The Five Best Graduate School Admissions Consultants Reviewed

With more and more people going to college, the competition is greater than ever. Thankfully, there are lots of professional grad school admissions consultants to help the thousands of applicants with their applications. When once you could get into college with great SAT scores and a good GPA.

Nowadays, colleges often have a more holistic approach and will consider much more than just the grades on paper. To summarize, getting into your college of choice isn’t just about getting the right scores, you’ll need to do more.

Though it’s entirely possible to get into a top undergrad school off your own back, you will have a much higher chance of being accepted if you seek help from a professional.

Our review of the best grad school admissions consultants will help you in your quest so that you can fulfill all of your dreams and get into the school of your choice.

Best Grad School Admission Consulting

 1. Admit Advantage

Admit Advantage is an education management company offering support for applicants to a range of courses and schools. The company was founded in 2009 and has its headquarters in New York.

In terms of the services offered, Admit Advantage helps students through the application process for dual degrees, general master’s degrees, specialized master’s programs, and selected Ph.D. programs. Their tagline ‘opportunity maximized’ is, therefore, highly appropriate.

The company was founded by Eric Allen and Kofi Kankam, who both have vast experience as admissions officers at The Wharton School and Brown University.

Admit Advantage can help with a huge range of subject specialisms, which includes (but is not limited to) analytics, education, nursing, accounting, engineering, psychology, business, finance, public health, computer science, law, and public policy.

Admit Advantage has supported applicants to a range of competitive graduate schools. This includes Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Columbia, Chicago, Berkeley, Pen, NYU, Michigan, Cornell, and Northwestern, among others.

The process used by the company is unique. Each candidate will have an individualized Personal Achievement Template or PAT based on their aspirations, qualifications, and specific experiences. All factors will be combined into a unique application strategy that gives applicants the best possible chances.

Admit Advantage offers a range of different services. Their School Selection Advice means applicants can seek help with looking for programs that best meet their individual qualifications, aspirations, and experiences.

They will recommend schools that are ‘stretch schools’ – schools that might be difficult to get into, ‘target schools’ – ones that will be easier to get into but are good choices, and ‘safe schools’ – ones that the applicant will get into, but it might not be their first choice. They take into account things like brand, ranking, geography, academic focus and standards, extra-curricular activities, and cost.

Besides this, they offer help with application strategies, essay structuring and editing, personal statement reviews, recommender selections, resume refinement, application reviews, and interview preparations. They will also provide an assessment and an analysis of an existing application.

Pricing

Admit Advantage displays its pricing clearly on the website. For a comprehensive application package that covers all of the services mentioned above, it is $3,950. You can save money by using the service for more than one application.

If you would just like a final application review once you’ve done all of the hard work yourself, this costs $2,250 per school. If you choose this package, you will get support for creating and developing your strategies and essays.

Otherwise, you can choose to use their hourly consultation services at a rate of $275 per hour.

Overall, both packages offer help throughout the process for your essays and application strategy. The main difference is that the Premium Package comes with extra help (resume, interview prep, etc), but they both start off the same.

Advantages and disadvantages

The advantages of using Admit Advantage are that you’re much more likely to get into the school of your choice by tapping in on their expertise. The services are quite pricy though so it will be out of the reach of some people’s budgets. That said, you can’t put a price on your future career and dream school!

To learn more about Admit Advantage, you can check our detailed review about it.

Reputation

Admit Advantage has a great reputation overall. From the online reviews, we could find that there was only one unhappy customer, which, when considering how many customers the company has, is not significant at all.

2. BeMo Academic Consulting

BeMo is an international leader in personalized admissions preparations to the best colleges and universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. The company has helped over 54,000 applicants get into schools around the world. They assist all types of applicants, from first-time, traditional applicants to mature, non-tradition re-applicants and everything in between.

BeMo works with candidates for different professions. These include med school, dentistry, law, MBA, pharmacy, nursing, and veterinary degrees.

Pricing

BeMo has different levels of packages: silver, gold, platinum, and titanium. The silver package is the cheapest, while the platinum is the most popular.

The company also lets you pay the fees in installments to help spread the cost. An example of pricing is for a med school application review. The silver is around $850, the gold package is $2450, the platinum package is $4,900 and the titanium package is $6,100.

Advantages and disadvantages

BeMo has the advantage of being an international company, so you can use it no matter where you are in the world. This means it’s great for international students who want expertise on the application process abroad.

Another advantage of this company is that they’re very transparent about who works for them and what the benefits are about working there. The reviews of employees on Glassdoor speak for themselves so this is clearly a company that looks after its staff as well as its customers.

In terms of disadvantages, there don’t seem to be many! On Trustpilot, less than 1% of reviews are 3/5 or worse, and the biggest criticism is simply that students would have liked more time to chat to their advisor.

Reputation

Overall, BeMo seems pretty functional and exemplary when it comes to providing grad school admission services! Trustpilot has 5,259 reviews and an average rating of 4.8/5, which shows just how great the company is. What’s more, they also take the time to respond to reviews and have responded to all negative reviews within 24 hours.

If you want to know more about this grad school consultant, check the BeMo review on our blog.

3. Admissionado

With its impressive style and professional layout, it’s easy to see why Admissionado calls itself “the A-list of college admissions consultants.” The company was founded by Raj Patil and Jon Frank in 2007 and now has over 100 experts on the team. In their time doing this work, they have reviewed more than 35,000 applications. The company prides itself on forging personal connections with all of its clients, and its ethos is to stretch potential.

Admissionado works with clients for grad schools for school counseling and application services as well as master and MBA admissions consulting.

Pricing

There are different levels of service depending on need. College counseling packages start at $3,250 for silver mentorship (6 hours), gold mentorship (12 hours) is $5,850, and platinum mentorship (24 hours) is $8,650.

This is individual counseling in hourly blocks and is aimed at students in 9^th grade and onwards. The hours can be used for things like strategic suggestions for volunteer work and community service, extra-curricular activity planning, training in discussion and debate, leadership training, and coursework planning and strategies.

For students in Grade 12, the company offers college services, which include getting to know people individually before coming up with an application action plan, developing essays, interview preparation, and extra support. Customers can tailor their packages for a different number of schools. One school costs $3,440 (silver package) or $5,400 for the gold package.

Advantages and disadvantages

In terms of pros and cons, there are clearly many advantages. The services provided are by experts in the field, and all employees are well-informed. The company also says that 98% of its clients get accepted after using their services.

For those of you interested in learning more about these college consultants, read our Admissionado review.

They also provide books and guides to specific schools. As for the downsides of Admissionado, there is only assistance for MBA and no other graduate programs. Full packages are also expensive. Finally, they don’t offer discounts or have a guarantee policy.

Reputation

Admissionado is well-reviewed. On GMAT club, an independent forum for MBA/master applicants has received 222 reviews and has an average rating of 4.9/5. Edureviewer also rates it number one for ‘Best Customer Choice’, and it has a rating of 5.0/5.

4. Ivy Coach

The Ivy Coach website doesn’t look as fantastic as some of the other sites in our review. However, what is impressive is the list of news outlets they have been featured in, as seen on the home page. This includes the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, and U.S. News.

The company is based in New York City and was established by Bev Taylor way back in 1990.

The company offers help to those who want assistance with their whole grad school application, right from selecting a school to deciding which program they want to attend after admission. They also offer their services to students who just need help with their application review, personal statement, or interview prep.

The company states that all students in the 2021 early admissions cycle with Ivy Coach were accepted. This included admissions to Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Duke, Columbia, MIT, and more.

Pricing

It’s difficult to find pricing information on Ivy Coach’s website. In fact, the only thing you can do is get a free consultation. The site does have an email address and telephone number, however.

Compared to other grad school admissions consultant services, Ivy Coach doesn’t seem as transparent. According to other sources like Reddit, one two-hour session costs around $1,200. According to The New York Times, their top package (a 5-year, full-service package for college admissions consulting) costs up to $1.5 million.

Advantages and disadvantages

There are many strengths to what Ivy Coach offers. One of these is how it offers an à la carte system of pricing so you can pick and choose the required services. The company is also fully flexible and will provide remote grad school admissions counseling on Zoom, telephone, and FaceTime. In terms of cons, the prices are quite high and some of the services provided. It also seems hard for students to navigate through the programs.

Reputation

Ivy Coach has been around a very long time and has a great track record of getting people into their chosen schools. However, their lack of transparency regarding pricing for grad school admissions counseling and the fact that there aren’t many public reviews means that they should be treated with caution.

5. Kaplan

Kaplan makes some pretty big claims. The company’s website states that it has been a leader of education for more than 80 years, which makes it one of the oldest grad school admissions services around.

The company was established by Stanley Kaplan, whose goal was to give all students access to higher education based on merit, irrespective of background.

Kaplan offers students of all ages, right from high school students who are preparing for college entrance exams, graduate students, and adults wanting to return to college.

This company is unique because it offers specific prep for LSAT®, MCAT®, GRE®, and GMAT® courses.

Pricing

This company has tons of different courses and preparations, and prices vary considerably. For LSAT® prep, for example, there are four different packages. These include an on-demand course from $700, a live online course from $1,110, an in-person course from $1,400, and a tutoring + live online course from $1999.

The same courses but for the MCAT® preparation start at $1,999 and go up to $3,299.

Kaplan does offer frequent discounts with promo codes, which can make a big difference in the amount you pay.

Advantages and disadvantages

Unlike some of the other grad school counseling platforms, Kaplan’s service is unique in that it focuses more on prep for an examination rather than applications. This, of course, is its USP, and it’s a service it does very well.

The disadvantages are that there are lots of different packages to choose from, and it’s hard to know which one to pick. Also, this company has lots of branches and isn’t just focused on grad school admissions services.

Some people might be put off by this as it’s not as ‘niche’ or specialist as other companies. Their website even offers things like studying abroad opportunities and language learning. With so many things on offer, it makes the website seem a little cluttered with too many things going on.

Thankfully, the frequent discounts come in handy, though. Kaplan also has the advantage of being the most long-established service out there. Does this mean it’s the best grad school consultant? Possibly – its reviews are certainly good.

Reputation

Kaplan certainly has a great reputation for grad school admissions consulting. They have over 4,800 reviews on Trustpilot, and the average rating is 4.6/5.

Comparison

FAQs

1. Are grad school admissions consultants worth it?

Yes. Going through the grad school admissions process is daunting. Using a grad school admissions consultant can help ease the pressure and make your application more successful.

2. How much does grad school admission counseling cost?

This depends entirely on the company you go with and the package you purchase. Grad school admissions consultant pricing varies considerably depending on your needs. You can find advice for as little as $300, but lots of the best grad school admissions consultants will offer a free consultation.

3. Should I hire a grad school admissions consultant?

If you can afford to pay for grad school admission consulting, then it is a great idea. These services will help you with everything from choosing where to apply to providing feedback and comments on your personal statement. If you need to study for a test, you can also find a course that will help you with this too.

4. Is admission consulting helpful?

Yes. Some students go for grad school counseling just for one school application so that they know how it works. They then apply that learned knowledge to their other choices of school. Obviously, all schools and colleges are different and so people often ask their grad school application consultant to help them out with all of their class and program choices in a range of schools.

5. How do I find a good college admissions counselor?

When looking for the best grad school consultant, it’s important to look for a site that meets your needs and has a good success rate. Looking at independent reviews is important too. Sites like Trustpilot and GMAT Club are helpful. Be wary of taking testimonials for granted when they’re posted directly on the sites, as these aren’t independent and will be there to advertise the company’s services.