can afford (using that loosely) and have been for quite some time. Now that Pell numbers affect the US News ranking, numbers of Pell recipients may increase, though that may come at a cost to those with need just above Pell-eligible level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To counter the influence of paid consultants I think you will see an acceleration of the trend already started to accept more minority, low SES, first in the family to attend college, Questbridge kids accepted -- and you can see why. At least they aren't literally buying their way in.

My impression is that schools are already accepting as many of these as they can afford (using that loosely) and have been for quite some time. Now that Pell numbers affect the US News ranking, numbers of Pell recipients may increase, though that may come at a cost to those with need just above Pell-eligible level.

(*to be clearer, numbers of pell recipients admitted to selective colleges)