Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:op, I get why you are looking for someone. We hired a well known essay coach for $18k — the worst money we spent as far as getting the kid into a tippy-top school. But essays were done before deadlines.

Questions to ask consultant - have they helped a kid get into the colleges you kid is aiming for? What do they do if your kid is rejected from ED/REA schools? Ask for an example of essay feedback so you know whether or not it meets your needs. Some coaches preserve the kid’s voice (good) whereas other rewrite so much, it sounds like the adult is applying to college.

That is a crazy amount of money and can make clients feel their kid iss entitled to acceptances. Both of these are wrong.

OP, ask friends and neighbors. The most satisfied people I know are the ones who spent 4-5K and hired independent counselors, not people in the big companies. The biggest pluses I have seen is helping a kid stay on track and lower the stress plus strong feedback on essays.

It was indeed too much money. We had reasons due to which we were unable to help and kid had a boatload of stress due to teacher bullying. We were lucky we were able to make some choices and give this to kid — it was not just any esssy coach, we wanted to provide the best help due to sticky situation. Everyone in a high school has heard about this coach and used their essay resources.

If you are done with the process can you name names for others going through next year?

For those who are actually using consultants, if you could mention the firm you are using, it would be great!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can recommend a place in Oxford that helps get students prepared for Oxford or Cambridge applications.

They help with a whole range of things, but namely when it comes to Oxbridge entry - the test prep, the interview prep and the writing of the "personal statement" that's required (currently but not forever) by UCAS.

They are called Oxford Tutors and they charge far less than any US based company. Here is their website link

https://oxfordtutors.com/tutoring/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23151745572&gbraid=0AAAAACk7oBDc1J62Z6WnAgelH7h_bQcez&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_8TJBhDNARIsAPX5qxSalMzVL6GCGxzN3ZlnZuPvivgCHmSJ0k4Wx6vp1gz90YKs-W1YAbYaAgvUEALw_wcB

This reass like an ad

+1. Just asked my kid at Oxford. He says no one has ever heard of them

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:op, I get why you are looking for someone. We hired a well known essay coach for $18k — the worst money we spent as far as getting the kid into a tippy-top school. But essays were done before deadlines.

Questions to ask consultant - have they helped a kid get into the colleges you kid is aiming for? What do they do if your kid is rejected from ED/REA schools? Ask for an example of essay feedback so you know whether or not it meets your needs. Some coaches preserve the kid’s voice (good) whereas other rewrite so much, it sounds like the adult is applying to college.

That is a crazy amount of money and can make clients feel their kid iss entitled to acceptances. Both of these are wrong.

OP, ask friends and neighbors. The most satisfied people I know are the ones who spent 4-5K and hired independent counselors, not people in the big companies. The biggest pluses I have seen is helping a kid stay on track and lower the stress plus strong feedback on essays.

It was indeed too much money. We had reasons due to which we were unable to help and kid had a boatload of stress due to teacher bullying. We were lucky we were able to make some choices and give this to kid — it was not just any esssy coach, we wanted to provide the best help due to sticky situation. Everyone in a high school has heard about this coach and used their essay resources.

There's five big parts: grades, resume building, test taking, list building, essays.

1. Don't let grades weigh you down. Get a tutor for any subject that is a struggle. Do this from 9th. find a reasonable math (or whatever) tutor and use them weekly for years. We didn't do this and should have.

2. Does your kid need a passion project? Nope. But resume building is important and either starts early or the "story" has to be built in retrospect (my kids both did that). look at kids activities. look at kids major. Can you combine the two? medium good 3 seasons sports athlete + lawn care business = sports management with focus on women's sports marketing fill that out a little with an research project since internships would be too hard to get and manage social media for high school girls teams. or NSLIY + debate = asian studies with focus on women's development. etc.

This is actually the most important step. Consultants can be helpful but you can often do this on your own. Some kids think this isn't "authentic" so you may need to start explaining why this is important earlier than later.

3. test taking - self study, tutor, or a class. But take the tests. There's no real strategy, whatever is best for your kid. I prefer back to back tests in fall of junior year. Study summer before and knock it out.

4. Look at your high school's school profile. For most kids, the college they end up at is among the usual suspects from your high school, either high end, medium, or low end. But maybe you have a kid who would be interested in an Edinburgh? Or is a super star compared to peers. Then you'll need to do a lot of work. But .. assuming your kid is a regular standard strong student at a standard strong high school - this is an easy and fun exercise: take the list of 5 yr matriculations from your high school and sit with kid and cross out all the "I'm 100% sure I'm going here" colleges. And then make a strategy to visit some things that pop out. You'll have a long list of 20 colleges before you know it. Moving for 20 to 10 will take shape as kid and resume mature.

5. Essay writing. Either a parent or aunt or teacher can help with this or you need an essay coach. My kids benefitted by them/me renting an Airbnb for a few days in late summer and writing/editing a bunch of these. These stack up so whatever the plan, make it happen.

That's it. I think the "story" is really what matters. It makes essay writing easier too. But every step is important. Just take it piece by piece.

No counselor here but we did spend money instead on an SAT prep class and an essay coach. Both incredibly worth it. A “counselor” to help find and pair colleges wasn’t needed with my DDs specific major and criteria; Naviance has it all with the data to go with it. I got a parent login from her MCPS counselor and that was it.

Reads^^

Anonymous wrote:I can recommend a place in Oxford that helps get students prepared for Oxford or Cambridge applications.

They help with a whole range of things, but namely when it comes to Oxbridge entry - the test prep, the interview prep and the writing of the "personal statement" that's required (currently but not forever) by UCAS.

They are called Oxford Tutors and they charge far less than any US based company. Here is their website link

https://oxfordtutors.com/tutoring/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23151745572&gbraid=0AAAAACk7oBDc1J62Z6WnAgelH7h_bQcez&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_8TJBhDNARIsAPX5qxSalMzVL6GCGxzN3ZlnZuPvivgCHmSJ0k4Wx6vp1gz90YKs-W1YAbYaAgvUEALw_wcB

This reass like an ad

I can recommend a place in Oxford that helps get students prepared for Oxford or Cambridge applications.

They help with a whole range of things, but namely when it comes to Oxbridge entry - the test prep, the interview prep and the writing of the "personal statement" that's required (currently but not forever) by UCAS.

They are called Oxford Tutors and they charge far less than any US based company. Here is their website link

https://oxfordtutors.com/tutoring/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23151745572&gbraid=0AAAAACk7oBDc1J62Z6WnAgelH7h_bQcez&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_8TJBhDNARIsAPX5qxSalMzVL6GCGxzN3ZlnZuPvivgCHmSJ0k4Wx6vp1gz90YKs-W1YAbYaAgvUEALw_wcB

Kids really level up when they get exposure outside regular schoolwork. My nephew actually discovered his passion for AI after joining the USAII NextGen Challenge 2026, which even features a national AI hackathon to boost practical skills early.

Find your DC’s first choice. Apply ED1. Ask for no aide and put on your helmet. Be like every American leverage up and write the check.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t use one and believe they could be helpful but anecdotally I’ve been surprised by the outcomes of families that I know did, in the sense that I would have thought their kids would’ve gotten into better schools. Not sure if the advice was bad, the kids were weaker candidates than I assumed, or college admissions is just do competitive, but I also suspect the counselors persuade students to undershoot in ED to wrap up a good outcome.

Many, if not most, families use counselors for reasons other than getting into the highest ranked school.

Sure but advice on “strategy” is one of the things people mention.

sometimes the strategy is to get the most merit aid possible...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t use one and believe they could be helpful but anecdotally I’ve been surprised by the outcomes of families that I know did, in the sense that I would have thought their kids would’ve gotten into better schools. Not sure if the advice was bad, the kids were weaker candidates than I assumed, or college admissions is just do competitive, but I also suspect the counselors persuade students to undershoot in ED to wrap up a good outcome.

Many, if not most, families use counselors for reasons other than getting into the highest ranked school.

Sure but advice on “strategy” is one of the things people mention.

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t use one and believe they could be helpful but anecdotally I’ve been surprised by the outcomes of families that I know did, in the sense that I would have thought their kids would’ve gotten into better schools. Not sure if the advice was bad, the kids were weaker candidates than I assumed, or college admissions is just do competitive, but I also suspect the counselors persuade students to undershoot in ED to wrap up a good outcome.

Many, if not most, families use counselors for reasons other than getting into the highest ranked school.

I didn’t use one and believe they could be helpful but anecdotally I’ve been surprised by the outcomes of families that I know did, in the sense that I would have thought their kids would’ve gotten into better schools. Not sure if the advice was bad, the kids were weaker candidates than I assumed, or college admissions is just do competitive, but I also suspect the counselors persuade students to undershoot in ED to wrap up a good outcome.