How do admissions consultants guarantee admits?

If you know anything about admissions into Ivy League schools and other top universities, the competition is FIERCE. With high school admissions counselors as overloaded as ever, it’s no wonder why students and parents are seeking private admissions consulting services. 

Private admissions consultants offer the ability for students to work intimately with an expert in order to improve their profiles in the early high school years, along with application support when it’s time. Typically applicants start working with an admission consultant for mentorship around Freshman year and for application support the summer of Junior year going into Senior year. 

If you’ve already been on the search for a private consultant, you might come across statistics that seem too good to be true, especially at top universities. How do they do it?

First things first, while most admissions consultants we have come across have been ethical in nature there simply are some firms that might bend the truth, or worse, simply lie about their statistics. Assuming that you aren’t being fed false information, if you see something like 99%-100% acceptance rate at a school like Harvard or Stanford (or similar ranked program), one of the following situations might be going on:

1. The firm might be pre-selecting the applicants that qualify to do those schools with them. This means that if you don’t have the right profile or the right test scores, they may steer you away from doing a particularly difficult program or tell you outright that they won’t help you with that. This is because it will hurt their success rates if you fail. Watch out for the bait and switch if the firm initially tells you they will do a school with you and then changes their tune upon receiving your payment, profile, test scores, or GPA. 

2. It’s possible that the data being fed to you is being skewed in their favor. For example, if the admissions consultant tells you that they have a 90% success rate across all of their schools, they might not do very many Ivy Leagues or mostly assist applicants for schools with particularly low acceptance rates. 

3. While we like to think this isn’t a practice anymore, it’s possible that the firm is doing something unethical to help applicants get in. This could mean having connections with a dean or an admissions officer at the program who they pay off in order to gain admission for their students. This is highly illegal. Don’t do this. 

It’s also worth mentioning that you might see articles, blogs, and podcasts that mention high success rates at very difficult programs. Pay attention to the words used in those articles. Sometimes they allude to a “guarantee” when there isn’t actually one offered. These statements can be a bit tricky to dissect so definitely pay close attention as you’re doing your due diligence. 

All in all, there’s simply no guarantees when it comes to an Ivy League program. Working with an admissions consultant might increase your chances of success by a few percentage points, but typically the chances aren’t exponentially increased. Our suggestion is to ask a lot of questions, especially around ethics and how the process works. No firm should be writing your application for you or telling you that they will get you admitted through a contact. Make sure there are no “back door” packages that could land you in a world of trouble. There are many excellent schools that can get you to your goals and it’s simply not worth hefty fines or jail time to get you there. 

Are you a freshman who needs help with your profile? Or a parent who needs a quick rundown of the application process? Check out our guides for more help!