Does anyone recommend a professional admissions consulting company?

[star_n_hearts]

Does anyone recommend a professional admissions consulting company - such as Kaplan or Petersons - which are designed to help applicants perfect their SOP's and writing samples? I am currently not a student and so I do not have resources such as a college writing center or professors to help me with this process. I've been looking into this and

Comments

[sub_textual]

Definitely not worth it. You're better off working with people here instead.

[star_n_hearts]

What if I'm not very comfortable sharing my work with unknown people? Do you think this is something I can overcome?

[sub_textual]

I think that if you aren't comfortable with this, pay attention to the commenters and members of the community who are consistently giving very good, solid advice, and message them privately to request if they might be interested in looking at your sample outside of the community. This is what I did.

[star_n_hearts]

That's definitely something to think about.

[kahlan_amnell]

Not worth it at all. Even though you aren't currently a student, professors from your undergrad school might still be willing to help you. Try contacting them.

I know you said you are uncomfortable posting SOP's and writing samples with unknown people. However, these professionals would be unknown as well, though you would get to meet them in person.

[day_n_nite]

I can't answer your question, but:
Even though you're not a student, a lot of schools let alumni take advantage of their career services resources. Or if you don't live close to your alma mater, some schools have a reciprocity program, where they will contact a career services office at another school in the country, at your request. You should see if your school offers these options. If they do, they may charge a fee, but I would think that they'd charge less than $500.

[greekdaph]

I agree with those who say that professional consulting companies aren't worth the money. One reason why is that--unlike, say, law school or business school, which rely more on clearly-definable admissions criteria--MA and PhD program practices are so field-specific that the people best-equipped to help you are people in that discipline, be they professors or peers. You need people who can evaluate your work on its merits rather than just its language, people who are familiar with faculty and departmental atmospheres and the like. You need advice that's very specific. With the exception of the GRE and of etiquette things like obtaining letters of recommendation and resolving questions about transcripts, et al., any advice that applies in all fields is too general to be useful

[roseofjuly]

I think it's a rip-off, personally. $500 is a lot of money for someone to just look over your SOP and writing sample - you could probably hire a professional editor for cheaper than that if you wanted some help tightening it up, or if you have a local university, you could probably hire a grad student in your field or an advanced English grad student for cheaper than that to look over your statements.

Also, even though you're not a student any more some of your old advisors may be willing to look over your statements for you.

[roseofjuly]

I know right? I was just thinking "Hm, how can I get into this?"

However, Kaplan is pretty good about making sure that their workers don't receive most of that money. I worked for Kaplan as a private tutor for the SAT. They charged $2300 for a 16-week course - 2 hours per week, for 16 weeks. How much of that did I see? $560, plus $0.38/mile for travel.

I could've made more money going into business for myself, charging $20/hour for tutoring courses and my students would've saved too - they could've just bought a book for $30 from the bookstore and we would've used that. It's not like Kaplan's courses had anything in them that weren't in their $30 books, and it's not like their training taught me anything I hadn't already learned by taking the SAT myself.

[circumfession]

I worked for Kaplan as well. They still owe me several thousand dollars for paying my prep time below min. wage, and not paying me overtime.

I actually did "break off" from Kaplan, partially at the urging of my students to do independent private tutoring. Rather than the $20 an hour that Kaplan was paying me, I charged $50-$80 (depending on the test), and my students were STILL paying less than half of what Kaplan would have charged for the same service. Because I didn't have to stick to Kaplan's sometimes stupid rules, I was able to tailor my teaching to their needs, and they ended up doing better.

Kaplan--and its fellow testprep empires--has its moments, but to echo the chorus, it's largely a waste of time.

I also wanted to second your other suggestions. My (English) department pass on "wanted: testprep tutor" and "wanted: SoP/writing sample editor" emails all the time. Definitely look into emailing your local university, and see if they can help you find a graduate student that has sufficient experience to help you.