What should college admission consultants do?

Do college admissions consultants really boost your chances of admissions into highly selective universities?

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I was asked to answer the question above on the website Quora.com

Your question has too many unknown variables to answer it with any degree of accuracy.

Before I try to outline why this is, however, let me just say that the private consulting business is booming. Whether in the US, China or virtually anyplace around the globe that sends lots of students to selective schools, there are thousands and thousands of companies, agencies and individuals who are paid to help students select schools to apply to and to help them get into those schools.

Not all that long ago there were very few people in the education consulting business. Now there are thousands. Why is this? In part it stems from the way that admission has been transformed at highly selective schools. Part of it comes from the rankings game. Schools at the top want to stay there and unless a school is number one all want to climb to the top. Each year admission offices, college and university presidents and untold millions of others wait to see who will be number 1 in the US News rankings. This competition to rise in the rankings has led to efforts to increase applications, since this number is used in the methodology of rankings. Each year applications increase at virtually all highly ranked schools. Some have nearly doubled application numbers in the last decade. And as applications have increased the acceptance percentage has dropped. Harvard not all that long ago had an 18% acceptance rate. This year it was 5%.

I mention all this as many students who are trying to get into elite schools feel they need help. They know that students with virtually perfect numbers in terms of rank in class or GPA or SAT or all 3 are still not accepted.

Many of these students seek out private counselors. It may seem counterintuitive but the percentage of students who use private counselors tends to rise the stronger the secondary school a student attends. Many students at top boarding schools, private schools, and public schools use consultants. The parents and the students feel that anything they can do to improve the odds is worth the investment. But it is also true that an increasing number of students who not at the very top are using consultants. Students are now applying to many more schools than they used to and they often want help finding a good match. In addition, students are looking for ways to find financial aid or merit scholarships in order to offset the very high costs of most colleges and universities.

If I had to say which students might benefit most from consultants it would be a diverse group. For students at the top academically, consultants can help ‘theme’ an application. By this I mean that a consultant can help brand the student as a certain type of student that the school tends to favor. For example, a student interested in science might benefit from a consultant who could help the student find a great lab to work in over the summer or might be able to suggest activities that would help solidify the student’s passion for science. The consultant could also strategize about which teachers would best underscore a passion for science and what essays would also help. A themed student can be summed up in a few bullet points to present to an admission committee. If the student is perceived as one of the vey best students in a category-- science kid or arts kid or athlete etc., -- then that student often stands a better chance of being admitted than the typically very bright well-rounded students.

The students who often benefit most from consulting services are low income. Many consultants do pro bono work in the community. They take first generation students or students from under-represented groups who are strong students and help them free of charge. It feels really good to help someone like this and getting these students to think about all the factors that go into admission is rewarding to the student and to the consultant. It is a public good.

Helping a typical strong but not star student often means managing expectations. Often these students have Ivy dreams and getting them to see that this is not likely is a challenge, but most of the students end up in places they love. Finding schools that match a student’s interests is not often highlighted when thinking of private consultants, but in many ways these are the students who make up the majority of the people using these services.

As for how helpful a consultant can be, I would say that like many things the effect could be mapped on a bell curve. There are some consultants that are exceptionally good at what they do. They are professional, smart, dedicated and know a great deal about schools and education. At the other end of the spectrum there are some folks who are consulting for all the wrong reasons. Some want to make a ton of money and treat students as though they were a number and don’t spend much time helping or farm out the work on essays and activities and almost everything else to others. In some cases (China is the worst in terms of the percentage of consultants who do this), consultants write the essays for the students, and do lots of other less than ethical things (advise how to pad a resume for example). In between, there are some who are quite good but not superstars and there are some who are not all that good at all but if nothing else help to lesson the stress for the student and parents. There is something to be said about turning over the process to someone who is not a parent. The number of tense conversations between parents and students tends to go way down when someone else is taking on the oversight of the admission applications.

I think anyone looking for a consultant should understand that there is not magic to the process. Consultants cannot get a less than great kid into an elite school. They can suggest things, if they start working with the student early enough in secondary school, which transforms the student from good to great, but this does not happen that often.

The most important things consultants do is to emphasize fit instead of name. There are thousands of colleges and universities and there are thousands of places a student can be transformed by the classes, the students and faculty, and the overall atmosphere. Our world is so focused on rankings and names, when most of us don’t really live at the top, don’t really show up on twitter or Huffington or the evening news. To find a way of learning that will enrich students for the rest of their lives is the job of a consultant. Many of them, have a great deal of experience in education and most that I know love the students they work with. They have the time to spend with students that almost no one working in a secondary school can spend. Students share hope and dreams, and yes, lots of insecurities too. It isn’t quite therapy but having someone in your corner who can help celebrate good news about schools or hope a student get over a rejection from a dream school can be something that will stay with a student forever.

Some schools treat students as numbers. More and more schools are looking for full payers and more and more schools are doing admission by using deep data instead of looking closely at the individual students. It’s far more about institutional priorities than it is about genuinely holistic evaluations of individual students. And this approach has made the process of getting in to some schools nearly an overwhelming process for anyone let alone a 17 year old. Some private counselors look at the bottom line too. Can the client ay and how much. But most don’t.  The ones who are committed to making the process a positive one, not matter the name of the school ultimately choose to go to, are the ones who make the profession rewarding for everyone. It isn’t all about the money for most that I know; instead, it’s about changing lives. The whole process has become a maze and even a hero like Theseus needed his Ariadne. I see that some private counselors care far more for the individual students than some of the schools that critique the profession of private counselors as predatory and money-drive. Tu Quoque (“you also” in Latin). If you are going to choose a private counselor  Google them and  also try to find someone who has worked with him or her and talk to them. And talk to the counselor before you pay anything. Even if they seem to have a fast track to great schools, they may not be a good match for you. It is like the colleges themselves. Chemistry and personality play a roll, or at least they should. Good luck with the process of applying to schools and thank you for asking me to answer this question.