With so many admissions consultants present, one can’t help but feel skeptical about choosing the right one, which gives a person enough reasons to choose the best option.
And, we are here to do that. We aim to help you get you caught up on all the critical aspects, so it becomes easy for you to find a legitimate and the best admission consultant for you.
But before we get into that, you must understand what admissions consulting is and their job exactly.
So, let’s get into it!
Admission Consulting and consultant: Explained
Think of an admission consultant as someone who knows everything that there is to know about sending an application to a college. They are likely to know about the best practices, the standards, the pitfalls of the colleges to help students hit the sweet spot for being selected into the college of their choice.
Consultation services can be of high value when we talk about getting into your desired college. However, you need to make sure that you have chosen the right one to ensure everything falls in place.
Things to look out for!
1. Test Preparation:
Many consultant services excel at preparing a student for standardized tests, like the SAT-1 or ACT. There are more programs like these, and most of them majorly differ in their structures.
From helping you write an academic essay to helping you solve complex mathematical problems, a consultant service must be dedicated to helping you perform the best in your exam for your college. Ensure that the services you go for develop an individual learning style and provide time commitments to keep you at the top of your game. For example, some could include 1-on-1 meetings, week-long workshops, or even intensive daily summer classes.
2. Application Assistance:
Regardless of how good a college is, so many of them have complicated college application portals, making it difficult for you to get everything right with your application.
Going for a trustworthy admission consultant service, such as Solomon Admissions, can be of immense help. These consultants usually are accustomed to various application portals, which takes a lot of burden out of your plate.
Additionally, your statement also plays an integral part in confirming your acceptance to your desired college. Ensure that the consultant service you acquire has the adequate knowledge to help you write a stellar personal statement.
3. Career Coaching:
In today’s world, most employers will prioritize skills over a perfect 4.0 GPA. After all, scoring the ideal GPA does not indicate that you have all the necessary skills required to shine in your professional career ahead.
The need for these skills is what makes career coaching more important than anything else. Career coaching involves getting students acquainted with professional skills that will help them make a good rapport with their future employers.
Your chosen consultant service should focus on teaching you skills such as resume writing, public speaking, group tasks, or how to sit through and answer the questions in an interview confidently.
Career coaching is also essential in setting your vision straight about what you want to do in your professional life.
4. Life coaching:
Coaching about getting professional skills and scoring well is not the only thing that matters. For example, a student can do well in studies, but he lacks discipline in real life, which can further create issues in the oncoming stages of his life.
Go for an admission consultant that identifies your weaknesses and helps you overcome them. For example, if you spend too much time procrastinating, your consultant must know precisely what to do to help you realize the importance of time.
While generally not many consultant services offer life coaching, but as we said, we are helping you find the best one out there.
5. Study skills:
Teaching any student the necessary study skills is usually the main objective of every consultation service.
However, when looking for a consultation service, make sure you go for the one that narrows down your weaknesses and develops a plan to help you cut those problems. Generating a plan centered for you will also help you analyze your strong and weak suites, which can further assist you in doing well on the test and for any oncoming educational years.
6. Internship placement:
Internship placement is one of the most crucial extracurriculars for preparing a student for college. Whether it be internships or apprenticeships, they add weight to your application towards a college and significantly improve your selection chances.
Even if you search the internet, you will discover that most internship programs are created for college students. Choosing a consultant can make it significantly easier for you to land an internship.
Most of the time, the consultation services have the right contacts and are network-wide enough to help you place in a suitable internship, depending on your career interests. Taking up an internship not only helps your application towards the college, but it also teaches you the necessary skills required to deal with various areas of professional life.
7. A complete service of four years:
Admission consulting services vary by time. However, the most extensive span of consulting services covers the entire four years of high school.
Now, a complete four-year program must include all of the services mentioned above in the article. But, it’s always better to ask than assume that they might.
Choosing an extensive plan comes off as beneficial for you since it leaves the students and the consultants with ample time to deceive and tweak the goals as they move further. If you go to a seasoned consultant, they won’t have any difficulty laying down recommended courses, the test dates, and other helpful activities for the oncoming four years.
Going with an extensive plan with a consultant service can also help you deal with any unfortunate events.
8. Tutoring and consulting:
Ensure that the consultation service you opt for provides an adequate number of tutoring hours with their college consulting programs. Choosing such programs will also be helpful for the parents as well the children.
Such combined plans usually focus on providing all that there is to know in one place. Choosing a consultant service that offers both these services can benefit you as the consultants, and the tutors can discuss and plan out a customized plan for you, depending on what you need the most.
9. Consider reviews on websites such as Yelp:
If you have second thoughts about choosing an admission consultant, one way to be sure is to check out their reviews on rating websites such as Yelp. Reading reviews is the utmost method of attaining satisfaction as a customer.
Going through platforms such as these is a great way to learn about anything there is to know about the company, which might make you think twice before choosing them.
Now, you shouldn’t always consider every negative review either! There are always going to be some bad apples. However, if you find out that most of the reviews about a company are deficient, you should look the other way and evaluate your options.
10. Always look for former clients:
Apart from reading online reviews, you can also consider conversing with the previous clientele of the company. Usually, a company would proudly boast their previously satisfied clients as it means good business for them.
However, if the consultation service you are considering is hiding their previous clients or they haven’t taken on any new clients recently, you should treat it as a red flag. However, if you are still inclined to give them a shot, you can use online forums like Reddit to ask about the service.
Final Words
While opting for an admission consultant service does not guarantee that you will be accepted into the college of your preference, your chances significantly improve being selected.
However, you must look for signs which qualify them as the best possible choice. You will be spending your time investing your money into something, and it never hurts to make sure that it’s worth investing in.
However, if you want to add something to this article, let us know in the comments section!
