The Spin Doctors of Admissions

"Let's add it up," says Frank Leana, director of the Manhattan office of Howard Greene & Associates, a Connecticut-based education consulting firm. "The full line with us is about $2,000. Visiting five schools in New England and staying two overnights is close to $800. If you do an SAT prep course, that's another $500 to $600, and there are private tutors for $35 to $100 an hour. Every college application is another $25 to $40." The total: well over $3,000.

Advising parents about the costs of the admissions race is just one of the many services offered by independent consultants. They also determine which schools are best for a student and what clothes and questions are appropriate for campus interviews. Some counselors even offer tips on how to outsmart the SAT (example: since each section's multiple-choice questions progress from easy to hard, an answer that looks obvious early in the test is more likely to be correct than one that looks obvious later). Such personalized attention is rare in most large high schools, where guidance counselors can easily be assigned 300 students or more. Says Jane McClure of Jackson & McClure Associates in San Francisco: "There isn't enough time for everyone."

Private consultants are filling the gap. Since it was founded in 1976, the Independent Educational Consultants Association (I.E.C.A.), the industry's trade group, has grown from 15 to 120 members, most of them former guidance counselors or admissions officers. Many work solo, but some have joined large firms: Edu-Care International, with offices in New York City, Miami and London, employs more than 60 people and advises 150 students a year. Private coaches generally prefer meeting clients when they are juniors or seniors in high school. But Jane McLagen of Hinsdale, Ill., likes to sign up eighth- graders because it gives her more time to shape their record. In past summers she has sent one student to Greece to build roads, another to Hawaii to teach language to dolphins. "It makes them more interesting to the college," she says. "They can show how they use their time beneficially."

Reputable counselors make it clear they cannot guarantee a student will get into the college of his or her choice, but charlatans are already popping up. One in Fairfield County, Conn., reportedly told parents that he had a friend on the admissions committee at their child's first-choice school and could pull strings to get him admitted. He charged $1,000, offering the money back if the student did not get in. For the consultant, it was a no-lose proposition: he did nothing, and if the student happened to get in, he kept the money. The I.E.C.A. tries to weed out con artists by requiring members to sign an ethics code. But that is unlikely to dissuade the unscrupulous.

How much good do the consultants do? "About half the time they muck it up," says John McClintock, a college adviser at Chicago's Francis W. Parker School. The best realize they are most effective working behind the scenes. Colleges do not appreciate phone calls from paid advocates. And gushing recommendations from hired imagemakers, scoffs Kevin Rooney, director of admissions at Notre Dame, "carry no weight at all."