Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say don't totally rely on Application Nation. Many families in the group use her group as a point of advice. But they also use outside counselors to help boost their child's application. AN is very good at teaching the granular process of college admissions, which the 1:1 private counselor won't be able to provide. To understand the system and how arbitrary the admissions process is, AN is very good.

This is what we did. Outside essay help, outside application reviews, outside help with narrative.

It’s a good group to follow though for general learning, knowledge gathering and frankly generating ideas (for my younger kid).

Just pay the minimal monthly fee. And read what others are posting….

This is the type of stalker parent that this group is geared towards. So you also need to hire a consultant for essays, a consultant for reviews and a consultant for help with narrative. Not what a family would expect when hiring "America's college counselor"!

If your kid can write well, no need for the rest. But the peer pressure might get to you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say don't totally rely on Application Nation. Many families in the group use her group as a point of advice. But they also use outside counselors to help boost their child's application. AN is very good at teaching the granular process of college admissions, which the 1:1 private counselor won't be able to provide. To understand the system and how arbitrary the admissions process is, AN is very good.

This is what we did. Outside essay help, outside application reviews, outside help with narrative.

It’s a good group to follow though for general learning, knowledge gathering and frankly generating ideas (for my younger kid).

Just pay the minimal monthly fee. And read what others are posting….

I remember a mom in AN who had 5-6 former AOs review her son’s college apps. Parents with kids at prep schools are in the group too. Lots of pressure.

I agree with the person who said her advice is a bit outdated. and you can get everything from a book or a podcast (Yale). But we found her at the right time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say don't totally rely on Application Nation. Many families in the group use her group as a point of advice. But they also use outside counselors to help boost their child's application. AN is very good at teaching the granular process of college admissions, which the 1:1 private counselor won't be able to provide. To understand the system and how arbitrary the admissions process is, AN is very good.

This is what we did. Outside essay help, outside application reviews, outside help with narrative.

It’s a good group to follow though for general learning, knowledge gathering and frankly generating ideas (for my younger kid).

Just pay the minimal monthly fee. And read what others are posting….

This is the type of stalker parent that this group is geared towards. So you also need to hire a consultant for essays, a consultant for reviews and a consultant for help with narrative. Not what a family would expect when hiring "America's college counselor"!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Sybil Gohari. She's unparalleled.

https://admissions.company/undergraduate/

Holy crap! $8-16K???? 😳

She’s worth it.

What makes Sybil so good?

college of their dreams....blech, cringe.

Hired Foundry Admissions on a friends rec. We're a private school family with a student who needed more help sticking to deadlines and I didn't want to have to do it. I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful they were with the entire process and will definitely hire them again for my younger son. Very reasonable and they were there when we had followup questions before committing.

We enjoyed working wtih Moxie - we just signed our second kid up. I think first kid ended up where we would have thought but really glad we had Moxie to walk him through the process so that it was really his decision making and not ours when it came to admissions strategy and applying. We are an FCPS family.
They were referred to us by a family with two students in a DC private. They were happy enough the first go-around that they used them again!

I would only hire a one on one private counselor who has actually been in the admissions room - recently.

After going through this process now 2 times, their advice is more tailored, different and more relevant.

Anonymous wrote:I would say don't totally rely on Application Nation. Many families in the group use her group as a point of advice. But they also use outside counselors to help boost their child's application. AN is very good at teaching the granular process of college admissions, which the 1:1 private counselor won't be able to provide. To understand the system and how arbitrary the admissions process is, AN is very good.

Why wouldn't a 1:1 private counselor be able to provide advice on the "granular process of college admission"?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That helped your high performing child get into the college of their dreams. DC is in a public school in APEX program. Will need help with applications, essays, college selection.
Thank you in advance!

Toxic perspective

Oh come on… college of their dreams doesn’t mean HYP to everyone… many dreams are attainable. My kid’s dream was Williams. So then she made a list of schools like it and looked at most by start of senior year. She’s now at a SLAC, not Williams, but I’d say the dream helped her find a perfect fit.

Good luck to your child OP.. whatever the dream is… and realize the dream may change.

Anonymous wrote:I would say don't totally rely on Application Nation. Many families in the group use her group as a point of advice. But they also use outside counselors to help boost their child's application. AN is very good at teaching the granular process of college admissions, which the 1:1 private counselor won't be able to provide. To understand the system and how arbitrary the admissions process is, AN is very good.

This is what we did. Outside essay help, outside application reviews, outside help with narrative.

It’s a good group to follow though for general learning, knowledge gathering and frankly generating ideas (for my younger kid).

Just pay the minimal monthly fee. And read what others are posting….

I would say don't totally rely on Application Nation. Many families in the group use her group as a point of advice. But they also use outside counselors to help boost their child's application. AN is very good at teaching the granular process of college admissions, which the 1:1 private counselor won't be able to provide. To understand the system and how arbitrary the admissions process is, AN is very good.

You can get all the help you need or $3000 to $4000 dollars. Essay help, college list, application review, etc. Many local counselors cost no more than $250 to $400 per hour and we found we needed about 9 hours in total. For this we got a counselor who is familiar with FCPS, got to know the student, has a baseline of what similar students fared in the recent admissions cycle, got student on track to timelines, reviewed essays, reviewed the application and helped with many questions along the way. Dont waste money and effort on Application Nation.

AN is a good deal for Sara but bad for families. It is a business model problem. She wants to make a lot of money, and one-on-one counseling limits how much money she can make. She can advise a million students at a low fixed cost with this model. So she came up with an approach that makes her a lot of money.

The main help families need in the admissions process is getting advice for their specific circumstances. The general advice you can get from reading any good book on admissions. It is like asking for relationship or counseling advice in a newspaper vs talking with a therapist. In a newspaper the person is probably famous and gives good general advice, but many of the nuances are lost. In competitive admissions space, this is not the kind of help that would give you any advantage. A counselor who is familiar with the student and the school system, can give targeted, direct help that we found to be vastly more useful. I wish we realized this much earlier in the cycle when we were applying.

Curious about Application Nation. Any more reviews?