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(CNBC) Why some families will pay $500,000 for Ivy League admissions consulting: ‘It’s worth the investment’

Chomsky

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(CNBC) Why some families will pay $500,000 for Ivy League admissions consulting: ‘It’s worth the investment’
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To get a leg up in the competitive world of college admissions, there’s almost no limit to what some families will spend on private consultants for their children.
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At Command Education in New York, for example, families pay $120,000 a year for counseling services through high school, not including SAT or ACT test prep. By graduation, they’ve spent roughly half a million dollars.
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Here's an interesting article describing the lengths some families are going through to get their progeny into elite academic institutions.

The processes in the article might appear to be ridiculously out-of-sight to many reading it. But I can assure these processes (& others) are commonly occurring in affluent neighborhoods. The article barely scratches the surface of the whole of affluent families' efforts in giving their progeny a leg up in life.

If you're not familiar with what's occurring in the article, I hope you find it interesting.
 
I am sadly not surprised, the raw competition not just as some of the elite universities but even private elite high schools these days is insane. There are some middle school and high schools out there that cost more per year than some of these universities do.

But these universities knew exactly what they were doing holding back on added seats to match the simple population increase demands from these very institutions. The greater the demand for those seats equated to groups like "admissions consulting" firms to help the most financially elite navigate stronger competition waters. Price up, competition up, etc.

Even basic concepts like return on investment are thrown out the window just to ensure your kid gets a Harvard or Yale or Princeton <insert degree here> above all else and all others.
 

The truth of the matter is this stuff starts not in H.S. or Grammar School, but at 3 or 4 years of age! And not just in academics, but in the arts and athletics.

In addition, when tutors are used they often have the highest stature and connections. I've seen a three year old start violin tutoring by a nationally seated violinist!
 
OrphanSlug said:
Even basic concepts like return on investment are thrown out the window just to ensure your kid gets a Harvard or Yale or Princeton <insert degree here> above all else and all others.
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Sorry. Too add:

1] Financial ROI doesn't apply to our progeny.

2] With affluence, these costs are non-consequential.
 

This is why we need an estate tax. The rest of us can't afford to keep up with the superrich.
 
Phys251 said:
This is why we need an estate tax. The rest of us can't afford to keep up with the superrich.
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I'd like to see some leveling in the opportunity curve, but I don't believe an estate tax is the way to do it.
 

Brilliant.

Pay someone $500K to help you find a school to spend another $500K.
 
So much bullshit. Math is math, history is history, no matter where you go. The difference is the amount of indoctrination your child gets. If turning your kid into a "stepford wife"type of person, then by all means, send your kids to Harvard, Yale or the like.
 
This is absolutely false. Yes, math is math, history is history, etc. But the depth and approach of the curriculum is important and almost fully dependent on the professor and better professors teach at better schools. By far the biggest advantage of attending a prestigious school is the connections you make. My daughter attended one of the top five preparatory boarding schools in the country. Her best friend ended up being the daughter of a hedge fund manager that owns a majorly league baseball team and has his name on the new athletic center at his Alma mater because he single-handedly donated the money to have it built. He is well known and respected at all the major financial institutions and has offered to be a reference for my daughter for internships and jobs.

She is now a freshman at a private school that is in the top five of alumni networks. She’s been there for two months and her sophomore, junior and senior summer internships have been secured at a top investment firm. The name of your college on your resume is not solely reflective of the education you received but also about how people in positions of power feel about such institution.

We are in no way even close to being in the 1%, we’re upper middle class. She’s attended/attending these schools with the help of academic scholarships and FA. We just know how the game is played and took advantage of every opportunity to get her where she is.
 
Defined as: indoctrination. I just said that.
 

The difference is what social networks your child, and by extension your family, has access to. Universities have always been one part education, many other parts social networks. This is why colleges and universities push for things like DEI, affirmative action, and other programs so that schools more accurately reflect the demographics of society. Without such diversity in admissions, you have less diverse academic and professional institutions and leadership that is less diverse and has less empathy for people who aren't part of those networks.
 
BirdinHand said:
Networks

The academic portion is only a part of the equation.

Who one meets and forms relationships with and gains influence from and with is a much larger part of the equation.
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Leave it to @BirdinHand to steal my thunder.

Always a step ahead of me, you!
 
Roadvirus said:
Brilliant.

Pay someone $500K to help you find a school to spend another $500K.
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Then they join campus organizations, meet a consultant at McKinsey or an associate at Goldman, and then they graduate into a great job. It can be done attending any institution of higher learning, but it seems like students of certain schools have a better chance of doing it.

I don't know if you have children or not, but if you can afford it, you'll pay whatever for see them be successful.
 
Reactions: JMR
Actually the difference is the "community" that your child will associate with, be influenced by, and eventually network with.
If you believe "Harvard" on a resume does not trump (haha) community college, you are deluding yourself.
 

It's actually not worth it. There's no way that people will earn an extra $500k during their lifetime, on average, by going to a college they'd only get into because of that kind of "investment".

Nobody really gives a crap where you went for undergrad.
 
eman623 said:
The 1% spend the money because A) they have it and B) it works.

Even after decades of outreach and AA, the #1 predictor of getting into an elite college is family wealth.
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For them 500k is absolute peanuts.
They spend more than that on cleaners and workmen for their houses each year.
 

I think you underestimate the doors some Ivy's open.

$500K can be one year on Wall Street or in White Shoe law.
 
It's actually ultimately about the connections and networking at these elite schools. Kids from wealthy families meet kids from other wealthy families- they all have capital for start-ups, etc... Equip them with some technical and business know-how, and they might be on their way to becoming the next Elon Musk, and then telling all those kids from the poorer families to pick themselves up by the bootstraps just like they did.

And no the Earth is not 6000 years old, and the founding fathers of this country were not out to create a Christian nationalist country. Teaching otherwise is not "liberal indoctrination".
 
But... but... I thought America was a meritocracy!

Are you saying that... wealthy parents can give their kids an advantage over equally talented and hard-working college applicants from poor or middle-class families? In America?!? That's unpossible!!!

 
Chomsky said:
I think you underestimate the doors some Ivy's open.
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I think you overestimate it.

Chomsky said:
$500K can be one year on Wall Street or in White Shoe law.
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Which you can get into without an undergrad degree from an Ivy. They care mainly about where you get your law degree or MBA, and how well you do when getting those degrees.

And you can also make $500k per year without working on Wall Street or in a White Shoe law firm (not that making $500k per year at a White Shoe law firm will do you any good if you care about having a life).
 
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