Wealthy, anxious parents are willing to pay as much as $40,000 to Michele Hernandez, a college coach who will start in eighth grade prepping students for an elite college. Hernandez, who worked in admissions at Dartmouth, believes it’s quite possible for students to game the elite admissions system, especially if they start early. From Business Week:
She selects classes for students, reviews their homework, and prods them to make an impression on teachers. She checks on the students’ grades, scores, rankings. She tells parents when to hire tutors and then makes sure the kids do the extra work. She vets their vacation schedules. She plans their summers. And through it all, she is always available to contend with the college angst that can consume whole families. Parents value her confidence; kids, mostly, appreciate her enthusiasm.
From the beginning, Hernandez pledged all that work would be invisible. Like her peers, she operates in stealth, mindful that if admissions officers find out a student was coached they will regard the application with suspicion.
Hernandez claims that 95 percent of her clients get into their first-choice college, but there’s no way to verify that. And she makes sure they know the odds and pick a realistic first choice.
Parents who are expecting to spend $50,000 a year for their child’s private college apparently see Hernandez’s sky-high fees as an investment. Why settle for Fairly Good College when your child might go ivy, with some expert brand management?
Cheapskates can buy Hernandez’s books, A is for Admission, Acing the College Application, Don’t Worry, You’ll Get In and The Middle School Years.
Via Carpe Diem.
$40,000 is a boatload of money. On the other hand, the program described here will, in fact, improve a student’s college chances dramatically.
Many wealthy and middle-class parents don’t hire a coach, but the mother does exactly what Hernandez does to prepare the child for college admission. And sometimes advice coming from a coach will be accepted more readily than the same advice from mom, so the coach’s students may be more successful.
This ties in nicely with my post that was in this week’s Carnival of Education. I called the post The College Admissions Arms Race.
http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2007/10/college-admissions-arms-race.html
Actually, the parents’ income alone is a significant determinant of whether or not the kid will be accepted. Thus, ability to pay Hernandez’ fee is also a signal that with all the right moves, the student will be accepted.
A middle class student who does all the same things, comes from a non-rich zipcode, and needs financial aid would have very different results.
Cal–
It depends on the school whether ability to pay makes a difference. At a lot of selective schools, it does. At some of the most selective schools, such as the Ivies, ability to pay does not make a difference in admission.
Rich, very selective schools don’t look at ability to pay because they don’t have to. Harvard could afford to have free tuition not only for its needy students, but for all its students. So could Yale.
I went to Brown. The latest alumni magazine reported something so surprising I’m trying to verify it. The claim is that 14% of the entering class are the first in their family to go to college.
Whether that statistic is true or not, I know that Brown no longer looks at ability to pay as a factor in admissions. The admissions office does give a slight preference to legacies, but I’ve been told that parental donations don’t make a difference unless the parent has made a substantial donation, where “substantial” would be something in the neighborhood of a million bucks or more.
“At some of the most selective schools, such as the Ivies, ability to pay does not make a difference in admission.”
That is demonstrably untrue. They say they are needblind, but they look at parental zipcode. This is what bringing in the class “on budget” means. Kids whose parents can pay full tuition (even if they then get a discount) receive a substantial preference.
Mitchell Steven’s book Creating a Class goes into this (review here), but it’s just one of many books pointing this out.
I realize this will come as a shock to you, but what a university says and what it does are often not perfectly in synch.
So it’s not a waste of money for parents who can afford it to pay for Hernandez, as it will give their kids a boost. It is a waste of money for parents who can’t afford it, unless Hernandez charges them $40,000 for telling them to move to a different zipcode and pretend they have more money than they do.
Cal, I was talking about the Ivies: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia and Cornell. I said that the Ivies, and some other schools, do not make admissions decisions based on the ability to pay.
Many other schools do look at the ability to pay. I don’t deny that. Hamilton, where Mitchell Stevens researched Creating a Class, is one such.
All the schools look at the ability to pay. Few of them openly admit that they do, but they all do it.
The Ivies *say* they practice needblind admissions, but they are well aware of the students’ financial considerations. Hence the term “gapping”.
I mean, please. Harvard could fill its entire freshman class with middle and upper middle class students meeting its criteria. You think it’s just a fluke that they are sure to admit a bunch of students who won’t have student loans to pay off and thus more money for alumni donations?
At Harvard, the median four-year debt for graduating seniors on financial aid is $6,850. For someone with a Harvard degree, that’s not going to be much money. I doubt if it’s of much concern when the admissions committee considers future donations by applicants.
Harvard would be wise as to assume that some Harvard students of modest means turn into donating millionaires twenty years after graduation. I imagine they are that wise.
You might want to look up the word “some” and ask yourself why you think you’ve offered anything approaching a rebuttal to my statement.
While you’re there, you might want to look up the word “median” and realize that you’ve proven *my* point, not yours.
“For someone with a Harvard degree, that’s not going to be much money. ”
From your own link:
“This year at Harvard College there were 1,359 students on scholarship whose annual family income exceeds $100,000, and 481 students with family incomes in excess of $150,000.”
There are 6,715 students at Harvard, so 27% of the ones whose parents are making six figure incomes are “on scholarship”. Only 10% of Harvard students are eligible for Pell grants.
So Harvard is giving tons of money to students whose parents make in excess of $150K, and accepting only 10% of students who would actually need to borrow money to get to college. And you think your cite about $6k in loans (spread out over an entire class) has any meaning?
Seriously, I think we’re conversing on two different planes of reality. You’re in the “recite the official line, rinse, repeat” school, and I’m from the “lord save me from idiots who recite from the Big Book of Platitudes” school.
So if you could, realize that I know as much as you do about this topic and just think you’re a fool to believe in the official line. If you have any reason *why* you should believe it, feel free to share.
“So Harvard is … accepting only 10% of students who would actually need to borrow money to get to college.”
I don’t know where this statistic comes from, but if it’s true, it completely undermines your argument. The overall acceptance rate for Harvard is 9%. If Harvard accepts 10% of students who need to borrow, then the poorer students are doing better than the richer applicants.
You believe I’m a fool to believe the official line. Fine. Give me some evidence that supports your point of view. Cites in books would be a start.
Gentlemen,
The bottom line is that for all but a very, very, very few, it makes no difference to one’s future success where one goes to college. It matters much more what personal characteristics the student brings to college and what one does with the degree once it is earned. Unfortunately, there are too many foolish parents who are willing to pay megabucks to send their children to an elite school. Fortunately for Ms. Hernendez, there are those foolish parents.
I saw your headline and got excited for a minute, thinking that some college somewhere got smart and started paying its football coach a reasonable salary. No such luck, I guess.