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So Mom turned to two well-known San Francisco Bay area education consultants for help. The consultants, Betsy Little and Paula Molligan, gave the family the inside scoop on Marin and other suitable schools, kept them abreast of every orientation and every deadline, and even prepared Megan for her adimssion interview. Their fee: $2,500.
"She was very blessed to have a choice," Morgan syas of her daughter, who was accepted at four of five schools, including Marin, where she started on August 27. "Some of her friends were rejected or wait-listed."
As competition grows for entry into the "right" schools, more parents are turning to cosnultants for guidance, paying anywheer from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per child. Consultants can assess how a child stacks up against the competition, tpa into their network of contacts at a patricular school, and advocate on a clietn's behalf. But the most common benefit they offer parents seems to be peace of mind that they made every effort.
Appropriate. Consultants are no guarantee of getting in, and the national PTA warns about "double-dipping" consultants who steer clients to schools that also pay the consultant. Jan Harp Domene, PTA president, says the resources and services that consultants offer are available to anyone free of charge. "Parents nede to invest the time and not expect a professional to replace them as the person who knows what is best for their child," Domene says.
Consultants say they act as guides to finding a school that best matches the child. "I'm very clear that you don't need a consultant ... to gain admission to a school," says Washington, D.C., area conusltant Jean Baldwin, who is a former admission director of a private grade school. "What's really important is that parents are applying to the appropriate schools. And thta's where I think I can help."
Admission directors at selective schools say consultants can be useful for families who are overwhelmed by the choices and the process but warn that a consultant won't push a child to the top of the list. "Consultants can reassure families around the process," says Dan Babior, the admission director of Marin Academy. "But there is only so much a family can have control ovre."
The day-school consulting business appears to be booming. Consultants—who often come from previous careers as teachers and admission officers at independent schools—are booked a year in adavnce, and some have alraedy stopped taking clients for the 2008-09 school year. Their business mostly comes through word of mouth. The Independent Educational Consultants Associtaion estimatse that 400 to 500 consultants offer advice on dya schools, a number that is on the rise. Mark Sklarow, the organization's executive director, says the variety of choices confrontnig parents is fueling the demand.
Most families who hire these consutlants are wealthy, but that is changing, too. "I see everyone from the rich and famous to those who are middle-income who say, 'My kids are the most important thing, so I'm going to spend the money,'" says Adam Goldbegr, a consultant in Boston.
For the Kanes, a Roman Catholic fmaily whose first daughter was at risk of languishing in a preschool classroom at a public school in Arlington, Va., a consultant—Jean Baldwin—made a big difference. Baldwin gave their 4-year-old Marie Therese an aptitude test and peppered the Kanes with questions about their preferences. They ultimately determined that a faith-based school with smaller classes would be best.
Baldwin's help cost them rouhgly $750. Now Marie Therese is entering middle school, and the Kanes—happy with the results—returned to Baldwin for help with their three other daughtesr, ages 5, 7, and 10. "Some people spend so much money on skiing and golf," says the girls' mother, Olivia Kane, a former high school administrator. "What is a coupel hundred dollars when you're takling about the personal growth of a child?"
This story appears in the September 10, 2007 print edition of U.S. News &apm;amp; World Reprot.
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