desperately seeking college advisor for the ivies or just below

Does anyone know of a college advisor for a top bright student?  

Emily Wolper.  http://ewolperinc.com/ She's local (Morristown area), experienced, and great.

scott white in montclair. (full disclosure...he's my ex-husband, but a great college counselor)

he's head of guidance at morristown HS and was head of guidance at montclair HS and MKA.

973-919-6798.  you can tell him you got his name from me.

Amanda Robertson of Breakaway Prep in Chatham (she comes to your home).

We used Rhiannon Schade at CollegeWise in Millburn and highly recommend her.  We were using the service for for helping find a good fit and for keeping a procrastinating kid on track, but in the process gained a lot of information about putting your best foot forward. My kid loved working with her and it perhaps saved our relationship.  

For what it's worth, highly-selective schools are a reach for even the most tippy-top students due to the huge applicant pool of equally-qualified kids from around the country.  I recommend focusing some attention on finding some "likely" schools that your kid can feel really excited about.  You don't want a kid to feel like they are "settling" if they end up waitlisted at all of those schools all of the top students are applying to.  Unsolicited advice, I know...

Also be aware you will find a huge range in pricing for these services.  I called  few people and found quotes from hourly rates to $20,00 all-inclusive packages.

tomdevon said:

Emily Wolper.  http://ewolperinc.com/ She's local (Morristown area), experienced, and great.

I inquired with her. $15,000. And that was a few years ago.

Amanda Robertson of Breakaway Prep is great and very flexible. She's not selling a package and charges by the hour.  She doesn't schedule more meetings than are necessary.   

When we used her, her rate was under $200/hr.

(We used her 2013-14 so things could have changed. I'm sure rates have increased.)

She's also very experienced working with students applying to highly selective schools.

shoshannah said:

tomdevon said:

Emily Wolper.  http://ewolperinc.com/ She's local (Morristown area), experienced, and great.

I inquired with her. $15,000. And that was a few years ago.

Me too.  We had to run away from this one.  

mjh said:

shoshannah said:

tomdevon said:

Emily Wolper.  http://ewolperinc.com/ She's local (Morristown area), experienced, and great.

I inquired with her. $15,000. And that was a few years ago.

Me too.  We had to run away from this one.  

$15,000.  What on Earth does that buy you?

tjohn said:

mjh said:

shoshannah said:

tomdevon said:

Emily Wolper.  http://ewolperinc.com/ She's local (Morristown area), experienced, and great.

I inquired with her. $15,000. And that was a few years ago.

Me too.  We had to run away from this one.  

$15,000.  What on Earth does that buy you?

I can only guess it's advice on the quantity (perhaps multi-hundred-K and up), frequency, and what to fund, in donations to the school of your child's choice, to get your child likely to be admitted. 

Friends of ours recommended Admit U Consulting in Livingston, but they did not use it for the OP's stated purpose. We are in the midst of getting some advice there, too, but also on a much smaller scale and have just gotten started.

what does an advisor like this do?  Seems like it's just another way to buy access.

My kid did just fine on her own, including relatively little parental help.  (I took her on a couple of college visit trips after SHE figured out where she wanted to visit.)  But, perhaps it is worthwhile in some cases.

Seems like there are two different questions to be answered.  In the one  case would be a person who needs help figuring out where they should go to college whether it be  Harvard or Essex County.  At the other extreme is the person who wants to get into a top-ranked school and needs guidance in how to present themselves most effectively to that school.

FilmCarp said:

what does an advisor like this do?  Seems like it's just another way to buy access.

A complete package, as I understand it, includes advice on what colleges might be of interest and attainable, what kinds of high school courses and admissions tests to take and when, help with investigating financial aid, some guidance on essays -- a variety of things that a guidance counselor might also cover in part but not to the same personal, tailored degree.

One advantage that our friends appreciated is an advisor's role as a neutral expert whom a teenager might listen to more attentively than to Mom and Dad when it comes to the tasks of choosing and applying to colleges, which can be fraught for a lot of families. Similarly, we're using one simply to help identify some schools of interest to our son that might otherwise be missed and, in the process, hopefully inspire him to give some more thought about where he might want to apply. The service's questionnaire alone got him to spend more time contemplating that future than any of our goading, um, encouragement.

I mean, good God, the kid's 12 already.

FilmCarp said:

what does an advisor like this do?  Seems like it's just another way to buy access.

From what I understand, they do what a school counselor usually does - help in getting a list of colleges together, brainstorming about essays, helping kids stay on track etc. 

Not sure anyone can really buy access today.  Some might have connections that help.  The really expensive one mentioned above was an admission officer at Columbia so may have some connections there. 

ETA: Crossposted with DaveSchmidt who did a much better job of explaining the process

tjohn said:

Seems like there are two different questions to be answered.  In the one  case would be a person who needs help figuring out where they should go to college whether it be  Harvard or Essex County.  At the other extreme is the person who wants to get into a top-ranked school and needs guidance in how to present themselves most effectively to that school.

Yeah, the OP sounds like the latter. Thought the name of another local consultant couldn't hurt, though.

i don't mean buy as in pay off.  I just mean if everything is perfect on the kids record and every I is dotted they have a better chance than someone working on it themselves who can't afford guidance.

FilmCarp said:

i don't mean buy as in pay off.  I just mean if everything is perfect on the kids record and every I is dotted they have a better chance than someone working on it themselves who can't afford guidance.

Yeah, I know you did not mean buy as in pay off.  But even with perfection the process is too competitive at highly selective colleges to get access.  A better chance, maybe.  A counselor who has connections at a college might be able to pull off something that others without those connections may not.  

That's insane

shoshannah said:

tomdevon said:

Emily Wolper.  http://ewolperinc.com/ She's local (Morristown area), experienced, and great.

I inquired with her. $15,000. And that was a few years ago.

yahooyahoo said:

That's insane

shoshannah said:

tomdevon said:

Emily Wolper.  http://ewolperinc.com/ She's local (Morristown area), experienced, and great.

I inquired with her. $15,000. And that was a few years ago.

It's easy to scoff, but stakes can be high for a family, and if an adviser steers you to a generous financial aid package or to an overlooked college that captivates your child for $4,000 a year less than the reach she had her heart set on, you might be grateful.

dg64 said:

ETA: Crossposted with DaveSchmidt who did a much better job of explaining the process " style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">

Flattery won't get you that last piece of Church's Kitchen chicken.

DaveSchmidt said:

yahooyahoo said:

That's insane

shoshannah said:

tomdevon said:

Emily Wolper.  http://ewolperinc.com/ She's local (Morristown area), experienced, and great.

I inquired with her. $15,000. And that was a few years ago.

It's easy to scoff, but stakes can be high for a family, and if an adviser steers you to a generous financial aid package or to an overlooked college that captivates your child for $4,000 a year less than the reach she had her heart set on, you might be grateful.

That's still $2,000 short of what this counselor charges now  Yes, she told me $18,000 for half of junior year to end of process in senior year. 

DaveSchmidt said:

dg64 said:

ETA: Crossposted with DaveSchmidt who did a much better job of explaining the process ">

Flattery won't get you that last piece of Church's Kitchen chicken.

Hmmm.... I think I'm going for the ribs :-P

Yikes.  Leaves me speechless and a little disgusted.

Having been through this difficult process twice, I see the value of outsourcing some or all of it to a consultant who has current information and motivational skills, and who can be viewed by the applicant as a neutral third party. Bright students in the middle quintiles can wind up feeling defeated before they start, and are not always given the care they deserve by overloaded guidance counselors. (Looking at you, MHS.) Parents who graduated from college in the 80s and 90s have a frame of reference that no longer applies. 

Not saying that $18,000 is the right price.

Here's an essay worth reading by a Harvard interviewer.

Going through the process now.  One thing that helps considerably in gaining admission to an Ivy/elite college is athletic achievement in HS and on travel teams and the ability to play that sport at the college level - particularly for women.  Fair or not, that is the case.  Out of the 17,000 to 20,000 or so who apply to Harvard and Princeton every year, probably 80-90% of them have a 4.0 or above and perfect or nearly perfect SAT and ACT scores, many valedictorians amongst them, but only 7% will gain admission.

If you have a coach that wants your kid, they will work with you to support him/her through admissions.  They still need outstanding grades and test scores, but may be able to get in with a 3.5 GPA and a 29-31 on the ACT.

Again, not saying it's fair or right but if there is that athletic hook, your application goes in a different pile for evaluation.

http://admissionsrevolution.com/

Sara Harberson is former admissions director at Franklin and Marshall. She started this a few years ago and has been very effective. 

bettyd said:

Going through the process now.  One thing that helps considerably in gaining admission to an Ivy/elite college is athletic achievement in HS and on travel teams and the ability to play that sport at the college level - particularly for women.  Fair or not, that is the case.  Out of the 17,000 to 20,000 or so who apply to Harvard and Princeton every year, probably 80-90% of them have a 4.0 or above and perfect or nearly perfect SAT and ACT scores, many valedictorians amongst them, but only 7% will gain admission.

If you have a coach that wants your kid, they will work with you to support him/her through admissions.  They still need outstanding grades and test scores, but may be able to get in with a 3.5 GPA and a 29-31 on the ACT.

Again, not saying it's fair or right but if there is that athletic hook, your application goes in a different pile for evaluation.

This would apply to very few people. And it could backfire as well. First of all, you have to apply early decision if you are a recruited athlete. Second, the coach may indeed support your application—but by no means does that mean that the kid is guaranteed admission. The admissions office still has to admit you. They can still get rejected. Then it's difficult to find a new college that wants to recruit you for its team during the regular decision period because most have filled their teams already.

There are many other hooks that may help. Being a recruited athlete is only one of them. It's never solely about grades and scores. The best way to think about elite college admissions is this:  It's like casting a play—they need qualified people to fill different roles to create the whole production.

My own experience and that of a niece was that team sports at the college level requires an enormous commitment of time (training, practice, travel) that can affect every aspect of a student's life, not always in a positive way. I gave it up after a few months my first year and was much happier. My niece, who entered college on a D1 full athletic scholarship, lost her place on the team in a coaching change during her sophomore year, and had to transfer to another school. It's not a life for everybody. 

I didn't say it guaranteed admission, but that it can help, or that athletics is the only hook.  Coaches can promote kids through the process and are generally up front with potential applicants.   They will ask for test scores and transcripts "off the record" and can generally say whether it is likely or not that they can work with admissions to get the student in.  In my relatively small circle of friends, I know of six families within the past two years whose kids have gained admission to Ivy League schools and they all have freely admitted that without athletics their kids would almost certainly not have gained admission.  Three at Yale (two for womens' soccer, one for men's hockey), one at Columbia for baseball, one at Cornell for men's lacrosse, and one at Harvard for baseball.

What the Ivy League schools have with regard to sports is the "academic index."  The incoming class for a sport must average a certain GPA and test score.  Take baseball for instance.  Each Ivy League baseball coach is allowed 7-9 players in a recruiting class and the schools agree on average GPA and test scores for that entering class of recruits.  For argument's sake let's say that entering baseball class must have an average GPA of 3.75 and an average ACT of 31.  If you are a lefty pitcher with a 95 MPH fastball and a devastating curve and are the coach's no. 1 recruit/need, you may be able to get in with a 3.2 GPA and a 28 ACT score.  The no. 2 recruit target can have a 3.4 and a 29 or 30 on the ACT.  If you're the no. 8 or 9 recruit/need you need to have a 4.2 and a 34 ACT.

There are even more allowances for larger teams such as football, lacrosse and soccer.

I know the mother of the Cornell lacrosse player fairly well and she told me his GPA and test scores and I was surprised at how low they were considering the university.