Question for Parents of Students Admitted to Top 25 Colleges

[Anonymous]

We used one for our first kid and it was a huge waste of money. For our second, we did not use anyone except for a couple of hours of essay review. Both are at T25s now.

[Anonymous]

Read, "Who Gets in and Why." And there are some great podcasts out there to learn from.

Depending on the child, having someone help develop the essay(s) outside of the immediate family is one area of potential value.

I'm not criticizing people who have the resources to spend $10K+ on consultants, but the reality is that all the key information is out there virtually free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this question has probably been asked many times before, but I wanted to reach out specifically to parents whose kids were admitted to a top 25 schools, either in the most recent admissions cycle or in the past few years.

Which college consultant (if any) did you use, and how was your experience?

Please, no snark , just hoping for genuine, firsthand recommendations or feedback from those who have real information to share.

Thanks in advance!

Admitted to 4 Top 25 and one Top 6. Didn’t use one.

[Anonymous]

You font need a consultant for schools ranked 11-25. At this range different schools like different things.
U Chicago, Dartmouth, Emory, Vanderbilt love private students

UC, Uva, Umich be instate

Notre dame be catholic

Rice, CMU, WashU all about the test score

Etc.

[Anonymous]

No consultant. Just us.

[Anonymous]

Two kids, four year apart, unhooked. Both got in to 3 of HYPSM. No consultant as I researched a lot. We did use an English major college student for the final essay reviews.

[Anonymous]

My unhooked got into a few Ivies and top schools without. We both researched "the game" voraciously. They had the whole package so just needed tips on how to present it all. I'm too frugal for that, but my hunch is it is more those that need a boost or have shortcomings that spend the money.

[Anonymous]

No consultants. Had an English teacher friend help with editing essay.
Other kid refused to show us anything about applications. That was infuriating.

[Anonymous]

Did not use one and son starting at top 10. Top grades in the hardest classes all four years from a known rigorous high school is what you need, and no college consultant can do that it has to have been your child all four years of high school. We used the school counselor and research from here and college podcasts.

[Anonymous]

My kid didn’t use one but then again, we don’t live in a large metro area where it’s more common.

[Anonymous]

We did not use a consultant.

[Anonymous]

Mine was an athlete and was heavily recruited. We didn't use a consultant or podcasts. She had great scores and stats and a hook. It made the process very easy.

[Anonymous]

I had one (this was in 1998). My parents were going through a difficult divorce and my mom is an immigrant so was unfamiliar with the US landscape. Having a neutral third party was very helpful due to my parents not getting along and me being unwilling to listen to either of them about anything.

[Anonymous]

Didn’t use one.

[Anonymous]

No snark.
Reading this thread gives us hope that getting in top schools is not impossible.
Contrast with "super high stats" thread.
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1286168.page