Ivy League Architecture at Princeton University.
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At top schools across the country, including many Ivy League schools, admissions rates hover near historically low levels.
“College admissions is only going to get more competitive, and there’s a lot of pressure on families about the risks and how to get into college,” said Thomas Howell, founder of Forum Education, a New York-based tutoring company.
For some families, getting their children into top schools is an investment, and to do so, they can spend almost unlimited money on tutors, college counselors and test preparation.
“The top 20% either fail”
Meanwhile, as some private universities approach prices With six-figure annual tuition fees, some students choose less expensive public schools or full alternative degrees. It is often assumed that for those willing to pay for a four-year private college, it should be worth it.
“The value proposition of higher education is splitting,” Howell said, “either top schools or real value.”
For this group of college applicants, he added, “you’re either in the top 20 percent or you’re a loser.”
As a result, so-called “Ivy+” colleges have seen record growth in applications, according to a report from Common Application.
“Ivy Plus” typically includes the eight private universities that make up the Ivy League – Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale – as well as the University of Chicago , Duke University, MIT Technology and Stanford University.
To get into these elite schools, many families look to outside help for help.
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“The consensus is that college is worth attending only if it changes your life,” said Hafeez Lakhani, founder and president of Lakhani Coaching in New York.
“What hasn’t changed is that people with significant resources are willing to invest more than $100,000, which is about 20 percent of our clients,” Lakhani said. “That’s probably the biggest amount of money they’re going to spend on it other than a car.”
The average Lakhani Coaching client spends $58,000 on counseling, but some clients spend as much as $800,000 over several years, Lakhani said.
At this price point, he said, students “get a SEAL-level instructor in almost every class.” Lakhani equated academic support with the highest level of organization and execution that exemplifies the training of SEALs, the special operations force representing sea, air and land forces.
Lakhani charges $1,600 an hour for his services, the highest rate at his company, but he said families nonetheless often choose to work with him rather than with lower-level coaches there, including Some coaches charge around $290 per hour.
That dynamic likely won’t change even if he charges more, he added.
Parents often say, “It’s a worthwhile investment,” he adds. “The word investment comes up over and over again.”
Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of command education, a college consulting firm.
Courtesy: Christopher Lin
At Command Education in New York, counselors meet with students every week starting in eighth or ninth grade. Families pay an annual fee of $120,000, which does not include test preparation costs for the Standard Admissions Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT). By the time they graduated, they had spent about half a million dollars.
Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of Command, said that Command’s clients are capped at 200 students worldwide, and most are on a first-come, first-served basis, but they will reject students if they feel they cannot achieve the expected results.
“At the end of the day, results are what matters,” he said.
“This is not the tutor next door”
Howell founded Forum Education in New York City a decade ago, but said his business has surged since the pandemic began.
“Two things happened after COVID-19, the normal learning environment was disrupted, there were more hours in the day for tutoring, and there was a greater need for tutoring,” Howell said.
Interest rates are rising in the face of increased demand, by about 30% annually, he said.
His tutor now charges up to $1,250 an hour for academic help, not including college counseling.
According to Howell, the vast majority of students come from New York City private schools and have family incomes in excess of $1,500,000. Last year, these families spent an average of about $38,000 on tutoring, often in addition to college counselors.
“This is not something a neighborhood counselor does part-time,” Howell said. These academic tutors work full-time in the field and earn well into six figures, with two tutors on his staff making more than $1,000,000 last year, he said. Dollar.
To be sure, college consulting is growing year over year, in part because of growing concerns about the return on investment in college, making these experts a worthwhile expense, according to IBIS worlda market research company. In 2024, total revenue will reach $3 billion.
“Imperfect meritocracy”
Of course, many high schools have free tutors and counselors for the same purpose.
However, depending on the number of students in your class, it may be difficult to get personalized advice about college planning.
Additionally, the number of counselors available to students has been steadily decreasing over the years. Currently, the national student-to-counselor ratio is 405 to 1, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Those who can afford outside help do have an advantage.
Children from families in the top 1%, based on SAT or ACT scores, are more than twice as likely to attend “Ivy+” colleges as children from middle-class families National Bureau of Economic Research.
“Higher education is an imperfect meritocracy,” Lakhani said.
However, the wealthiest students from the country’s top private schools are primarily competing against each other as schools look to build diverse classes.
“When you apply from wealthy families, your competition is similar people,” Lakhani said.
Ironically, most people are reluctant to admit that they have received personal help, even if they were lucky enough to receive it.
“Every parent wants to say their child did it,” Ream said.
Is an Ivy League degree worth it?
one study Opportunity Insights, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization at Harvard University, compared the future earnings of waitlisted students who ended up attending Ivy League schools with those who attended public universities.
Finally, a team of economists from Harvard and Brown universities found that the impact on earnings of attending an Ivy League school was “statistically insignificant.”
However, there are other advantages besides income.
For example, attending an “Ivy Plus” university According to Opportunity Insights, compared with highly selective public institutions, your chances of getting into elite graduate schools are nearly doubled and your chances of working at a prestigious company are tripled.
The Opportunity Insights report found that leadership positions are disproportionately held by graduates of some highly selective private universities.
Additionally, it increases a student’s chance of ending up in the top 1% of the income distribution by 60%.
“Highly selective private universities serve as gateways to the upper echelons of society,” the researchers said.
They added: “Because these universities currently enroll far higher proportions of students from higher-income families than students from lower-income families with equivalent academic qualifications, they perpetuate privilege.”
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