Question for Parents of Students Admitted to Top 25 Colleges

[Anonymous]

We booked a few hours with a woman based in New York recommended by one of my husbands colleagues. It didn’t seem to me to be very useful … she said lots of things like “everyone finds a good spot, don’t worry”. “Have you considered northeastern?” She did look at the essay and I guess provided thoughts but I have no idea if that was useful. I never saw my kids essay. Knowing how much my kid does not like to take advice my guess is that she probably nodded politely and largely ignored the feedback.

[Anonymous]

None. 2024.

We did a few 1-v-1 test prep sessions (~4-5).

We used nobody for essays or apps or anything else.

My spouse and I edited and made suggestions as kid showed us his common app essay and supplementals after he wrote them. He made several drafts of each.

RD unhooked to 2 Ivies (WL- admit one), Hopkins, and several T20s.

[Anonymous]

We hired a very expensive one senior year, not for choosing schools but to look over essays, activity list, etc. She didn’t offer anything we didn’t already know from researching online. It was a waste. If the process will cause discord at home and best to be out of it all together, I see where a 3rd party is valuable. I’m sure the high dollar offer more, but even with that, I think you can figure it out on your own. I don’t think themes and such are that challenging with amount of information online.

[Anonymous]

Wow big typo, should have been inexpensive! Think it was $1000 or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You will not get an honest answer. Like asking did anyone use ChatGPT to write their essays, or did parents help set up non-profits and secure research/intern positions. Sure, it's an anonymous board, but parents have a tendency for "we did it all on our own!"

I believe everyone who has posted so far on this thread that they didn’t use a counselor is being honest.

+1 we didn't use one and had much better results than kids' friends who used private counselors.

I told my husband I really think these counselors strip the authenticity right out of the kid's applications and they sound like all the other ones that use private counselors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Search feature

This. I’ve posted so many times.

[Anonymous]

D about to start senior year at a T20. She worked with her school's college counselor, but no outside help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

Major matters.
Public vs private HS matters.
Your metro area matters.

And most ppl here are taking about HYPSM.
You’d be wise to ED a notch down if you can.

[Anonymous]

There aren’t ever that many ppl on this board. I guarantee it’s just a handful of ppl responding here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There aren’t ever that many ppl on this board. I guarantee it’s just a handful of ppl responding here.

handful of people creating pages of responses?
OP specifically said she is looking for recommendations. I assume if you don't recommend then you wouldn't respond?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

Bipolar

[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!

Used an essay consultant to protect parent-child relationship. DC was rejected REA from HYPS. No contact with essay coach after Nov 15 (was in contract, but we did not realize that we could need someone to talk to if rejected REA) so I had to step in to provide my advice to DC who decided to follow most of my advice, but not all. Admitted to multiple HYPSM RD. As I looked over my notes from podcasts, etc. I found that the consultant had not known what each college looks for. E.g., Yale does not care about your career aspirations. Most importantly, DC did not understand that essays needed “reflection” and I blame the coach 100% for this. To add insult to injury, after RD decisions were released, coach asked to share DC essay that had been worked on separately for something else, but used for college apps. Ummm, no way — the essay help the coach had provided was not worth it and we did not want him to sell his services based on DC’s results after he just made sure DC stuck to a schedule. This was a reputed coach that we paid a ton of money for so be careful — really, really careful. Once you sign a contract, you might find that they have zero accountability.

If I had to do it again, and our family had just regular amount of stress, I’d listen to DC and myself — no consultant required.

[Anonymous]

No consultant, just CCO at CT boarding school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Did they ever have a private or 1:1 coach for athletics? That’s the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

Used an essay consultant to protect parent-child relationship. DC was rejected REA from HYPS. No contact with essay coach after Nov 15 (was in contract, but we did not realize that we could need someone to talk to if rejected REA) so I had to step in to provide my advice to DC who decided to follow most of my advice, but not all. Admitted to multiple HYPSM RD. As I looked over my notes from podcasts, etc. I found that the consultant had not known what each college looks for. E.g., Yale does not care about your career aspirations. Most importantly, DC did not understand that essays needed “reflection” and I blame the coach 100% for this. To add insult to injury, after RD decisions were released, coach asked to share DC essay that had been worked on separately for something else, but used for college apps. Ummm, no way — the essay help the coach had provided was not worth it and we did not want him to sell his services based on DC’s results after he just made sure DC stuck to a schedule. This was a reputed coach that we paid a ton of money for so be careful — really, really careful. Once you sign a contract, you might find that they have zero accountability.

If I had to do it again, and our family had just regular amount of stress, I’d listen to DC and myself — no consultant required.

Great points.

This was our experience for our first child w/a private counselor/essay coach. After being deferred early decision from T10, we went at it alone and had much better T25 and Ivy results.

The problem is a lot of these consultants overpromise and underdeliver - probably because they take on too many clients in the fall and they really cannot service that many. I know a new consultant with 43 clients. It’s her second year. There is no way she can individually handle that flow in a high-quality way. There is a lack of customization and a lack of systemization of the application process. In some ways, doing a 1 week summer workshop with one of these bigger shops to give you an overview of how to research and frame your supp essays is all you need.

Then maybe someone to do final application review reviews before you submit.

The personal essay is its own beast and the best thing to do is to have your kid read narrative style essays in junior year. They need to become familiar with what these essays look like. It is not an English essay. It is not a resume essay. It is a story. It is your brand.

Second child had much better results than first child (though weaker academically) and was a TO applicant. We read everything here and elsewhere; listened to all the podcasts, created notes on what every school looked for and did formal application reviews after the top drafts were ready.

My top advice is to use this site for its Search function. No one is going to give you a shortcut. You have to do the research yourself.

There’s a great post from this winter called “lessons learned”. Search for it - a lot of great tips in there if this is your first rodeo.