Reply to Are Private Counselors a Bad Idea?

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[quote=Anonymous]Speaking as a college admissions consultant, the reason why we get a bad rap is because in the 2010s, the only credentialing programs for independents were the same ones that credentialed high school college counselors. So the perception that we were redundant and only for families who needed extra help the high school counselor couldn't provide was largely true.

Since then, however, the field has matured and evolved a lot. In many ways that school counselors aren't aware of. In my practice, we use admissions rubrics from highly selective college admissions offices that we've combined with proprietary data we gathered from colleges, the CollegeBoard, our partnerships with local high school counselors, and our own clientele dating back 16 years. It allows us to run gap analyses on students so services are targeted and pragmatic, and additive rather than redundant, wasteful, or off-target.

The admissions rubrics we used were gathered from active involvement in NACAC over more than a decade—and won't be found by parents searching online. Furthermore, the most valuable insights we gained about below-average SAT/ACT patterns that can still win admission at various colleges were drawn from the period before test-optional policies became widespread. The pre-test optional score thresholds still hold true in today's test-optional environment and aid in the decision to report SAT/ACT scores or withhold them. But someone trying to draw the same conclusions today would have an extremely difficult time sorting through current data given the diversity of testing policies across colleges.

Beware the bigger firms that are driven by sales. If you look on Yelp and Google Business Reviews, you can find college consultants who consult to the size of the gap that's actually necessary and helpful. You may have to search for consultants in other cities, as everyone works virtually now. But we're out there.[/quote]

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