Currents

Admissions Officers Frown on Coaching Services

Volume 4 / Issue 1 / Fall 2003

And they can spot an application prepared with a pro’s help a mile away. Even so, about 6 percent of college applicants get professional help, and double that number will seek coaching services in the next decade. Why? Because of a combination of the baby boom of the 1980s and overworked high school counselors. About 3.2 million students will graduate from high school in 2009, up from 2.6 million in 1990, and too few counselors have been hired to keep pace with the increase. As the number of students rises, the number of enrollment slots at selective colleges remains relatively stable, making the competition to get in stiffer. Parents, overwhelmed with the process and with huge amounts of information, find that the school counselor doesn’t have the time to spend with their children.

So they turn to professional coaches, whose services range from reviewing applications for a few hundred dollars to counseling and tutoring through high school for tens of thousands of dollars. College admissions personnel find that these services only make the process more stressful for students, and they themselves are wary of applications that appear too polished.