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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A close friend who tends to be more savvy about these things told me over a holiday get-together she knows some families in our school who hire private consultants who plan the kids’ whole life since 7th grade: help them apply to or even write essays for summer programs, plan sports (plan competition schedule and travel if it’s an individual sport without team schedule, summer skill camps at Ivies), school club leadership (how to recruit members, plan highly visible activities, manage their Instagram to document large gatherings, accomplishments), all the way down to drafting weekly emails for the kid to send to coaches, professors and college tour guides, band leaders they met on tours or summer programs over 4 years to establish relationships in a strategic and unannoying way. These are all before helping them ace the SAT and write their application essays.

Another friend told me last year (she had older kids and know many parents who have been through the process in the past decade) [b]private consultants are useless, that the ones she knew who use them are getting into T25-50 colleges after spending tens of thousands,[/b] but not the most selective ones, because the top ones see through the consultants’ finger prints all over an app.

So which is true? I know as with a lot of cases, the answer is “it depends”, perhaps a great consultant could do those things. We have zero plan to use one (we don’t even have a tutor!) but I’m so disheartened that DC who works so hard to get top grades, work so hard on weekends at his part time job is competing under these circumstances. If that’s true, I want to take my kids out of the game and just apply to Canada, which is where DH is from, where you shouldn’t have to play these games to get in.

Anyone BTDT has real insights? [/quote]

No consultants, no life coaches or planners, and we banned more than one outside activity at a time until 7th grade. The first two attend different ivies, 3rd is likely going to be in at least one T20/top lac, possibly ivy as well. All were top handful of students as far as rigor of coursework and all tested 99%ile  overall on nationally-normed private and/or public magnet school entrance and WISC, one 99.9+%ile. They did not all go to the same high school. 
For the kids who have the smarts and discipline, who test according to their ability, no extra help via consultants is necessary. They write well on their own, they do not need help other than asking an English teacher to proofread which is normal expected practice at their school. 
The ones we know who hired consultants or essay editors or life coaches spent thousands and thousands over the years on tutors and then fandcy consultants, have kids at Baylor, UGA, UVA-in-state, Tulane, and a bunch of other good not amazing T30-T100 places. UVA in state is great but from our private they admit deep into the top third. That student could have gotten in without the $, though their tutors did keep them in the second to top math group from middle school on. 
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