In hindsight, was your college counselor worth it? If so, can you share who it was?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We didn't hire one. We helped our kid ourselves. He's a good writer to start (and I am as well).

His essays are pretty fantastic. I had a few people (editor friend and a professional writer friend and a former AO) read them after he had already submitted a few applications and there were almost no changes. They are unique.

I think the more and more people hire these professional counselors to craft their narrative and basically rewrite their essays---the less and less personal they become. It's like that article another pp posted about the rich hiring these counselors for $1500 an hour. They come up with the essay topics for the kids, etc. At some point, this is taking all of the personality out of the application.

I am sure your kid is a good writer but no one believe you showed a professional writer after the fact.

So what if you believe or not. He majorly procrastinated before the 11/1 deadline so--nope--nobody saw them. Ran them through grammarly--husband and I both reviewed over time--offered suggestions.

DP here. Getting a "professional writer" to look at your kids essays is essentially meaningless. I'm a published writer but I'm not an expert in college essays.

He incorporated one very minor change that was suggested for the next round of applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We didn't hire one. We helped our kid ourselves. He's a good writer to start (and I am as well).

His essays are pretty fantastic. I had a few people (editor friend and a professional writer friend and a former AO) read them after he had already submitted a few applications and there were almost no changes. They are unique.

I think the more and more people hire these professional counselors to craft their narrative and basically rewrite their essays---the less and less personal they become. It's like that article another pp posted about the rich hiring these counselors for $1500 an hour. They come up with the essay topics for the kids, etc. At some point, this is taking all of the personality out of the application.

I am sure your kid is a good writer but no one believe you showed a professional writer after the fact.

So what if you believe or not. He majorly procrastinated before the 11/1 deadline so--nope--nobody saw them. Ran them through grammarly--husband and I both reviewed over time--offered suggestions.


He incorporated one very minor change that was suggested for the next round of applications.

DP here. Getting a "professional writer" to look at your kids essays is essentially meaningless. I'm a published writer but I'm not an expert in college essays.

[Anonymous]

100% worth it for my ADHD procrastinating, defiant kid who wouldn’t not have listened to our harping on her about deadlines. Also, the counselor made my kid apply to some safeties, which she wouldn’t have otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We didn't hire one. We helped our kid ourselves. He's a good writer to start (and I am as well).

His essays are pretty fantastic. I had a few people (editor friend and a professional writer friend and a former AO) read them after he had already submitted a few applications and there were almost no changes. They are unique.

I think the more and more people hire these professional counselors to craft their narrative and basically rewrite their essays---the less and less personal they become. It's like that article another pp posted about the rich hiring these counselors for $1500 an hour. They come up with the essay topics for the kids, etc. At some point, this is taking all of the personality out of the application.

I am sure your kid is a good writer but no one believe you showed a professional writer after the fact.

I believe. I won writing contests in high school and college. Highly-literate high schoolers are capable of writing authentic essays.

[Anonymous]

Worth it if what you care about is making sure your kid stays on task (assuming he will respond better to a third party than to you) and preserving your relationship with him.

NOT worth it if you think the eventual outcome (i.e., acceptances) will be different.

For us, it was worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask again on April 1st after all the decisions are out.

I think this poster is saying to ask them again in April if it was worth it. As in, they want to see which colleges their kid gets into before they decide if it is worth the money and time spent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We didn't hire one. We helped our kid ourselves. He's a good writer to start (and I am as well).

His essays are pretty fantastic. I had a few people (editor friend and a professional writer friend and a former AO) read them after he had already submitted a few applications and there were almost no changes. They are unique.

I think the more and more people hire these professional counselors to craft their narrative and basically rewrite their essays---the less and less personal they become. It's like that article another pp posted about the rich hiring these counselors for $1500 an hour. They come up with the essay topics for the kids, etc. At some point, this is taking all of the personality out of the application.

I am sure your kid is a good writer but no one believe you showed a professional writer after the fact.

I believe. I won writing contests in high school and college. Highly-literate high schoolers are capable of writing authentic essays.

I'm that pp...and same. I had two of my essays entered in national contests by my HS English teacher and I won one of them, runner-up in the other.

And, I ended up majoring in STEM . I'm the one in the family that writes the eulogies, obits, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We didn't hire one. We helped our kid ourselves. He's a good writer to start (and I am as well).

His essays are pretty fantastic. I had a few people (editor friend and a professional writer friend and a former AO) read them after he had already submitted a few applications and there were almost no changes. They are unique.

I think the more and more people hire these professional counselors to craft their narrative and basically rewrite their essays---the less and less personal they become. It's like that article another pp posted about the rich hiring these counselors for $1500 an hour. They come up with the essay topics for the kids, etc. At some point, this is taking all of the personality out of the application.

I am sure your kid is a good writer but no one believe you showed a professional writer after the fact.

So what if you believe or not. He majorly procrastinated before the 11/1 deadline so--nope--nobody saw them. Ran them through grammarly--husband and I both reviewed over time--offered suggestions.


He incorporated one very minor change that was suggested for the next round of applications.

DP here. Getting a "professional writer" to look at your kids essays is essentially meaningless. I'm a published writer but I'm not an expert in college essays.

"editor friend and a professional writer friend and a former AO" It was all covered. A good writer may not necessarily be a great editor--but they will know good technique and story-telling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Worth it if what you care about is making sure your kid stays on task (assuming he will respond better to a third party than to you) and preserving your relationship with him.

NOT worth it if you think the eventual outcome (i.e., acceptances) will be different.

For us, it was worth it.

THIS^^^ The counselor is not going to get your kid admitted. Your kid has to do that with their essays. But helping them stay on task and creating an excellent list for your kids major(s) is key. A great counselor will come up with schools you have never heard of/thought of. They will help you find several amazing safety schools and targets. Letting the CC nag my kid rather than me having to do it was worth every penny.

[Anonymous]

if your kid is being recruited for a sport, you probably can do this yourself. Use swim cloud, the kid needs to fill out questionnaires to schools that are academic and swim fits. What level swimmer? If they have Futures or above, than they can look at the high D3 or D1 schools. Power 5 schools and Ivys are looking for Summer Juniors cuts or higher for males.

[Anonymous]

Counselor helped extensively with course selection beginning in 10th grade (we hired her in 9th), ECs, summer program admissions, college suggestions, applications and essays. Could not have done it without her -- the insights she provided were invaluable. Hiring a highly-recommended professional is absolutely worth it if you can both afford it and find someone that relates well to your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely not. We hired someone for essay help. The comments on the first essay (common app) were not insightful and advice on the application itself (questions we had) were generic. So we stopped even sending essays for comment. Waste of money.

With my prior kid, we used an a la carte option (pay by the hour). That's what I'll do for the third kid.

It sounds like you have 3 kids. Kid 1 used an a la carte option, which you plan to repeat for Kid 3.
Kid 2 had someone for essay help and that wasn't helpful.

But your a la carte option was good enough you want to do it again, and whoever you hired for Essay Help sucked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College counselor here. My clients recommend me to their friends, families and neighbors. I would start with those in your life with Class of 2023 and Class of 2024 students, especially swimmers. I disagree with the 07:52 client to wait until April 1. Most of my Class of 2024 students are finished with their admissions process and so parents are already in a position to recommend (or not recommend). The longer you wait, the sooner your preferred counselor will be filled.

I wrote ask on April 1--I mean't we are riding out EA deferrals and late RD acceptances so I can't comment on the quality of our counselor until then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ours wasn't worth it, or at least not for a "full package." They are a local (DC area) highly regarded counselor. I don't want to post their name because they didn't do anything wrong, they just didn't do anything uniquely useful either, so it just wasn't worth even close to the $8,000 we spent.

The areas that we were least dissatisfied with their services were (1) coming up with college lists, and (2) analyzing DC's chances at colleges. As far as the lists, the counselor came up with a generic list of about 40 colleges that I could have easily, easily done myself - the only colleges on the list that I wouldn't have put on the list are ones that we all scratched our heads and crossed off immediately anyway. They basically then left it to DC to research and self-narrow the list. As far as analyzing chances, of course we did not expect the counselor to have a crystal or even opaque ball. But we did expect to receive some market and historical insights that we wouldn't know on our own. Also the counselor was aggressively conservative with chances, to the point that I believe that DC undershot because they were psyched out by their chances many places that they really didn't need to be. I know that ultimately the call as to where to apply was on DC and we the parents, but we were using the counselor for advice in these regards.

The area which was most helpful was time deadlines and the counselor being the nudge about the due dates with DC. That having been said, as another posted pointed out, the counselor can't make their students comply with deadlines, so there often were times that I as a parent had to get involved so it wasn't like it removed all angst between us, and also against weighing against the $8k counselor fee I would have accepted dealing with some more strife between DC and me.

For my next kid, I plan to hire an essay coach and that is it.

This sounds like our experience except we went with someone not in the DC area.

I wouldn't use again for our second child. Just not worth it. The counselor didn't offer anything uniquely useful. I was expecting more nagging on the counselor's part and the counselor did not nag. I still had to do the nagging. The help with the essays also wasn't what I expected.

Next time around, I am just going to join Application Nation and find a separate essay coach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ours wasn't worth it, or at least not for a "full package." They are a local (DC area) highly regarded counselor. I don't want to post their name because they didn't do anything wrong, they just didn't do anything uniquely useful either, so it just wasn't worth even close to the $8,000 we spent.

The areas that we were least dissatisfied with their services were (1) coming up with college lists, and (2) analyzing DC's chances at colleges. As far as the lists, the counselor came up with a generic list of about 40 colleges that I could have easily, easily done myself - the only colleges on the list that I wouldn't have put on the list are ones that we all scratched our heads and crossed off immediately anyway. They basically then left it to DC to research and self-narrow the list. As far as analyzing chances, of course we did not expect the counselor to have a crystal or even opaque ball. But we did expect to receive some market and historical insights that we wouldn't know on our own. Also the counselor was aggressively conservative with chances, to the point that I believe that DC undershot because they were psyched out by their chances many places that they really didn't need to be. I know that ultimately the call as to where to apply was on DC and we the parents, but we were using the counselor for advice in these regards.

The area which was most helpful was time deadlines and the counselor being the nudge about the due dates with DC. That having been said, as another posted pointed out, the counselor can't make their students comply with deadlines, so there often were times that I as a parent had to get involved so it wasn't like it removed all angst between us, and also against weighing against the $8k counselor fee I would have accepted dealing with some more strife between DC and me.

For my next kid, I plan to hire an essay coach and that is it.

NP here. I feel like I could have written this. I wonder if we used the same person/group.