Most families don’t need a private counselor. They just need to know exactly what to do.
And what will work.
Harvard still admits a little more than 1 in 10.
Independent counselors are rare, expensive, and spoken of softly among folks with means.
Roughly 5% of families use one.
The industry is a small circle of specialists helping wealthy families improve already-good odds.
The whole enterprise feels slightly improper—like hiring a batting coach for the spelling bee.
Applying in 2000
Harvard now admits roughly 1 in 25.
A strong transcript is no longer the argument. It is the price of admission to the argument.
Applications are more numerous, more polished, and read with less room for ambiguity.
Roughly 26% of students use private counseling in some form.
The field is crowded with nearly interchangeable names: IvyHelp. CollegePlus. MeAdmit. IvyMe. MeHelp. PlusMe. HelpMe.
Families have more help than ever—and less certainty about which help is actually useful.
Applying in 2026
Tell me your goals. We’ll build the roadmap.
I’ve worked inside four independent college-advising firms. Take a spin: you’ll find eerily similar results promised on almost all their webpages. There are hundreds of firms now. Some of them are redundant and overpriced; some are excellent and care about your kid. Each has pros, cons, price points, and different strengths of granular expertise.
I’ve also spent years in admission at Stanford and the University of Chicago, worked in graduate admission, and counseled students in both public and independent schools. I’m not proud, per se, but you can find mock apps I’ve read online for sale. I use all of it; 15 years of college entry work— the tens of thousands of admitted and rejected applications, and the faces & stories I’ve triangulated into successful apps— to fuel the diagnostic.
This is important: I have learned to not trust admission experience to write well, and good writers just don’t know the distinct genre of American undergraduate composition. Both —the skill and the experience— are critical. I am a writer who believes good writing is objective. I’ll own the accompanying “Karen” and “pretentious” criticisms when essay work with me feels like I’ll never be pleased. I wont (and if I am, for this age and distinct genre, I’m not doing my job well), and fine! You don’t need to be wearing an ascot to produce provoking, cogent essays. On this I am heavy-handed and uncompromising. You’ve been warned.
The 90-minute diagnostic will tell you:
How your kid reads to Highly Selective colleges
Post DEI Identity on application: race, class, gender, etc.(and yes, relevant for everyone!)
How the landscape has changed
What’s weak, strong, and “standard positive”
If you should get an independent counselor
Where those finite summer hours should go, and how to talk about them
Where AI is useful and when it will likely get you denied
What might make a selective admission officer say no to you (as a former admission officer, I’ve denied literally thousands of children. Ninety-something per cent of the time.)