THINK back to the agonizing months you spent as a high school senior anxiously awaiting those college acceptance letters, constantly evaluating in your head whether your grade point average was high enough, whether your extracurricular activities were versatile enough, whether your admissions essay was interesting enough. Remember how much of a crapshoot applying to college seemed to be?
For a select group of high school students today, the gamble of college admissions has become much less about chance and much more about money. In other words, wealth has once again come to the rescue. According to The New York Times, an increasing number of high school students and their parents are soliciting the help of educational consultants, individuals hired for the sole purpose of helping high school students successfully apply to college
These consultants, Times reporter Julie Bick writes, “take up where overburdened high school guidance counselors leave off,” helping students with everything from determining the right colleges to apply for to reviewing their admissions essays and preparing them for interviews. They either charge by the hour or work for a fixed fee, and many begin working with students when they enter tenth grade.
Though private educational consultants may provide a valid and valuable service to children who truly need specialized attention, such as those with learning disabilities and behavioral disorders, they are often hired by wealthy parents in affluent areas to aid children who neither need nor warrant such specialized attention.
This is yet another example of how large a role wealth plays in the education sector. It is the key that opens the doors of the nation’s most prestigious universities, it is the guarantor of academic opportunities that would likely never become available were it not for the financial power of one’s parents. Money may not buy happiness, but it will certainly buy a one-way ticket to Harvard.
This relatively recent trend in private education consulting suggests that the achievement gap between students from wealthy backgrounds and those from low-income backgrounds will remain and will perhaps become even more pronounced. According to the Brookings Institution, in 2005, only 11 percent of children with parents in the lowest family income quintile had a college degree, versus 53 percent of students with parents in the top quintile. It is much easier to conquer the often overwhelming admissions process when aided by professionals who are paid to guide students along the way. Guidance counselors can only be of so much help at overcrowded public schools, where a student is lucky if a counselor even knows her name.
Colleges and universities around the country should do more to recognize the inequalities educational consulting inevitably brings to the academic arena. As long as schools take no interest in whether or not a student has been given an advantage over others because he or she could afford a personal consultant, they are complicit in the maintenance of this unequal system.
Because these consulting programs have been so successful of late, the number of people in the profession “has doubled in the last five years ... and is expected to double again in the next three to five years,” according to Bick’s article. More and more people are drawn to this lucrative profession instead of working in the public school system, where all students theoretically have access to a counselor. Therefore, instead of improving an existing and much more open system of academic support for students, many in the education profession and private sector are aiding in its demise.
Education consulting does have a place in the academic arena, but it does not involve wealthy families and students who do not warrant extra help meeting their admissions requirements. Consulting can be extremely beneficial to students with learning disabilities such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or dyslexia. The Independent Educational Consultants Association, among other private consultant associations, already recognizes the benefits they offer to such students. Additionally, programs for students from high-crime areas or from abusive families can also benefit tremendously from such a strong system of support. Yet in both of these situations, student need — and not student wealth — should justify the use of a private consultant.
Worrying about getting into college is a rite of passage for many students whether they like it or not. It is a difficult and painful process that money should not, but unfortunately does, alleviate. Any guidance available should become available to all, not simply to the wealthy few. Yet once again, money, not merit, has given select students an undeserved advantage.
Amelia Meyer’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.meyer@cavalierdaily.com.
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