Why hire a college coach?
For many reasons, the investment can be a good one.
When it came time for my kids to start the college search, it never occurred to me to hire a college admissions coach. To my thinking, that was a luxury that high net-worth families spent their money on. And my kids, while wonderful people and solid students, were not candidates for the elite tier of schools that I assumed college coaches worked to get kids into.
My kids settled into colleges at which they were reasonably happy. Then I heard from my sister in law on the West Coast—whose kids are slightly younger than ours—that they had hired someone to help their daughter with the college search and application process and were paying them . . . whaaat? Their college budget was tight, so their college advisor was working with my niece to target schools from which she was likely to receive merit money along with her acceptance. In the end, the money they invested resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in savings over four years and a very happy student. By contrast, we saved money by not hiring a consultant but paid full price at one of the 50 most expensive colleges in the country.
The more I learned about my niece’s experience with her college coach, the more I wished we had invested in hiring out a process that was—while reasonably successful—stressful and full of uncertainty. The benefits of working with a college coach:
It can (as noted) save you money. The sticker price of college today is sky high and seems out of reach for many people (or simply not worth it), but most families—even those not qualifying for need-based financial aid—do not pay the full amount. (Ron Leiber has a great discussion of this in The Price You Pay for College.)
It can reduce stress around deadlines, expectations, and task completion. It is a relief for parents to turn support of the process over to someone who is familiar with it, who has the tools to help determine which schools their child might like, who knows what an effective college essay looks like, and who can expertly advise their student on application procedures, such as whether to apply early and whether to submit test scores. And it is a relief for students to work with adults who can give them confidence that—if they do the work they need to do over the course of the search and application process—they will have some good options in the spring of their senior year.
It can reduce the likelihood of a difficult adjustment period to college or likelihood of a transfer. Of course, no one can predict the future, so even the best college coach can’t prevent a student from ending up, for example, with a challenging roommate, but when students are guided through a process that helps them better understand themselves and what they are looking for in a college, they are more likely to end up at a school that is a good fit.
Do you need to hire a college admissions coach? Absolutely not. But for many families, the investment can be a good one.