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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DC may have gotten into his dream school without the consultant, but I do believe some of the advice we got from her was valuable and helped us tip the scale in his favor.

Some of the advice she gave us:

Each year we looked at course selections and advised on best course load to demonstrate rigor.  Coming from her vs. us (his parents) made an impact and he was much more open to listening to her advice vs. having us try to guide him.

She helped us navigate getting accommodations for the ACT (we already had them for college board).  With ACT, you have to actually register for the test before you request accommodations.  We registered even though we knew he wouldn't take the test on that day (he wouldn't be ready) and requested accommodations.  Then we rescheduled the date once we got the accommodations.  This way, he knew how he should prep for the test based on the accommodations he was given.  It was a one and done and he scored quite high.

She got us hooked up with an excellent tutor for test prep that was in our price range (only $150 per hour) and came to the house.

She provided him with checklists and deadlines of things to complete, i.e. send ACT scores to schools, have draft of supplemental essay done by this date, complete this section of common app by this date, etc.  It provided structure to the process and we were able to be more hands off.

She helped him brainstorm ideas for essays and guided him toward the best approach, subjects to pursue.  She proofread essays for punctuation/typos.  She did not adjust content, other than to suggest taking out or adding concepts...but no actually editing.

She helped narrow down a list of colleges.

He made out quite well...got into a top 20 which was his first choice.  He didn't want any ivies.

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This is what I want to do for my son, who is gifted yet learning disabled, and will need a lot of guidance to help him pinpoint which colleges have strong disability offices and how to survive the organizational nightmare that is the college application process for people with low processing speed and time management issues.

I have read quite a bit on the subject and talked to public and private counselors, and can tell how uninformed the critics are. If they have neurotypical kids with strong executive functioning skills, then wonderful - they won't need to pay for colleges consulting services. For a minority of us, we are forced to pay to avoid shutting doors for our kids. My son works really hard. He's the type of kid to refuse any editing on his essays, but he'll spend a crazy amount of time on them, and any other work that comes his way. Any help around the edges we can give him to bolster his weaknesses, he has earned, from deep motivation and resilience despite his special needs. I have no ethical qualms whatsoever in employing someone to narrow down a college list, keep him on track and offer guidance on accommodations and services.

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