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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Honestly? Hired a consultant at the start of junior year or even sophomore year. Shaping a clear "narrative" probably would have given DC a real shot at an Ivy. [/quote]

You can create that narrative on your own - I did for my kids. You need to look at their activities - find the common threads. Frankly feed the activities list into DeepSeek, Claude, Gemini or Chatgpt (only the paid versions) and ask it to analyze it for:

1. Evidence of major and which one (then choose the one that's the least popular for purposes of admissions)*
2. Give it an example of a narrative (you can get from the book soundbite, or from various national firms who do admissions webinars) and ask it to put a narrative together for you
3. ask for areas of weakness and what types of things kid can do over next summer or year to strengthen position
4. ask for suggested research topics for a capstone project that ties into narrative or standalone research
5. ask for ideal ECs at college that appear to correspond to these interests.

done and done.[/quote]

DP here. No disrespect but that is a bog standard narrative. What a CC helps you create is an extraordinary narrative that stands out and is aimed directly at entry to the Ivy League. They do know what they're doing. And most parent's are functioning just outside that kind of sphere.[/quote]

It is telling that DCUM thinks ChatGPT can write brilliant essays and come up with striking T10 worthy narratives. Nope and nope.

I agree that the big CC firms don't do anything you couldn't do yourself, but if you can spend the money on a really qualified one - that is, a former AO - they can package an unhooked strong-stats student into an Ivy candidate IF you have to hire them by the start of junior year at the latest. Needless to say, that is  expensive. Still, knowing what I know now, it probably would have been worth the extra 20 or 30 grand.[/quote]

Agreed on the value of a really good independent counselor. As much as I’d like to think of my DC as the most special of snowflakes, the fact is they’re just one of too many qualified applicants. I’m convinced DC’s in-the-know counselor was a key lever in their T5 early admit this cycle. We paid a total of $22,500 for her services, but spent $0 on summer programs since her guidance helped DC win three fully funded scholarships/research opportunities in high school (which I’m sure ultimately boosted the strength of their college application, as well).[/quote]

Talk about your uneven playing fields.[/quote]

The poster spent $22k to play.

For the rest of us, that's a half-yr of college tuition.[/quote]

I have a friend with much deeper pockets than mine.  She spent over $20k for each of her 2 kids counselors. Both kids got into top schools including an ivy. Both kids transferred out after the first year because the school was a bad fit. This is two different top counselors in the DC area.  Counselors don't know your kid like you do.  Still she proceeded to double down on counselors for the best transfer applications. She spent as much on test prep and counselors that I will spend on college itself.[/quote]

Transferring from where to where?[/quote]

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