Recent College Graduates

Recent College Graduates June 13 Ivy Coach does not hire students who recently guided themselves successfully through the highly selective college admissions process (photo credit: Ad Meskens). We receive a number of calls and emails from students who recently earned admission to highly selective universities as well as from recent graduates of highly selective universities. These students want to help guide our students through the admissions process. Perhaps theyre under the assumption that because they earned admission to a highly selective college, they know all of the tricks and have all of the expertise to help others do the same. The same goes for the parents of students who earned admission to highly selective colleges. They call and write to us too. And, yes, if youre a regular reader of our college admissions blog, you know that we roll our eyes. Every. Single. Time. Just because you earned admission to a highly selective college or just because your son or daughter earned admission to his or her dream college does not make you an expert on the admissions process. It doesnt make you  phenomenal at drawing out the best possible writing in an applicant, in finding his or her best stories to share with admissions officers. It doesnt make you an expert at strategizing which school a student should apply Early Decision or Early Action to. It doesnt mean that you know the backdoor into a certain university. And, yes indeed, there are backdoors into certain universities. And while we do appreciate the chutzpah of these students and parents in reaching out to us  to offer  up their services in a tough economy, we dont hire recent high school and college graduates to guide our students through the admissions process. We dont now. We havent ever. Do we hire former admissions officers at highly selective colleges? Yes. Do we hire a father  who helped his daughter get into Cornell? No, not if thats his main source of experience with the admissions process. While weve been receiving these calls and emails for many years now, we think weve hit an all-time high over the last couple of weeks with these inquiries and so we figured wed write about it. Why not.