Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion college admission consulting

I think this article is pretty funny, especially the first sentence below. On the topic of getting into a selective school, I like the book

What High Schools Don't Tell You (And Other Parents Don't Want You toKnow): Create a Long-Term Plan for Your 7th to 10th Grader for Getting into the Top Colleges
by Elizabeth Wissner-Gross

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/business/global/30college.html
Coaching and Much More for Chinese Students Looking to U.S.
By DAN LEVIN
New York Times
May 29, 2011

...

Students, whose parents often pay tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, are molded by ThinkTank into well-rounded, socially conscious overachievers through a regimen often beginning as early as the year before entering high school. The company designs extracurricular activities for the students; guides them in essay writing; tutors them for the SAT, the U.S. college admission exam; and helps them with meet-and-greet sessions with alumni.

�There�s a system built by colleges designed to pick out future stars and we are here to crack that system,� Mr. Ma said.

LuShuang Xu provides an example of that approach. Ms. Xu, who was born and raised in China before emigrating to suburban California at age 9, had high hopes that she would be the first in her family to go to college. But poor results on a practice SAT and a dearth of extracurricular activities convinced Ms. Xu, 17, that she needed a scholastic makeover if she were to make it into a school her parents could brag about to relatives.

ThinkTank sent her to a public speaking camp, helped her improve her college essay and gave her the e-mail addresses of all the members of the Stanford University history department. At the company�s prompting, she found two internships with department professors. She also enrolled in ThinkTank�s college prep courses, which helped improve her SAT score 410 points to 2160 out of 2400. Next autumn, she will start at Harvard University.

ThinkTank�s success with students in California�s Asian-American community, which accounts for 90 percent of the company�s American clients, has drawn interest from wealthy parents in China. Mr. Ma opened an office in Shenzhen in 2009 and another in Beijing last year.

<rest of article at link>

I do not think it is funny. I think it indicates a long term trend of competition for good schools here. There are a lot of kids from India also trying for spots. And as the numbers increase from both those countries, they will take spots, not only from top tier schools but second tier.

Ren

I read that book. It helped us identify an extra curricular activity D hadn't heard of that she wanted to try, but that is about it. It has a funny little reference to Davidson's THINK camp (actually a footnote), saying essentially that it is so selective it is not worth the readers planning on attending. D thought the footnote was very funny, since she has been to THINK.

Ren, anyone is free to hire a consultant or a company like that. It is not just people from other cultures. And among those students from other cultures, not all are hiring consultants. My D has really enjoyed some friends she met at THINK from other countries (her exact quote: "I think someday I will marry someone from India because the friends I made from there are so smart").

http://www.davidsongifted.org/think/Article/THINK_Summer_Institute___Qualifications_368.aspx

Yep. "In order to be eligible an applicant must... be a U.S. citizen or permanent U.S. resident living in the United States". Maybe these other friends were permanent residents.

Well, I assume they were from families of Indian descent. The point I was really trying to make is that bright students come from all backgrounds, and I don't think it matters a lot what their ethnic background is. I am a little offended, honestly, by Ren's comments that "they" will take spots in college from what I assume are her non-Asian, non-Indian children. Anyone from any background can push their kids to study hard and pay for college consultants if they choose to.

Not really and this isn't a comment about any specific ethnicity. There are a lot of families, mine included, that cannot afford to pay for college consultants. This type of service, IMHO, creates a greater rift btwn classes -- those who can afford to buy their children admission to prestigious universities vs. those who cannot. We won't be doing any SAT/ACT prep courses for dds.

My kids are fortunate that they are bright and should have good grades and test scores without the prep, but they are being unevenly compared if you, for instance, take kids of comparable ability and spend thousands of dollars prepping them for college admission tests, helping them write essays, etc. My dds, too, would probably do better if they spend months studying with a tutor for the SAT, but we can't do that.

I really don't think that it is a matter of xenophobia or racism so much as it is parents who can't afford to pay for this type of service taking offense at their children perhaps losing a place at a university to someone whose parents can afford to prep them for that spot.

Cricket2, fair enough that college consultants are more of an option for wealthier families.

Having acted as my own Ds' "college consultant", I can say that option of doing it ourselves is also open to all of us. With all the books (like the one Bostonian recommends above, and many others), and websites like College Confidential available, I really believe that I can support my kids through the college application process as well as any consultant. I was also older D's "SAT tutor" -- I honestly believe our one-on-one sessions with SAT prep books did her more good as a SAT prep class would have. The cost in dollars was minimal, and I think my kids and I have both enjoyed the time spent together on the college search process.

There are many cheaper alternatives to the full-service college consulting which could run into more than $10,000.

For SAT prep, Princeton review offers classes in $500 range. If your kid are self-disciplined, he may not even need classes. Buy a few books at $15 a piece may be enough.

For the admission consulting, the biggest thing is the essays. Kids grew up in US shouldn't need someone else to write the essays for them. The key is to decide what to write. For that, you can find an independent consultant who charges a hourly fee, commonly $100 a hour in Bay area. 5-6 hours is usually enough to get the essays done.

Honestly, my dd12 is a fantastic writer. She's had teachers, since 2nd grade, telling me that she writes better than they do. For her, I guess that I don't worry about the essay writing. I was just providing an alternate view that this is more about class than it is ethnicity in my opinion. It would be interesting to see how two ability matched kids who prepped via something like Princeton Review vs. independent study fared in terms of gains in test scores on college admission tests.

You might also check out this free test prep site, if you are worried that independent study isn't the way to go for these tests.

My personal view is that knowing the underlying material that is covered on the tests and getting comfortable with the format of taking the tests (which can be accomplished by running through free or cheap practice tests) is really all that is needed to do well. A lot of the highly-rated test prep courses really just help remediate bad high school teaching and provide some basic test-taking tips, such as answering all the questions you know right away first, before spending time trying to figure out ones that you find more difficult.