Private consultants reality check

[Anonymous]

I personally believe the consultants will do that and can do very well job. But do you do in your kid's life? Do you talk with him and know what sports he likes? Do you suggest him how to handle the struggle with some coaches? Do you investigate what major he is interested in? ... When he is a grown up and look back, all he remembers is what his consultant said and what his consultant did. How ridiculous!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A a little tip. Instead of posting on here and spending your hours worrying, find an old post called “lessons learned” which lists a bunch of resources, including books and podcasts.

Spend your spare time now listening to a few of the great podcasts (Yale; Dartmouth; CAP; YCBK; Ingenius Prep) and listening to one or two of the books on tape. It will become very clear what type of narrative your kid needs.

If you do come back here, start a new post with your kids real authentic interests, deep passions, and a few extracurriculars. Then ask for specific advice on how to tie two disparate interest together in an authentic way. Ask for suggestions for majors along with summer programs.

That is the best use of your time here. Worrying about all of the junk in this entire thread is pointless. And a waste of your time.

You’re welcome. I followed this advice and helped my two kids get into T20 private schools (including one who got in test optional last cycle).

This. Thank you.

Yep. Here are some good posts I think that are referenced - all are bookmarked for me:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1176660.page
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1251044.page

This is great - thank you!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I didn't see any difference in outcome between the two groups in the end.

Savvy parents who understand "narrative" can help their kids. I did it in reverse. Let them live their lives, and organize it into a "story" summer before senior year. Two at T10 school

With this approach (and I applaud you), don’t you take the risk of having holes in your narrative that you can’t turn back time to fill if you’re missing some essential courses or activities?

Two things:

- Activities and courses dont matter as much as you think, IMO. You need to triangulate on a niche area that's, hopefully, of actual interest to the kid. So horses and medicine. This is not uncommon. The white girl who did horseback riding and is interested in pre-med. Hard. So you need to triangulate on something more niche. Non verbal communication? Interesting. I'm sure AI could tell you a lot about this, and you could find a place junior year summer to work, either with therapeutic riding (not uncommon) or with non verbal kids (interesting!). Then maybe you switch from pre-med to linguistics. And then talk about other animals? Write an essay for John Locke competition. Horseback riding plus work with non-verbal kids plus essay competition = this is a good story. Or horseback riding and physics! Start with movement. Super interesting too.

Like your approach but could you illustrate it using something less fancy? No everyone could afford expensive activities like this.

give me a major of interest and one or two things they did in high school.

Mine is done so let's work on the most common high school activities: varsity and debate.
My point is to have a good story you almost always have to have some uncommon activities first.

I'm the other poster, with 2 kids who've gone through the process (3rd going through soon).

Debate is tough - its worse if kid is asian. Its just so stereotypical. I'd aim for ILR at Cornell.

I have to disagree here. It's anecdata, but the best debaters at my kids' affluent suburban high school last year went to Harvard, Stanford and Northwestern and all three are Asian American. I don't think it's stereotypical - math team and robotics are stereotypically dominated by Asian Americans.

- An Asian American parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your first paragraph correctly describes what happens.

Now ask yourself if you truly want your children at college with those kids and those families.

I know the answer for us. We already have generational wealth. I’m sending my kids to state flagships or “normal” private schools.

Families with “average” kids also use consultants. Maybe community college for your kids then.

This is a tough debate in our family. I really want my child to be in an academically stimulating environment, where both the peers and the professors make a difference. We often end up circling back to Oxbridge because of its strong focus on academics. In that case, we don't even need to consider a consultant. Kids can thrive on their own merits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re willing to bail for Canada, be aware that there are many similar large public American universities that admit high-stats kids based largely or entirely on stats. My high-stats child finds the whole game really off-putting and therefore only applied to big state schools. Although if your kid is a Canadian citizen the Canadian schools will likely be cheaper, unless they get a merit scholarship at an American school.

OOS at a flagship typically means paying private school prices for a public school education.

There are also honors programs at public schools. I think they can be a pretty good option.

[Anonymous]

In a lot of cases, it’s hard to tease out the impact of consultants from the impact of parents’ connections. A lot of the kids using the highest priced consultants have parents that are also significant university donors. Kids probably would have gotten in anyway due to parental money.

[Anonymous]

I would never. I just don’t think it matters that much. Sure it’s great to say you got into an Ivy. But at the end of the day, there just isn’t that much advantage that makes it worth shelling out thousands for a private consultant, private counselor, essay tutor, etc. You kid would benefit more from you saving that money and giving it them for a first house down payment. Plenty of students move on to med school, law school, and great high paying (and very high paying) jobs from every type of university. Plenty of Ivy grads working normal upper middle class jobs for a normal upper middle class salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hired one in 9th grade but not for the reasons you might guess. DC attended a very competitive private school and his classmates started repeating truly horrifying things they were clearly hearing from parents: "where you go to college determines whether you have an office or a cubicle" and "public school is for poor people."
I realized we needed expertise to counter this, hired a humanist type one for minimal consulting for this reason. However, in the end I think it did actually matter to the eventual applications and results.

We know a physician that went to a flagship state school, med school in the Caribbean (the horror), and is making $$$$$ as a plastic surgeon. My contrast, our neighbor went to an Ivy and grad school at another Ivy and makes a very average (for the area) salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hired one in 9th grade but not for the reasons you might guess. DC attended a very competitive private school and his classmates started repeating truly horrifying things they were clearly hearing from parents: "where you go to college determines whether you have an office or a cubicle" and "public school is for poor people."
I realized we needed expertise to counter this, hired a humanist type one for minimal consulting for this reason. However, in the end I think it did actually matter to the eventual applications and results.

W H A T?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would never. I just don’t think it matters that much. Sure it’s great to say you got into an Ivy. But at the end of the day, there just isn’t that much advantage that makes it worth shelling out thousands for a private consultant, private counselor, essay tutor, etc. You kid would benefit more from you saving that money and giving it them for a first house down payment. Plenty of students move on to med school, law school, and great high paying (and very high paying) jobs from every type of university. Plenty of Ivy grads working normal upper middle class jobs for a normal upper middle class salary.

Those who hire consultant likely have not only the down payment for their kids, but several significant real estate in major cities in their trust. Perspective can be very different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hired one in 9th grade but not for the reasons you might guess. DC attended a very competitive private school and his classmates started repeating truly horrifying things they were clearly hearing from parents: "where you go to college determines whether you have an office or a cubicle" and "public school is for poor people."
I realized we needed expertise to counter this, hired a humanist type one for minimal consulting for this reason. However, in the end I think it did actually matter to the eventual applications and results.

We know a physician that went to a flagship state school, med school in the Caribbean (the horror), and is making $$$$$ as a plastic surgeon. My contrast, our neighbor went to an Ivy and grad school at another Ivy and makes a very average (for the area) salary.

Great, picking top 5% from one population thene picking bottom 5% from another.
It's all about probability. Chill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would never. I just don’t think it matters that much. Sure it’s great to say you got into an Ivy. But at the end of the day, there just isn’t that much advantage that makes it worth shelling out thousands for a private consultant, private counselor, essay tutor, etc. You kid would benefit more from you saving that money and giving it them for a first house down payment. Plenty of students move on to med school, law school, and great high paying (and very high paying) jobs from every type of university. Plenty of Ivy grads working normal upper middle class jobs for a normal upper middle class salary.

Those who hire consultant likely have not only the down payment for their kids, but several significant real estate in major cities in their trust. Perspective can be very different.

That wasn’t the point. The point is one is meaningful and one isn’t. Buying your kid a house is something that propels them forward in life. A college consultant and an Ivy admission isn’t going to help them be any more successful in life. Just because you have money to burn on a consultant doesn’t mean you should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would never. I just don’t think it matters that much. Sure it’s great to say you got into an Ivy. But at the end of the day, there just isn’t that much advantage that makes it worth shelling out thousands for a private consultant, private counselor, essay tutor, etc. You kid would benefit more from you saving that money and giving it them for a first house down payment. Plenty of students move on to med school, law school, and great high paying (and very high paying) jobs from every type of university. Plenty of Ivy grads working normal upper middle class jobs for a normal upper middle class salary.

Those who hire consultant likely have not only the down payment for their kids, but several significant real estate in major cities in their trust. Perspective can be very different.

That wasn’t the point. The point is one is meaningful and one isn’t. Buying your kid a house is something that propels them forward in life. A college consultant and an Ivy admission isn’t going to help them be any more successful in life. Just because you have money to burn on a consultant doesn’t mean you should.

Huh? Why not—consultants can save you time and effort, and time is really valuable. People have money to spend, why not.

[Anonymous]

Of course it is better if a family can afford both education and housing for their kids. Any sensible parents will do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depending on your kid, I’m a fan of hiring someone to help with essays, application deadlines, and discussion of options. But I cannot imagine the level of pressure put on the kids the OP describes. Putting kids through years of planning, strategizing, tailoring, etc may pay off for some, but my heart breaks for kids who inevitably feel like failures because they don’t get into a T10, or whatever school they have been aiming for for years.

One of my kid’s friends spent a LOT of time doing test prep, etc. He missed a lot of social opportunities in high school because his parents were hell bent for him to get T10(and he was mostly on board). He ended up at a T30, but says in retrospect that he probably would have gotten in anyway. Just having the kids know that they are being socially engineered in this way seems like setting a majority of them up for regret.

I agree with this PP but more than regret, I think the worst thing about this social engineering approach is that the kids learn their parents don’t have confidence in them to accomplish something on their own without having to stranger to prop them up. I think that damage to a young person’s confidence and sense of being enough is not worth the slight edge in college outcomes, if any.