How much would you have to make to be comfortable spending $40,000 on a college consultant?
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Anonymous
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How stupid would you have to be to be comfortable spending $40,000 on a college consultant?
There. Fixed the question. |
Anonymous
+1 We paid $5K for a college consultant. This covered the entire 4 years of HS, but we only used them from Jan Junior year until the end. Worth every penny, but I woudlnt' pay more than $5-8K, because it's not needed. If your kid is that good, a consultant at this level will help them get into the schools they are targeting, and most importantly have a great list of Target schools as you need to realize no matter what (unless your parents are famous or family has name on a building at the school) it's still a lottery. All the counselor can do is help your kid have the best application and write targeted essays well. But none can guarantee admission at T25 schools. |
Anonymous
What a good consultant does help with (and can be had for the $5-7K range) is things like "this school really likes you to do an interview, so once you visit if you like the school at all, schedule an interview ASAP so everything is fresh in your memory". And then they help you know what the school looks for in a candidate so you can ask the right questions in the interview, but mostly it's just knowing "hey you need to do an interview or do X for this school" |
Anonymous
But you don't need to spend that much. $4-8K gets you a great counselor and is really all you need. And that is typically for the full 4 years of HS. |
Anonymous
The expertise of a good college counselor will help your kid find the best list of schools to apply to. And I'm not talking just T25 schools. They know who has the best BME or best Civil Engineering or whatever major and that will meet the other criteria that's important to your kid (size/location/big sports environment/etc). That to me is the best part of the counselor. Helping you find the best targets and great Safeties. My kid's top safety was still considered in the final 4 choices it was that good (and my kid knew the other 3 were "much better" but kid liked the school so continued to evaluate it). That is what you want---a great safety, that gives you merit (35% of tuition) and your kid would love to attend if needed. The next best part is the CC manages the schedule and nags your kid for you, so you can still have a somewhat happy fall of senior year. Ours required all applications be done by early/mid Nov, except the few that kid would apply RD if ED didn't work. So by Nov 15, my kid had only 2 applications left, and by Dec 24 had 3 Acceptances with great merit. Made the holidays much less stressful. |
Anonymous
| How mediocre does your kid have to be and tell me you didn't go to a good school without ... |
Anonymous
| We are poor compared to most of our friends, but DC1 goes to a Top 20 school for less than $20k a year because of generous FA and scholarships and DC2 has received a full ride for great academic achievements and sport. We spent zero on college consulting for DC1 and $5k for DC2 because we were not at all familiar with sport recruiting. |