Even though it was below the fold, it still made the front page of the New York Times. And even though it was about college admissions, the details were eerily familiar. The story opened with a fashion show about what kids should wear to their college admissions interview.
“I burst out laughing,” she said.
That quote was from a college admissions dean who was shown photographs of the outfits proposed. Yet independent consultants, a new-angled unregulated industry, charge big money, from $14,000 to $50,000.
“When you say things like, ‘We know the secrets of getting in,’ it kind of implies that it’s not the student’s ability,” said Mark H. Sklarow, executive director of the association, in Fairfax, Va. “It suggests that there’s some kind of underground code.”
Consultant charge big money to teach you the “secrets”, the “underground code,” a recurring theme. And who are these consultant who know the secrets to success?
It is not uncommon for other counselors to exaggerate their backgrounds. Ivy Success, in Garden City, N.Y., which charges some clients nearly $30,000, says on its Web site that its counselors have “years of experience as admissions officers to help you gain an edge in this competitive and uncertain process.”
Victoria Hsiao, a partner in Ivy Success, said in an interview that she had worked as an admissions officer at Cornell for several years in “the late 1990s.” But Jason Locke, the director of undergraduate admissions at the university, said there was no record, or memory, of Ms. Hsiao doing such work. (Mr. Locke did confirm that she graduated from Cornell in 1996.)
On further questioning, it turns out that Hsiao did some alumna interviews, better known as a sales chat with prospective students.
[Hsiao] also said a partner, Robert Shaw, had been an admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania. Asked about this in an e-mail message, Mr. Shaw said he had been only “an assistant,” from 1987 to 1988.
“Don’t remember all the details,” he said, adding, “We really don’t want to be a part of your article as we’re not a service for the masses.”
So it doesn’t become truthier if someone else promotes a slight exaggeration of qualifications? I supposed not. And what do real college admissions folks think of these consultants who are selling the secrets?
Young lawyers don’t believe that they could be taken in by snake oil salesmen. They’re far smarter than that. Far too savvy to be suckered and played like fools. After all, they aren’t high schoolers hoping to get into the Ivies. Or their desperate parents. They would never suspect all judgment and blindly accept the idea that someone out there, for a fee, can tell them how to make millions while enjoying the wondrous lifestyle they desire and deserve.
Of course, it doesn’t strike these skeptical and bright legal minds as odd that these consultants, who claim to know the secret, aren’t using that secret to make themselves millions in successful law practices. They charge plenty to consult, so it’s not for love, yet they left behind millions to share their secret? Why would any rational person do that?
We doubt ourselves and believe that there is a rainbow around the corner, if only we knew which corner it was. We happily pay anyone who claims to know in the hope that it will solve our problems and bring us to Nirvana. It dices. It slices.
But why would I bother to draw the analogy from the Times story to young lawyers looking for the secret to success? Surely, you’ve fully vetted the backgrounds of the wealth of consultant available on the internet to show you how to maximize your secret potential, to establish a million dollar law practice and be home for dinner with the kids every night.
You would never fall for a scam like these silly college kids and their desperate parents. Never.
Regardless, colleges say parents should be wary of any counselor’s claim of being able to lobby for a candidate’s admission. While noting that there are “genuinely rational and knowledgeable folks out there doing this work,” Bruce Poch, the dean of admissions at Pomona College, adds, “Some of the independents leave me looking for the nearest emergency shower.”We have become a nation of people trying to get a leg up on everyone else by paying someone, a person about whom we know nothing more than the “new, improved” on the label, to teach us the magic secret to success. Whether it’s how to get into college, or law school perhaps, or how to start a million dollar law practice overnight via twitter.
Young lawyers don’t believe that they could be taken in by snake oil salesmen. They’re far smarter than that. Far too savvy to be suckered and played like fools. After all, they aren’t high schoolers hoping to get into the Ivies. Or their desperate parents. They would never suspect all judgment and blindly accept the idea that someone out there, for a fee, can tell them how to make millions while enjoying the wondrous lifestyle they desire and deserve.
Of course, it doesn’t strike these skeptical and bright legal minds as odd that these consultants, who claim to know the secret, aren’t using that secret to make themselves millions in successful law practices. They charge plenty to consult, so it’s not for love, yet they left behind millions to share their secret? Why would any rational person do that?
We doubt ourselves and believe that there is a rainbow around the corner, if only we knew which corner it was. We happily pay anyone who claims to know in the hope that it will solve our problems and bring us to Nirvana. It dices. It slices.
But why would I bother to draw the analogy from the Times story to young lawyers looking for the secret to success? Surely, you’ve fully vetted the backgrounds of the wealth of consultant available on the internet to show you how to maximize your secret potential, to establish a million dollar law practice and be home for dinner with the kids every night.
You would never fall for a scam like these silly college kids and their desperate parents. Never.
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Thank you for this post.
Home timely. I’ve been meaning to pass this link on to you.
Great punchline: The kid works for his daddy’s investment banking company!
That is unbelievable. And while he’s supposedly a consultant to teach others how to leave the law behind, he’s keeping himself fed in a job at daddy’s shop. Just amazing that they believe they have something to offer, and that there are people who actually listen to these jokes.
Should the phrase, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach” be updated to “those who can’t, consult?”
We need a hybrid, perhaps. Those who can, do. Those can’t, teach. Those who don’t, consult.