Parents of 11th Grade Students - High School

[Anonymous]

Parents of 11th-grade students preparing "in advance" for college, do you know any private admissions counselor/consultant who supports talented kids from middle-income homes? How much are their services? Do you have any recommendations for private consultants who cost no more than $3,000?

[Anonymous]

My advice is don’t bother with that. You and your kid can figure out what to do without paying some grifter thousands of dollars.

[Anonymous]

What exactly do you need? I paid by the hour for essay assistance and it cost way less than $3000. Full service is likely much more, but I don't think it's necessary (at least, wasn't for us).

[Anonymous]

College counselor here. It depends on what you are looking for. If you are middle income, the cost of a good consultant/counselor can save you much more than the consultant's fee as they will help you develop a college list that will ultimately save you money. A strategic college list is worth more than the essay support many "grifters" (PP's phrasing, not mine) will offer you for much less.

[Anonymous]

Richard Montauk is a few hundred dollars per hour. He can advise you on choices as well as negotiating more merit between competing offers (so long as your kid gets those).

You could probably work with him for less than $3000 over several sessions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My advice is don’t bother with that. You and your kid can figure out what to do without paying some grifter thousands of dollars.

+1
We had a similar budget and when all was said and done, we realized it wasn't worth it. We really got nothing out of it.

[Anonymous]

We didn’t use any. Kid is at an Ivy and accepted to multiple T10s/20s. If you didn’t go to college yourself or are so busy you can’t check on kid’s progress or help as needed - ok.

I just think they strip authenticity right out. They also push for some schools - easier admits.

[Anonymous]

Use the $ for private test prep. Period.

[Anonymous]

We paid by the hour for a half dozen sesssions or so. I’m not sure it was worth it but at least we felt like our kid was getting advice from someone other than us, since she didn’t want our advice. The HS counselors are basically worthless, so it can be helpful for the kid to get input from someone other than Reddit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents of 11th-grade students preparing "in advance" for college, do you know any private admissions counselor/consultant who supports talented kids from middle-income homes? How much are their services? Do you have any recommendations for private consultants who cost no more than $3,000?

What are you looking for?

To build a good list of safeties, targets, and reaches, buy the Fiske book, read Niche, and scour your school's Naviance/Scoir data.
Run the Net Price calculators on the school websites to see if you will qualify for financial aid.
If you need a lot of merit, read some books on the subject research schools that give merit, and recognize your child will need to be a top candidate at the schools. So to have a realistic chance, they should be targets or low targets.
Go to your school's events/info sessions on timelines and tasks.

Clarify for yourself what you hope to get out of this consultant. The process is not really that complicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents of 11th-grade students preparing "in advance" for college, do you know any private admissions counselor/consultant who supports talented kids from middle-income homes? How much are their services? Do you have any recommendations for private consultants who cost no more than $3,000?

No one is doing charity work for “middle income” kids, op. A full package locally usually costs around $8000 and up. If there is certain things you want help with, you can probably get that on an hourly basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Richard Montauk is a few hundred dollars per hour. He can advise you on choices as well as negotiating more merit between competing offers (so long as your kid gets those).

You could probably work with him for less than $3000 over several sessions.

ah damn, I was about to say, "wait for the guy who always recommends that guy Richard Montauk"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Use the $ for private test prep. Period.

This! And follow recent elite university admits / grads that give tips on how to write essays, how to list extracurriculars. You can find them on tiktok, instagram reels and youtube.

We did this, and had two English teacher friends help edit my DD’s common app essay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents of 11th-grade students preparing "in advance" for college, do you know any private admissions counselor/consultant who supports talented kids from middle-income homes? How much are their services? Do you have any recommendations for private consultants who cost no more than $3,000?

No one is doing charity work for “middle income” kids, op. A full package locally usually costs around $8000 and up. If there is certain things you want help with, you can probably get that on an hourly basis.

this. other options:

spend a few months getting really smart (lots of podcasts and lots of reading). See what the competition looks like. Join FB groups etc.
or
save money and pony up. No guarantees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Richard Montauk is a few hundred dollars per hour. He can advise you on choices as well as negotiating more merit between competing offers (so long as your kid gets those).

You could probably work with him for less than $3000 over several sessions.

ah damn, I was about to say, "wait for the guy who always recommends that guy Richard Montauk"

I am a different poster recommending him. We only had experience with him relatively recently due to reading about him on DCUM!