Listen: applying to college is just not that difficult. I did it with a Fiske guide, and an SAT prep book. My guess is, so did you. My two kids did it, within the last five years and despite the fear-mongering in our affluent community, using free online test prep and without a professional counselor. And this was from a large public high school where there was one counselor for 400 students. Their English teachers read their essays for them. That was it. They each got into their top choice, highly selective school. I truly believe that the complexity of the process is exaggerated, mainly by the test prep and college counseling industries, and the fears are stoked by frantic, overly competitive parents.
My advice to current high school parents: are your kids bright, and responsible? Then buck the system. Let them manage their applications. Save your money. They can do it. Really.
6
You private school school people crack me up.
2
There are a lot of lesser-regarded state schools that offer exceptional opportunity to students who are willing to reach for it. What snobs we reveal ourselves to be if we refuse to acknowledge that.
2
I bought an SAT practice book from Barnes and Noble.
My daughter had a 4.0 with honors, 10 AP classes with top scores and at the honors event in her senior year she went on stage more times than any other student there. I gave her an SAT prep book that I forced her to work on for a total of three hours and she miraculously got a perfect 36 ACT (and a 1560 SAT that she took while ill). She had her Dad and a counselor friend review her application essay.
She applied to twelve schools and got rejected by ten of them. Princeton and Harvey Mudd were sort of expected. Pomona, Olin, Swarthmore, Bates, Colby, Cornell, University of Washington and Brown seemed like punches to the gut.
She got into UW-Madison and Reed.
My younger daughter will have a college counselor.
4
@Melissa | Your daughter got into two great schools. She'll have to decide whether she wants a big state-school (UW-Madison, one of the very best in the US) or a liberal-arts college experience.
What's the problem?
Your daughter had great grades (many in AP courses) and high test scores. But so did hundreds upon hundreds of applicants to the schools you listed. On paper, she was no better or worse than they were. Still, something made your daughter stand out among the pack at UW-Madison and Reed.
What's the problem?
4
@Melissa You don't mention if your daughter had activities and extracurriculars outside of her amazing academics and scores. If she did not, that may have contributed to some rejections. Colleges, like future employers want to see a well-rounded student, who can achieve and vbe involved in other activities.
UW-Madison and Reed will both afford her ample opportunities.
1
@Cupcake Runner exactly, which is what college consultants help guide kids to do.
It is important to differentiate having connections, special talents, being a legacy, even donating to a college ... any and all of which absolutely do not guarantee admission* ... from cheating and fraud. The news media are confusing wealth with dishonesty. And abuse of the process; not to mention their children.
*There are many instances of students w/ impeccable references being rejected because not considered qualified or whatever. And, none-the-less, he did fine!
1
People here must not be current parents of merely mid-level public schools. If you are, consider yourself quite lucky if your student at such a school is receiving excellent instruction in writing. It is an essential skill mostly neglected in many public schools since teachers began to unionize themselves and "count the hours." The teaching of writing, and the various genres of that, is labor-intensive and is most efficiently taught when the student is sufficiently prepared and literate to benefit from top-drawer teaching, shall we say. That kind of teaching is simply standard at many private schools in this country, but especially in elite prep schools. Make private college consulting disappear, and prepare yourselves for a return to the presence of even more privilege in the student bodies of elite universities. There are families who can scrape together enough to hire a consultant but not also to enroll their children in private schools -- where the tuition is much more expensive than the full cost of a consultation service through high school years.
5
Okay, I'm probably going to catch it.
I'm a retired college admissions consultant with 30 years' experience helping students and families find colleges that are really right for them. And I want to defend good college consulting as an honest profession and service to help people do a better job with something important to them.
Most students don't know how to research colleges effectively or in their own best interest. They don't know how to structure a list that's realistic and designed to create confidence. They have no idea what qualities in essays move admissions readers. They haven't a clue as to how to keep angst from taking the bloom off their senior year.
The solutions are, of course, common sense, but as with most unfamiliar fields, you have to understand context to see how and where common sense applies.
Moreover most students don't write effectively and the essay is an ideal vehicle to teach them the skills – students know it matters and are willing to put in the work, so they emerge as better and more sophisticated writers.
I am just as appalled by the outrageous prices and the cheating as everybody else – more so, maybe, because I can't help but feel the outrage personally.
I guess I can be okay with that – provided people are willing also to vilify estate lawyers, tax preparers, realtors, job coaches, stockbrokers, theatrical agents, and any other services that help us navigate the world to our advantage and more confidently.
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The college admission officers are not wizards with a sorting hat. Even if they purport to be. For the uninitiated, or for parents or students who haven’t been through this process in some time, the competition among the most selective colleges is brutal and the criteria for acceptance appears to be shrouded in mystery.
My son received a perfect score on the ACT (36), earned by only 0.195% of all students who take this test. He also earned perfect scores on multiple AP exams (5s) and SAT Subject Tests (800s). He participated in two varsity sports, one club sport, Boy Scouts, held a multi-year engineering internship, and was active in multiple activities and clubs. His grades at the second-ranked public high school in Massachusetts were excellent, in a curriculum that included multiple AP classes, and two college-level math classes beyond calculus. He was not accepted, or even waitlisted, at any of the elite colleges.
4
@David L | "… the competition among the most selective colleges is brutal …"
If you have the presence of mind to write those words, what was the point of providing the catalogue you did of your son's seemingly extraordinary achievements? Thousands of applicants to "the elite colleges" had exactly the same achievements, don't you agree? Where was it written that your son was supposed to prevail over others?
2
When college time came, in 1964, my friends and I did everything ourselves. We sent away for catalogs, filled in all the application forms (each college had its own), wrote and typed the essays, and requested letters from teachers. Our parents wrote the application submission fee checks ($15 per school) and drove us to campus tours and interviews. They barely looked at any of the paperwork. It would not have occurred to us in a million years to ask or pay anyone to help in any way. We ignored the high school guidance counselors.
The entire current system stinks. No child applying to college should have essays professionally edited and so on. Even that I consider cheating. A child with learning disabilities or other such problems is a different matter.
Either the system is broken, and has been for a while, or much more needs to be done by our education system to assist kids and level the playing field a little more.
But do the elite universities want this? Would their donations from wealthy patrons shrink if more lower income students had an even shot at entering?
I don't know the answer, but it's a question worth asking. It's also worth taking a look at the top 10 elite colleges that do accept higher numbers of low- to mid- income students.
The elite schools that accept middle and lower income kids, first gen students, etc., and that work as effective vehicles of social mobility? That would be the public universities like UCLA, Cal, and the entire UC system. Maybe it’s worth looking at how to reinvigorate public education.
2
The entire US college entry system appears utterly bizarre to Australian eyes. We don't have a large private tertiary education sector, widespread traditions of out-of-state college attendance, or significant proportions of students living on campus.
Nor do we have the for-profit monetisation of everything from common academic assessments to running around trying to catch the person with the ball or community-mindedness - real or pretended - as a criterion for further education. Here, we are content with the results of state-wide academic assessments overwhelmingly governing admissions.
1
This scandal is probably generating very strong feelings among folks for all sorts of reasons. When I applied to colleges, my parents weren't part of the process. Once I got in, however, they (hallelujah) paid my tuition. My husband recalls the same scenario with his parents.
Our son is a freshman in college this year. He navigated the application process on his own. No assistance from any paid consultant. We supported him throughout this process and didn't hire any outside help. He didn't want it, and we're proud of him for his perseverance.
There are so many levels of the college entry process that aren't fair, and many are unethical. The details of this current scandal reveal a level that's illegal. Young people who come from families who don't have the funds to afford a four-year college face an uphill battle of going into debt. Those who are from families who haven't been able to provide stable housing or who are struggling with other issues/traumas face daunting obstacles.
Something about this process is so wrong. I didn't have to worry about tuition bills or student debt; I'm lucky. My son is lucky, too. That's privilege. Any parent who pays $2000 to $3000 dollars to hire a consultant for his/her college-bound child is exercising privilege. Getting admitted to a college because one of the buildings is named after your ancestor is privilege - big time.
And of course, the details of this latest scandal are outrageous and pathetic.
2
Hmmm, we did not pay a college counselor to support our child's application. Our child had a very similar (read, stronger) application to the girl who was admitted to Swarthmore. Our child applied to Yale, was waitlisted having received a form letter stating how strong her early application was but that Yale needed to see her first semester grades before making a decision. Well, she received the same straight A's that first semester senior year that she had always worked hard for. And no surprise, she was ultimately rejected.
This scandal bears out the fact that Yale and other top schools receive very strong applications but WAIT FOR the underground of the Rick Singer's, deep pocket Hollywood stars, C-Suite business executives, and even well paid lawyers (!) to approach, offer, and negotiate.
This rejection was the best thing that ever happened to our child, aside from the initial sting of rejection. It taught our child that life isn't fair and college admission is not a meritocracy, not even close. The education she received and the person she is have propelled her to success and happiness beyond her wildest dreams. Your loss, Yale.
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Dear "Everything I did was misguided and unethical,’' thank you for your intelligent son's service.
8
Where you go to college is less important than what you make of it once you get there.
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It's not really rocket science to apply to a university or do the research for colleges that are a good fit. Students used to do it before all this big business worth thousand of dollars in fees for counselors, test prep, etc. emerged. It is not that difficult to keep deadlines in sight (unless, that is the student is applying to 100 universities). There are probably programs and applications that can do that. If a student is unable to do manage a college application process with some basic orientations from their high school counselors, I am not sure how she or he will have the capability to survive in college. Ditto with the writing and editing of essays. Are these students hiring counselors and tutors to get them through college too? That sounds like cheating. I hope that admissions officials can detect these "edited" and overwritten essays and lower the applicant's merit points immediately.
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@tdb "Are these students hiring counselors and tutors to get them through college too?" Yes! Of course! In fact, many undergraduate writing courses require students to go to the University writing center for tutoring on their papers. Since one pays to attend a school, they are paying for these services. In addition, what if we think of this whole process like a music student applicant. These students generally have weekly lessons throughout their childhood, especially high school. Their private teachers will help them prepare auditions, interviews, etc. That is thousands of dollars on "tutoring." The student who is admitted to any music school without ever having a private teacher would be a rare exception. Sure there are students that can navigate the admissions process (applications, essays, auditions, financial aid applications, etc.), but what harm does it do for a parent to pay for someone to tutor a student through this process. Attending college is one gigantic tutoring process with highly paid and qualified professors, paid tutors, writing centers, career counseling centers, academic advisement centers (especially when it comes to students who are struggling to choose an ultimate degree path), etc. So, there is absolutely nothing wrong with paying to increase chances of success - and if people think this is mere "privilege," I would ask if you consider higher education "mere privilege." There is a difference between tutoring and doing all the work for a student.
Our children attend a private school in the DC area that charges--as of next year--$38K a year in tuition; it's understood that a top-notch college admissions counseling department is included in the price. Our college admissions counselors work hard to identify each student's strengths, interests and needs and to identify the schools that are their 'best' matches based on those things--not to guide them to Ivies. They marshal recommendations, advise on testing, and vet essays. My kids' counselor is genuinely a wise friend and cheerleader--all kids should be so lucky.
1
Yes, all kids should be so lucky. Some clearly are luckier than others. It’s fair to ask: what “luck” got to do with it?
3
My great uncle Max paid $5000 to get his son into medical school back in the '30s when $5000 was serious money. The kid was qualified, but he was a Jew. Back in those days, you paid off or you studied in Europe. Notice that the kid was QUALIFIED. Makes a difference.
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I can't believe the cruelty. Not attending your child's graduation because they didn't like their chid's decision? Two parents who graduated from Swarthmore not taking a bit of time to learn today's procedures on applying to Swarthmore? Money, money spent and not a bit of real time? (Of course, the guidance counselor was "busy." I can imagine if parents were working with their kids.) My children both went to college....some help on applications and financial aid forms from US. Graduate school selections and applications were done on their own.
2
Test scores and grades are not relevant for many college applicants.
Taking into account the college slots taken by legacies, jocks, affirmative action admittees, and cheaters like those whose parents were arrested in the college admissions bribery scam, there aren't many slots left for qualified but middle-class, non-minority kids at the top schools.
There is no easy solution to the problem because legacies, jocks and affirmative action seem to be here to stay. And, yes, some cheaters.
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@Mal T not sure about the affirmative action slots. I often hear this, but elite universities have miniscule populations of domestic students who are black and Latino. In fact, according to the NY times, the situation has gotten worse, not better, over the years: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/24/us/affirmative-action.html
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@Mal T | You're making what assumptions about "affirmative action admittees" and "minority kids"?
What if every application to college required disclosure of all the legs up that the applicant had? An acknowledgement of the privilege through the application process would be a welcome start.
This still misses the point that legacy admissions are a key driver for why steps need to be taken to level the playing field in the first place. We need to stop lamenting how "everyone else" is behaving and recognize how we all contribute through our small parts.
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There are a lot of people criticizing the the services that help students navigate the application process. However, would the same criticism apply if parents were the ones who did these things? I'm not sure I'd hire someone to do this, but I can't imagine not helping my kid research schools to figure out the best ones to apply to given their academic ability and our ability to pay, check in and make sure they kept to deadlines, do a mock interview, etc.
That's very different than cheating or pulling strings or bribing people, of course.
Certainly it gives my kids an advantage over kids' who don't have that support, but I don't see it as any different than any of the other skills, ethics, or life lessons I work to instill in my kids to make them successful for life. No one is born knowing how to do this stuff, and it's helpful for a teenager to have someone teaching them to be methodical and thoughtful.
I think there is a big difference in helping someone build a skill and understand how a system works (teaching someone to fish), than doing the work for them (giving them a fish). With a few exceptions, it sounds to me that most of the consultants described here did more of teaching to fish.
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@Itsy Of course these services can be of real benefit to the child. The point here is that very few people can afford them. And, yes, I do think it’s unfair that many parents went to college and know the game, or can afford leisure time (stay-at-home parents, etc.) to figure out how to help their kids, when many others don’t have the background themselves to know how the system works or don’t have the time to help their kids. The inequities in the admissions process extend far beyond simply being able to pay for a private counselor or not.
In response to "We find it baffling."
This person writes: "The counselor also helped with the essay, mostly just providing edits. We were completely hands-off, and have still never seen the essay. Our daughter had to put in the hard work, and in the end, she applied Early Decision to Swarthmore and was admitted."
The counselor helped with the essay? The counselor mostly just provided edits? The parents never saw the essay? You must be kidding! This is not much better than those who paid outright bribes to admissions officials and coaches or paid others to sit for tests.
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@Mal T
And the last 2 sentences - "hands-off, daughter put in hard work, etc." - no where was it recognized that they had the ultimate hook - 2 legacy parents. The kid chances of being admitted was pretty high.
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Ms Cranston,
It's good that you acknowledge your faults and narcissism in your case. The first sentence of your part of this article tells volumes: "My intelligent son with learning disabilities...". Like many parents I think you have rationalized your over-involvement because you feel your kid wouldn't get a fair shake otherwise. He's smart, he just has some quirks..so you've got to fix it. Well, none of us get a perfectly fair shake, all of us have flaws, and that's life.
1
@jboone
I have to disagree. My friend's younger daughter was diagnosed years ago with OCD and autism spectrum problems. She is very smart, is taking several honors and AP classes in her junior year in high school, but has huge difficulties taking tests in group settings, whether they are state-mandated tests, AP tests, ACT's, and sometimes even regular classroom tests. She usually needs to be in an individual room with a proctor or teacher for tests (which is exactly the system abused by the scammers). She has been on medication off and on since grade school, but I have still seen her "blank out" - she goes into something of a fugue state under stress - even in non-test situations, such as playing onstage with the band or during sports awards ceremonies. She is going to have enough difficulties in life as it is without people like you assuming the parents are "over-involved" and trying to get special treatment. Her older sister has none of the same issues, did not get any special treatment or help for her classes or test taking, and is thriving in college (our local state university, if that makes any difference to you).
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I wonder if all the coverage of working the system and cheating won't just increase this behavior.
Sadly, if parents believe everyone else is working the system, they may feel they need to do the same to give their child a "fair" chance.
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There is a lot of boasting going on in these comments, a form of 'humble bragging.' (The "my child took 16 AP classes and scored 1450 on the SAT. All on his own !") It's quite obnoxious. Then there are the people who bleat about how odious it is to spend $2K on a college advisor as if it's on a par with the current cheating scandal. It seems to me that one group simply can't resist bragging about the kids and a second can't resist denegrating other parents.
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@Susan Nakagawa
And 1450 actually stinks for a kid taking so many AP classes. I wouldn't be proud of that.
3
I appreciate the honesty of a couple of these letters.
if I was hiring someone and two candidates had near equal qualifications, I will always choose the one who came from a less well-off, privileged background. at least I never have to guess how much paid help they had to get where they are.
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This article is not as depressing and horrifying as the initial cheating scandal BUT still a sad statement on the state of post secondary schools education in the US. It seems that there is a huge business of people making large sums of money to get that perceived edge of admittance to the "best" schools. Its interesting that all these parents brag about the excellent marks and standing their children have and still that is not good enough. The monies spent on prep courses is significant and yet there is still tuition , residency and living costs to be paid. Not possible for most.
It remains to be seen
4
I think I am a bit sickened by all the parents who said they didn't do anything wrong in spending thousands to prepare a child - since wasn't that the purpose of high school and PARENTS? Sure some tutoring, but help writing essays means they didn't really get there all on their own merits. Surely there were hundred of other kids out there just as qualified who didn't get that help. Quite a bit of rationalizing from the rich parents. I guess since they signed their names they are unaware that "legal" doesn't mean it was right, and they feel no embarrassment for what they bought. Sounds like their kids also feel entitled to what $ can buy.
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@MAEC Right! It’s especially clear in the child’s (Zach’s) letter that these people explicitly teach their children that they can sleep well at night as long as they don’t actually break the law — he says his parents’ help was not “unethical per se. By that, I mean it wasn’t illegal...” I actually laughed out loud when I read that one.
As I read the various articles about the college admissions scandal, I keep noticing one thing about the parents who will stop at nothing (even commit fraud) to achieve the goal:
Getting the child into the "right" school, by hook or by crook, is one thing. What do these parents expect to happen that first semester? And for all ensuing semesters? If the student cannot get into the school on their own power, then the student is set up to fail. Parents can cheat their kid's way into college, but no amount of money is going to ensure the kid's academic success. These are not responsible parents -- they are narcissists using their children as status symbols.
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This is not a victimless crime. These cheaters are taking places from deserving students. As the first in my family to attend college, going to an Ivy League school was a great advantage. Not the least being, a more accurate appraisal of myself compared to the 'best and the brightest'.
3
We hired a counselor who was more of a writing coach than anything, although her knowledge of admissions processes at different universities and in different states was admirable and did help us narrow our choices.
My son's writing ability has always lagged behind his other skills, partly because of two or three years of very bad English teachers in elementary and middle schools (we were not alone in our assessment, and the teachers were eventually replaced). He went to a summer school writing class before high school and got after-school tutoring from two of his teachers in his freshman and sophomore years. His counselor provided similar help - not writing the essays for him, but repeatedly pointing out his need to explain or support his conclusions, extrapolate on points made, and to make sure that the essay fully addressed and answered the essay question/questions raised.
My husband and I are both lawyers and excellent writers (how we produced a math/science/future engineer whiz is a good question), but neither of us are good teachers. With the help of his counselor and his teachers, our son went from C's in English to high B's, and even his first A in the first semester of his senior year. No matter what field you enter, the ability to write well will always be a huge asset. So far, he's been accepted at all five of his early application choices, including two of his top picks, with some substantial merit scholarship offers to boot. I consider the $3K well spent.
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Why am I offended by the people who spent $3,000 on college counseling and their son received a full scholarship? There seems to be something wrong with this.
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@Molly It was a good return on investment.
3
So many use the word "legitimately" as if they need to keep justifying to themselves that their privilege and money only enhanced the talent and hard work that was already there. Mr. Dubin's statement nails it (despite the spelling and grammar issues): he acknowledges that the things that get you admitted emerge from factors outside your control but still attributes his success to his hard work. Which is it? (It can be both, yes).
I was first-gen with no consultants, no help, did my apps on a typewriter at the library, and had a guidance counselor who thought my college of choice was too far from home. The best thing about going to an Ivy is the sense of capability and maybe arrogance you walk out of there with: I made it here, I can do anything! While life quickly disabused me of that idea, may God help my sense of smug satisfaction knowing I at least did it all on my own.
4
When I applied to college, I was completely on my own, outside of help from my guidance counselor. My parents had grown up poor, had attended City College and really knew nothing about the process. I had only one trip to a school, the one I attended.
When I applied to grad school in the 90s, I was determined to do better, so I hired a consultant. It made all the difference. I did the work, and he just advised me on the intricacies of how to apply.
There is nothing wrong or immoral in parents legally helping their children obtain help in applying to college. In recent days I've heard a lot of talking heads attack parents who spend their hard-earned money in using consultants to rehearse interviews, put together resumes, or suggest courses or sports.
Are you kidding? They act as if you spend your money to give your child the best (legal) shot you are evil.
What the 50 parents did is something completely different. It was both illegal and immoral. Using your advantages to help your children is something completely different. And yes, it's part of the capitalist system. That system catapulted an immigrant family into the upper middle class. No regrets.
10
I paid my own way all the way through 4 years of college, I had no help from my parents or family. I was accepted by every college that I applied to, and the was quite a few, but because of a lack of money, I had to attend a small private school first that was near my home to avoid dorm fees,
My daughter applied to about four, was accepted at every one of them. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a double major, attended graduate school and now is an assistant dean, chair of Social Sciences, rotating chair of Economics all while she was raising three children. Studying and hard work get you what you want and it is much easier on the pocket book than paying a bunch of fees and bribes to get yow into the Ivy Leagues.
I always told my daughter not to worry about AP classes, SAT scores or so called admittance counselors. I did tell her to try her best at school and just apply. She applied to some pretty good east coast and Chicago based universities and was admitted to all of them. (Loyola, DePaul, Univ of Illinois - Chicago, U of Mass. Boston.) It was simple, send the application, transcripts and it was done. Unfortunately, they were all super expensive and she decided she didn't want to take out loans and be forever in dept. At the end of it all, she chose one of the Cal States. She's happy and on her way to a college degree. My advise, don't get caught up in the college scam thing. When you graduate, no one cares where you attended school.
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@Sparky
I think people, or at least employers, DO care where you attended school. And it may not be just for the "name". There are learning advantages to attending a school where students are from different states, with different worldviews. Many times you can learn a lot just sitting at the cafeteria across from someone who tells you what life is like in Nebraska, or in Seattle. If you attend a school where everyone is from 50 miles from where you live yourself, your college experience is not going to be as rich.
3
@Ray there are different types of diversity. One of my kids is Iooking at University at Albany. We were surprised to see that it is rated one of the most diverse campuses in the country when most of the students are from NYS. But it is very socioeconomically diverse, which is unusual in a college. It is also racially diverse (graduation rates for black students are the same as for white students, also unusual), religiously and ethnically diverse and urban/suburban/rural diverse. (I suspect it is not as politically diverse.) State schools can often be more diverse than private, depending on the measures you use.
3
"I think the issue arises when people believe in the myth of their own excellence when the reality is that from an early age your admissions prospects — and life prospects — are shaped by factors outside your control."
Zach's parents paid thousands of dollars for a SAT coach, but he never learned proper pronoun agreement. 'Their own' should does not match 'your admissions' and 'your control.'
10
@William Schmidt I bet that felt really satisfying--flyspecking some kid's fairly thoughtful and somewhat depressing comment about what he learned from his own college admissions experience. I'm sure you've never made a grammatical error in anything you've written. Meanwhile, I wish more privileged college kids had the capacity for the kind of self-reflection Zach showed here.
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@William Schmidt
This is a mild mixing of pronoun, colloquial and thus acceptable in everyday use, though, as you say, technically not in formal English.
The media prints comparable examples every day, some far worse, and most are from educated adults
More to the point, Zach shared a compelling and astute assessment of a part of the adult world which needs revision. Anyone should be proud to have such a child. You should have written to commend him.
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@William Schmidt
I appreciated Zach's thoughts. Your unkind comment adds absolutely nothing to this discussion.
15
All these things that consultants are helping with are things students need to be able to do themselves to succeed in the academically challenging and highly competitive environment of top universities. Having trouble sifting through large volumes of information to decide which schools to apply to? Good luck with your first big college research paper. Having trouble being motivated to start the process and/or meeting deadlines? Ouch, gonna be a rough first year managing a full course load. If you need someone to "edit" (i.e., coach and rewrite) your essay, try reading a book of sample winning essays and using your logic, creativity, and writing skills to craft your own narrative in your own voice. That too is something that will be expected of you on a regular basis at a top college.
23
@L.A. eh, I don't think so. The people I know who used these consultants have kids who are doing better than most. It usually just means that the parents have disposable income and value education, often good markers for academic success.
Honestly, I can't fault these people for spending a relatively paltry sum to ensure that their child has a great fit at a university and can become successful. People love to hate others who have money, but look at this way, if they can afford 2 or 3 thousand for a counselor, they're probably not getting any financial aid. That means they could be spending easily a quarter million dollars to send their kid to college. investing 1% of that up front to make sure that it's a good use of their money can be a wise thing to do. would you buy a used car without inspecting it, or a house without a formal inspection? because some kids pay full freight it allows the schools to offset some of the cost of a low income student who can't pay much if anything. Remember, bribes are illegal for a reason, and photoshopping your face onto an athlete is clearly a fraud, but paying someone to help a kid navigate the process but letting the kid do all the work? there's nothing wrong with that.
18
@AC But what about the folks who paid $3,000 and their son received a full scholarship?
2
@AC
A large fraction of Americans couldn't cover a $400 emergency expense, yet you call several thousand dollars a "paltry sum"?
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@Molly
We paid $3K for essay writing coaching. My son has obtained early admission with large merit scholarship offers from several schools, half of which required no essays in their applications. No full tuition rides yet, but $10K+/year offers are going to make a huge difference in which schools will be within our financial reach. He has also gotten into a couple of good schools that we cannot afford because they aren't offering sufficient scholarships or financial aid, and I'm sure he'll be turned down by more than one school before admission season ends.
Why is being awarded a scholarship after paying for coaching (whether in writing, sports, or test-taking) so offensive to you? We live in a small town and haven't had access to the special STEM and other honors high school programs available in the nearest city. We're in the same county, so is that fair? No, but life will never be fair. Parents who maximize use of the resources legally and financially available to help their children succeed is simply common sense.
4
How great that you are giving people with resources and platforms a great platform to discuss the travails of having resources and platforms. This, in a nutshell, is the New York Times.
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@Carla Way Amen! Ha!
I have felt this college process was utter madness for a long time. I have seen the children of my friends break down mentally over the demands of so many AP courses and an overload of activities. It almost feels like bragging rights to talk about children staying up til 1 am doing homework, and getting up at 6 am. And yes, they lament over the cost of SAT prep and private counselors. Once, when a small group of friends was considering ending our kids on a trip to Africa to help with a fledgling charity a friend was running, one of my girlfriends said how great this would look on their college applications. Honestly, it hadn't occurred to me. I was more interested in what they would gain in understanding how other people lived in this world. Everything doesn't have to be for college!
Sometimes I wonder if I am doing something risky, but I have taken my kids off of this wheel. Instead, they have started college classes early while in high school with the aim of transferring into the state four year once they reach 18. They still get straight A's, but no SAT prep classes, no AP's, they are being challenged, they still have extra curricular activities and they get enough sleep. And instead of splashing out for an expensive undergrad degree, I can save my pennies for grad school should they wish to pursue it.
The goal is an education at the end of the day.
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@Marie I went to a public school in CA and graduated at the top of my class with a very high GPA, SAT scores, volunteer opportunities out the wazoo, et cetera. My friends and I--naive as we were--used to brag about how little sleep we got. I got into the college of my choice (Yale), and I am infinitely grateful for the education it afforded me. However, I started to realize by the end of high school and through my years at Yale how much was lost in that drive to "succeed" at all costs. Now that I teach at Cornell, I spend a lot of time telling my students that it's better to slow down, to learn deeply at one's own pace, to work extremely hard but to be rewarded by that work, than to be left sad, lonely, unhappy, and ultimately unproductive. You might be surrounded by a pile of money, but if you're not contributing to the good of humanity through your life's work--be that raising a child or running a company--then there's not much to make life worthwhile.
I'm glad that your children are being challenged and nurtured at the same time. I've seen FAR too many students with anxiety disorders in my four years at Cornell...
2
@Marie As a college Senior, I can say that taking dual enrollment courses at my local university while I was in high school was much more enjoyable than taking APs. I personally hated having summers off so I filled up my summers with college classes instead! I commend you on your decision with your kids, I'm sure they're much happier. Although, I would recommend some sort of exam prep., as the higher their SAT/ACT scores the more competitive they are for merit scholarships.
My parents never graduated from college, so they couldn't help me. As a result, when I began thinking seriously in high school about attending college, I was on my own to figure out how to do it. My high school guidance counselors weren't much help because they were overwhelmed with the day-to-day of their positions.
If I had the option of working with a consultant, like most of my classmates did, I probably would have done it (but I wouldn't have resorted to cheating or anything unethical). My parents couldn't afford it. Neither could I.
Navigating college entrance requirements is daunting even if you do know what you're doing. If you don't, it's (almost) impossible.
Due to factors outside my control, I ended up spending my first two years of college at a community college. I worked my tail off, really got serious about what I wanted education-wise, and graduated second in my class from the community college. That mattered only because my placement at CC graduation got me into a really good state university, based on the direct transfer agreement (that, and at that point, I was over 25, so I was 'mature student.' Colleges save places for 'mature students.').
I worked even harder and graduated from the state uni at the top of my class. That placement then enabled me to enter a PhD program at one of the most prestigious universities on the planet.
I grew up poor with no almost no help with college. I never took the SAT. I also know I'm very lucky. The system is broken.
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As one can see here, the "going rate" for most college consultants is not hundreds of thousands but about $3000. Most used these services to help them identify schools that would be a good "fit" for their child, and where he would likely be accepted. That's how it usually works.
As for the SAT prep courses; most public high schools have some. They are also available online at NO COST. Of course, this presumes that the child will actually spend the time doing all those online practice tests; many will only do them if driven to the class and locked in a room for a couple of hours. Most courses, if the child truly applies himself, can result in a 100-200 point improvement. If the child won't do this on his own, should he even be going to a school where those points will matter? Whose going to make him work there?
There have always been parents whose dreams do not match those of their child, whether they be music, sports or academics - even "popularity". Nothing has really changed, and if those parents don't eventually realize this and help their child do what is best for him, it nearly always turns out very, very badly.
We're making whole cloth out of threads here. Only USC needs to really look into its admissions and athletic departments. The others are one-offs.
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@India
"As one can see here, the "going rate" for most college consultants is not hundreds of thousands but about $3000."
I hate to break it to anyone, but these fees are uncommonly low in 2019. I don't know a single consulting company or individual who charges so little for a complete service (and I don't mean ghostwriting essays).
1
I applaud Alexandra Hutchings and I think her parents are disgusting people. Her parents and people like her have done themselves a deserved disservice with their actions, the have cheapened the brand of Ivy League schools. When someone now boasts that they attended Yale, Harvard or any other top tier school my response will be “how much did it cost to get you in?”
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@Paulie I think it’s essential to weigh privilege, which is a huge factor, but to assume corruption is just insulting. I was constantly humbled by the capabilities of so many - not all - at Harvard, and it meant something to get an A.
Push a kid too hard and they’ll push back. One joined the army, another went overseas and her parents lost a relationship with their child. The only people impressed by these degrees from “elite” schools are those that attended them. This explains why so many CEOs with advanced business degrees are incompetent. They bought a degree and got the job through the good ol boy network.
If you’ve seen it, Boeing is failing miserably building a heavy lift booster for the Orion program and the government is blaming top management, none of who have technical degrees. A business degree in my day was for the stupid and stoners. There is no faking a engineering or any other science degree, you are found out as soon as you get your first job.
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@Paulie. Agreed. I didn’t go to grad school, but during my corporate years I questioned what the Ivy League schools were teaching in their MBA programs. The CEOs were out of touch with the businesses they were running.
5
If you believe this only happened at the colleges that were named I want to sell you a bridge. I'd bet there are "side doors" in all of the major colleges in the US. Money talks everywhere in America. There are probably thousands of these cases that will be found out now that reporters are really looking. Bet on it.
13
We did hire a coach for our daughter the summer before her senior year. She has a high GPA (over 4.0 weighted) and a respectable SAT score (98/99 percentile), but given all of the stress she is under at a competitive program in a large public high school, and the turnover/workload of her school's guidance counselors, we thought it was worth it to have someone guide her through the process -- namely to help her get organized, narrow in on her list of schools, and provide feedback on her essays -- under the (correct, it turns out) assumption she'd be more receptive to an objective third party's assessment than her parents.
I believe it was worth it, and it helped smooth what is a confusing and emotional journey -- especially for high-achieving kids applying to highly selective universities (12 in my daughters case, a mix of reach/solid chance/safety, which she crafted with perspective from the coach). So far she's gotten in to one of her reach schools, is waiting out a deferral to another, got in to all safeties and several of those in the middle (often with merit awards) and is waiting anxiously to hear from the rest - and I do believe the coach helped. My daughter did all the hard work herself, but a guiding hand benefited both her and us.
It is a shame, though, that we had to pay for what guidance counselors provided for free back when I was in high school, and that these services as limited to those that have the means to pursue them.
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@honeywhite
Sounds like your daughter will be very successful wherever she lands. However, did you ever consider that applying to 12 schools is a bit nuts? I can't fathom that (I have 2 regular kids enrolled in their state schools and one in the military).
My opinion is that the whole target, reach, safety schools nonsense was created by the college counseling industry to market their services.
3
@JMS
Because of the Common Application (Common App), applying to 12 schools isn't necessarily the daunting task it once was. More than necessary? Yes. Nuts? Not quite...
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@Jason @JMS
Yes, 12 schools is pretty bonkers (although she applied to one school in Canada that required nothing more than transcript and test scores - took her 10 minutes to complete). Given the mercurial nature of admissions (aided by the Common App), though, I don't think it's terribly unusual - most of her cohort applied to 10+, feeling the need to spread bets - hence the need to be extremely well organized to keep it all straight. We are also very lucky to live in Virginia, with it's many outstanding in-state options -- so a lot of kids around here by default apply to UVA, W&M, VA Tech etc.
21st century higher learning aspirations in this ultra-competitive, highly visible and the 1% of Socio-economic strata— is all about image, image, image and how they can translate that into more dollars like the mother-daughter tandem that is referred to as the
SVD
Selfish Vapid Duo- Lori Loughlin and
OJ Giannulli.
We all know at the expense of HONEST, Ethical, hard-working, low-income and middle income applicants to the list of universities implicated in the college admission scandal, these selfish and clueless Americans bribed their way so their just-as-selfish and clueless offsprings can have a college experience.
This is how society quickly breaks down because this selfish attitude is all about ME FIRST.
Solution— unfollow these people on social media. They are not worth your likes and TIME.
5
I’m a high school counselor and we’ve come to this. I have 450 on my caseload but I will conduct a college meeting whenever anyone asks. We have multiple college nights, application workshops, and college reps that visit our school. I hope that parents will finally start letting their children apply to college on their own. Some parents enroll their students in prep classes, force them in AP, “edit” their essays because they fill out the applications for them. Stop this madness. And they hire these unqualified people because parents want their hands held during the process. There are some students that do it all: study on their own, push themselves into AP/IB and I always make it a point to highlight the students that have successfully managed application season independently when I write their letters of rec.
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It never occurred to me or my wife to purchase the services of a "special" counselor. My oldest daughter's first SAT scores were in the mid-1200s and an elite college or university wasn't a factor. When her second SAT scores came in at 1400, with a 750 in math, we decided to give it a shot. My daughter earned varsity letters in soccer and swimming, participated on the debate team, and was the pianist on the school's award-winning jazz band. What didn't hurt was the fact that she was tall, slender, and attractive. When she picked out a "killer" purple dress, she was quite eye-catching. There are some things that cannot be purchased or taught, and she was fortunate to have them. She was admitted to five "high-level" architecture programs. The field is never level. Sometimes nature, or genes, provides an extra "break."
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@neil,
"What didn't hurt was the fact that she was tall, slender, and attractive. When she picked out a "killer" purple dress, she was quite eye-catching."
ugh! that's a bit too close to that weird tRump-Ivanka thing.
and double weird if colleges made decisions based on that.
13
@neil Tall, slender, attractive, purple dress, eye-catching. If that's what gets you admitted to high-level architecture programs, there's something amiss. Yes, I know: she also had high SAT scores, was an athlete, etc., but I wouldn't objectify her by adding the stuff about appearances.
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@neil
This is the worst form of boasting and for all the wrong reasons.
7
It's interesting how many of these families assure us that their children were accepted entirely on their own merit, despite admitting to some significant assistance (time management/scheduling, significant editing, tutoring, etc.) One might wonder if they protest too much.
The fact is that plenty of intelligent kids with time management struggles don't have families able to spend a few thousand dollars providing that service. Sadly, that may keep them from attending colleges that would've benefited from their admittance.
12
I’m just not going to get into this discussion of who cheats, who does not and if the system is rigged.
What I will do, is pass on what worked for us, in hope that it helps a deserving student. My daughter did not have these amazing grades and test scores that resulted in rejections, yet she got into a top 30-40 school, depending on who you believe. It was in any case, a good match.
We did not hire anyone. We went to the library and got test prep books. We did not hire a college consultant. We read everything we could, and created our own strategy. We went to see the college counselor at the school six months ahead of most people, and got valuable advice. My daughter did the work, but I saw the application. We chose a target school, slightly above where she would probably get in, for early decision. Some schools take 50-60% of their class early decision. Why wouldn’t they? They don’t want to be rejected either.
Here’s what no one tells you, or at least they didn’t tell me. I personally called my daughter’s top 3 choices, and asked about the admissions process and even discussed her grades and scores. While they didn’t tell me if she would get in, they were remarkably candid and very helpful. My daughter sent them emails in addition to her application.
She applied to one school and got in. She feels pretty good about the process, and learned about how things get done.
Hope that helps.
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@Michael B. We did most of the legwork ourselves as well, although we did fork over $600 for a test prep class before he took the SAT. Where we differed from you is we did not apply anywhere ED. We were not going to pay sticker price, and ED is for people who don't need or care about institutional grants or scholarships, otherwise known as tuition discounts. We applied EA where we could, and RD for the rest. We also didn't bother with a reach school, again because we could not afford to pay the sticker price. Instead, we targeted schools where my son's SAT scores and grades placed him in the top 25% of last year's admitted freshman class (per their Common Data Set). I gave my son a long list of well-respected schools that fell in that criteria, and we started visiting the ones he seemed interested in. I used the Fiske Guide to Colleges to put that list together, along with some consulting of USN&WR and Princeton Review from time to time. He made his final list of 8 schools to apply to. He got in to all of them, and was offered significant merit aid (half or more than half the cost of attendance) at many. So, no need to pay someone else $2,000. While my son could have been accepted at even more "prestigious" colleges, we would have paid an arm and a leg for them. As it stands, he's going to a top 30 liberal arts college, and will graduate with no student loan debt.
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@loracle
Oh, gosh-- I hope you have another kid so you can benefit from this: Early Action doesn't mean you aren't eligible for school grants and scholarships. My senior son and his girlfriend were both just accepted early action by a top state school and have already received a financial aid award letter that includes need- and merit-based awards proportionate to each family's respective need and each student's respective grades. They're by no means full-ride awards, but combined with the sticker-price advantage of in-state public tuition, both of them will be able to afford to attend with low or no loan debt at the end.
In fact, what if those pools of funds are all gone by the time you get around to applying standard decision? Better move fast if you're confident that you've chosen a good school.
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@Incredulosity Don't worry, we applied early action (EA) and got the grants/scholarships we needed to make it work. We did NOT apply early decision (ED). There is a big difference in these two, and they should not be confused. We needed to be able to go where the offer of merit aid was best. The ugly truth is folks who need merit aid cannot apply early decision, which is when so many "elite" colleges fill HALF their classes with kids who can pay full sticker price in exchange for that guaranteed, no-backsies slot.
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Just noting, in passing, that in the first story, the student may have benefited from being a legacy, and that this isn't acknowledged anywhere in the excerpt.
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I think it is hilarious the family who paid a counselor to edit their child’s essay would characterize her efforts as “pure grit.” I think not. I’m sure they paid for SAT prep too.
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We did not hire any advisor/coach/counselor like many around us. We were naive in the process.
My son has a 3.9 gpa and a 1470 on his SAT. He filled out his applications and his aunt look at some of his essays. She is not in the college prep field but she is a better writer than my husband and me.
My son goes to a very large public school, one where his guidance counselor barely knows him. Perhaps hiring outside help would have helped in the process because my son was pretty stressed trying to coordinate deadlines, schoolwork and a job.
The main reason we didn’t hire anyone wasn’t because of the cost, but because we thought struggling through applications was a right of passage. My son researched colleges and we had conversations about his list.
So far, he has been rejected by many colleges and accepted by a couple. Rejected: U Virginia, UPenn, NYU Waitlisted:Northeastern Accepted: ASU, UMaryland(merit scholarship)
He is still waiting on a few more colleges. The college admission process has been a tremendous growing experience for him. One where he can look back one day and be incredibly proud of, because he earned it himself.
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@Silvia Chung I grew up near northeastern and would like to know how they made such a leap in the college game. Back in the day they were takers of all students. Now a kid with a 1470 SAT is waitlisted. Amazing.
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@SCD
Northeastern is shameless in chasing the ranking game - they encourage applications by waiving the fee (juuuust before the deadline - similar to a company loading product shipments riiiight at the end of the quarter) and making the essay optional to bloat their denominator and become significantly more selective. My daughter - with a higher SAT and GPA - was deferred early action and then rejected last week by Northeastern. Tulane is another example of a school gaming the system to boost their ranking. This dynamic feeds in to why these kids are applying to so many schools - schools that may have been sure bets just a few years ago are now suddenly out of reach.
1