Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thank you for responses. I got crimson’s fee sheet. They have different packages ranging from 11k to 30k. They also have hourly services-for example, application review by a former AO of the targeted school. That is around 1k.

that's a good deal. does it include a markup of the essays? if so, sign up for that for sure now. You will want it.

$1k per hour is a good deal for an essay editor?!? Either you are out of your mind or I'm in the wrong profession...

Is the app review $1k an hour? I think that's ad-hoc. Let's see what she says.
I did app review from Ingenius Prep, 3 applications (RD) had to be submitted in full by Dec 20, turnaround 6 days or so, full markup of all essays (by sep essay editor), review by former T10 admissions offers and full commentary for each T20 school.
$2700

And we used nothing like this and kid got in to several T20 schools.

I have posted about our experience with Crimson before, but I'll share again -

We engaged Crimson when we were living in a rural area where a lower percentage of kids attended college (and then it was the local state college). The area also had limited extracurricular opportunities, so we wanted to use a counselor to get/ keep DC on track for a broader college opportunity. Not Ivy, but one of the many "good" schools.

I think the package was $12k over 4 years (9-12), and included X hours for SAT tutoring, X hours for essay review, X hours for AP tutoring, and a team of people, including a strategist and different coaches (one to brainstorm ECs and summer programs). It seemed reasonable for what we needed. And it started off pretty good.

The challenge, as others here have mentioned, is that most of the people working at Crimson are recent graduates, working PT earning some extra $$ while applying to grad school or law school. On the one hand, it was great for DC to have an opportunity to talk to all these young adults. But the turnover was very high (we had 3 different strategists in 18 months), and many sessions were wasted on intros/ "getting to know you" over and over again.

They had a terrible app/website where you were supposed to keep all communication, but it didn't have parent access, and it didn't have alerts. And even the Crimson team didn't use it very often, so lots of conversations and messages got lost. So again, instead of building upon previous conversations and moving the strategy forward, it was a lot of repetition. It was like we had to keep them organized.

And then, when we did want to use our "tutor" hours, it would sometimes take a while for them to find a tutor, and I didn't have the confidence that we were getting the best tutor.

And finally, our team wasn't really "cohesive" - ie, they were spread out across the world and didn't know each other, so sometimes we got conflicting advice on which math track to pursue, or which summer program.

It just felt like a messy startup with a good idea, but very poor execution.

Ultimately, I felt like I got the gist of what they were trying to do and could manage the process better myself, plus we moved to a bigger city, so we just dropped them completely (did not get any money back).

I read that WSJ article and agree that a very tiny percentage of people are paying top dollar and getting all the best resources Crimson has allocated to those students. Anyone in the $12-30k range would be better off just hiring individual tutors/coaches as needed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thank you for responses. I got crimson’s fee sheet. They have different packages ranging from 11k to 30k. They also have hourly services-for example, application review by a former AO of the targeted school. That is around 1k.

that's a good deal. does it include a markup of the essays? if so, sign up for that for sure now. You will want it.

$1k per hour is a good deal for an essay editor?!? Either you are out of your mind or I'm in the wrong profession...

Is the app review $1k an hour? I think that's ad-hoc. Let's see what she says.
I did app review from Ingenius Prep, 3 applications (RD) had to be submitted in full by Dec 20, turnaround 6 days or so, full markup of all essays (by sep essay editor), review by former T10 admissions offers and full commentary for each T20 school.
$2700

I don’t know if per hour or per school. I will find out more in a couple of days. We only need app review for one school.

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thank you for responses. I got crimson’s fee sheet. They have different packages ranging from 11k to 30k. They also have hourly services-for example, application review by a former AO of the targeted school. That is around 1k.

30k isn’t bad for 2-3 years.

One Chinese family paid Rick Singer $6.5 million to get their kid into a selective US college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thank you for responses. I got crimson’s fee sheet. They have different packages ranging from 11k to 30k. They also have hourly services-for example, application review by a former AO of the targeted school. That is around 1k.

that's a good deal. does it include a markup of the essays? if so, sign up for that for sure now. You will want it.

$1k per hour is a good deal for an essay editor?!? Either you are out of your mind or I'm in the wrong profession...

Is the app review $1k an hour? I think that's ad-hoc. Let's see what she says.
I did app review from Ingenius Prep, 3 applications (RD) had to be submitted in full by Dec 20, turnaround 6 days or so, full markup of all essays (by sep essay editor), review by former T10 admissions offers and full commentary for each T20 school.
$2700

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thank you for responses. I got crimson’s fee sheet. They have different packages ranging from 11k to 30k. They also have hourly services-for example, application review by a former AO of the targeted school. That is around 1k.

that's a good deal. does it include a markup of the essays? if so, sign up for that for sure now. You will want it.

$1k per hour is a good deal for an essay editor?!? Either you are out of your mind or I'm in the wrong profession...

Anonymous wrote:OP. Thank you for responses. I got crimson’s fee sheet. They have different packages ranging from 11k to 30k. They also have hourly services-for example, application review by a former AO of the targeted school. That is around 1k.

that's a good deal. does it include a markup of the essays? if so, sign up for that for sure now. You will want it.

OP. Thank you for responses. I got crimson’s fee sheet. They have different packages ranging from 11k to 30k. They also have hourly services-for example, application review by a former AO of the targeted school. That is around 1k.

Command is a gimmick for parents too busy or too important to get into the weeds on this.

I do find some of the online resources good though, and I used them as a guide. DC will be at T10 in fall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand why people go for these services. Take a look at Command Education's website, which charges $75K for the upper end package.
https://www.commandeducation.com/our-results/

Many of the schools listed there, UNC, Emory, WashU, UChicago, UCLA, UCB, are not difficult to get in. And Cornell if you are in-state is easy to get in (don't forget the guaranteed transfer option). Paying such obscene amount of money just doesn't make any sense.

Not 75K.

$750K!

So funny, when I saw 75k, my initial thought was, "wow, they're running a discount?!?" The founder of Command Education owns a $7 million home in Florida, in addition to his place in Manhattan where he meets with clients at a private club. There was a NY Magazine article about him if you're interested.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My concern with most of the counseling companies is that their customers / students are mostly rich whites. They don’t advertise any Asian kid getting into these schools. Asian is very competitive to get into top 15

The whole point of these companies is to prey on rich people's anxiety. They are a total sham. Good on asian parents for not getting sucked into it.

There are 100 Asian versions of this but they advertise in Chinese and don't care about making fancy websites.

+1

I'm a high school teacher in Singapore. There are PLENTY of these services in Asia. And many are extremely unethical.

Totally. My cousin in Asia is terrible at English - he cannot even hold a basic conversation in English - and got into multiple schools in the U.S. because a counselor wrote his essays for him. Yes, you read that correctly.

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand why people go for these services. Take a look at Command Education's website, which charges $75K for the upper end package.
https://www.commandeducation.com/our-results/

Many of the schools listed there, UNC, Emory, WashU, UChicago, UCLA, UCB, are not difficult to get in. And Cornell if you are in-state is easy to get in (don't forget the guaranteed transfer option). Paying such obscene amount of money just doesn't make any sense.

Not 75K.

$750K!

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand why people go for these services. Take a look at Command Education's website, which charges $75K for the upper end package.
https://www.commandeducation.com/our-results/

Many of the schools listed there, UNC, Emory, WashU, UChicago, UCLA, UCB, are not difficult to get in. And Cornell if you are in-state is easy to get in (don't forget the guaranteed transfer option). Paying such obscene amount of money just doesn't make any sense.

its for people who don't know how to navigate or frankly have so much money that this is just good insurance for them.
why worry or stress about how others waste their $$$.

I don't really understand why people go for these services. Take a look at Command Education's website, which charges $75K for the upper end package.
https://www.commandeducation.com/our-results/

Many of the schools listed there, UNC, Emory, WashU, UChicago, UCLA, UCB, are not difficult to get in. And Cornell if you are in-state is easy to get in (don't forget the guaranteed transfer option). Paying such obscene amount of money just doesn't make any sense.