Are college consultants worth it?
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Anonymous
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2 kids. One in early last year year to HYP. Second is a junior, looking at SLACs. Won't use a consultant.
Listening to podcasts helped me a lot. And we aren't looking for a hidden gem, so we were pretty clear on list. I think prepping early for SAT/ACT makes sense. Pay for a class or tutor. Both my kids done w the fall of junior year. This wasn't the case with us, but spending money on private, specific tutor to get in front of a bad grade in a class is money well spent. GPA is important. We didn't do it, but I can imagine paying for an essay reader to help clean up grammar etc. Adding humor, lightness to applications is important. Not every line has to be IMPACT IMPACT IMPACT in an aggressive way |
Anonymous
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I have the money for it, but chose not to hire one for my oldest who is twice exceptional (high IQ, autistic, uneven high school profile). It's because at the end of the day, I realized I knew him better than anyone, and if I did my research, I would be in the best position to make a list of appropriate colleges, cajole him into writing the best essays, edit them for him knowing his strengths and weaknesses, and remind him of all the deadlines. Which is what I did, and he ended up at a wonderful university that is perfect for him.
My second child has a very stereotypical Asian over-achiever profile. I haven't decided yet, and indeed it may be too late already for a wraparound package, but perhaps consulting on certain strategies might be useful to make her stand out. Not sure, though. I don't like wasting money! Maybe I can still be the consultant she needs. My point is: first, don't feel guilty about hiring one, and second, maybe YOU are actually the best consultant for your child! |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
I used the test prep place for college information. I found them to be helpful. |
Anonymous
Any truly competitive T20 application could use counseling help. By the time you figure out how to stress the main 3 points essential for a compelling Northwestern application, it might be too late. Best to get professional help early so you know how to accentuate the key ethos of a school. I’d advise getting help from counselors who have actually served as AO if aiming for T20. |
Anonymous
Plenty of kids at T20s did not have private counselor help. Mine is at Northwestern without emphasizing the "3 things", whatever those might be. |
Anonymous
bet you did, you just didn't realize how critical it was. You can pick these things up by spending a few days reading mission statements, reading through college admissions blogs etc. |
Anonymous
| Well now I have to know what are the three things for Northwestern?! My son was just accepted ED and while I thought he had a very strong application, he didn’t have specific things in mind like this. Share them and I will tell you if he accidentally hit on them or if he got in without! |
Anonymous
| Stay away from Jodi Siegel. We needed to switch mid-process and thank goodness we did. |
Anonymous
what was the problem? You don't have to get specific if you don't want to but can you give a sense of what to look for/avoid when looking at consultants? |
Anonymous
| Not the OP but wondering what podcasts folks found particularly helpful? |
Anonymous
We hired someone for my oldest, who got into a couple top 20s, and he didn't give that kind of ultraspecific tip at all. Do counselors really do that? |
Anonymous
My DC is at a T10 and we used a counselor. I do not recall any specific tips of that nature, but she did seem to have a good sense of the institutional priorities of various schools. Stay away from any counselors who promise an outcome of any kind, or push DC to ED a target (if they want to ED a target that's great, but the counselor should not pressure them to do so). |
Anonymous
| Have a hs senior so going through this overwhelming process this year. My advice: I would prioritize spending on: test prep and essay writing coaching. Strong test scores are helpful for both entry into top schools and for getting merit $$ from likely and target schools. Dont underestimate the volume of writing and editing to craft great essays -start summer before sr year. In terms of creating a school list, i (As a parent) did a ton of research, did online info sessions, read every college blog i found for tips. Listened to podcasts, etc. I also researched summer programs to find programs that fit my kids interests. Many families had private counselors but we did not. Parents can do the work themselves if they have time and interest - its very time consuming. My kid had great outcomes. Got in EA to several schools with merit and got into a top 10 school ED1. |
Anonymous
Agreed! But it definately takes the stress off the parent---it provides an outside source to help set reasonable deadlines and stick to them. The best part of our CC was them helping generate the list of possible colleges. My kid ultimately ended up deciding between 2 targets and the top safety. I likely never would have found the Safety and perhaps not the target that my kid is now attending. SO a good CC will send you out to tour local schools, but to do a variety of sizes, private vs public, urban vs rural vs suburban, etc. Once you begin to decide what matters then they help pull together a list with your criteria. For example: I ran the entire college process for first kid (1220/3.5UW/noAP--ended up choosing between 2 schools ranked in the 80s both with 35% of tuition as a merit award), so I know how to run the process. With 2nd kid, they were aiming higher. But all for schools 2-3K miles from us. kid wanted 5-8K undergrad, top academics important (doesn't care about sports at all), engineering, wanted schools where you can easily change majors/add minors and are not direct Admit for everything. So the CC was great at finding those schools for us. We learned there are a lot of great STEM schools in the 30-70 range that are not "direct admit"---you can select any major you want except Nursing (that is typically direct admit and not what my kid wanted). Sure, I could have done the research and found most of them, but the hidden gem of a Safety (ranked in the 60s) was a great fit for my kid. So much that they considered it with the top 2 targets as well in to April. After that, the CC was there to manage my procrastinator kid's time. Final drafts of all essays and applications were done by mid October so they could review them and hit submit (together with the counselor on Zoom) at least 7 days before the Nov 1 deadlines (or Nov 15 for a few). That way, by Nov 1, all that was left was a few supplemtnatls for 2 RD applications that they'd pull the trigger on (no EA) if the ED was not Accepted. Nov and Dec were so much more enjoyable than many of our friends households. That alone makes it worth the $4k IMO |