Students with private college counselors have an unfair advantage

The wealthy often bathe in their riches by flaunting their luxury items, such as cars, clothes, houses, and more. However, another luxury item that is starting to be noticed is access to private college counselors, consultants, and tutors. This gives them an edge in college admissions and a way to get ahead of the game.

Affluent families are able and willing to spend thousands of dollars on consultants who make suggestions on the choices that their children should make. Whether it be which classes to take, the types of extracurricular activities they should do, which service trips to go on, and more. These are all factors that will add the most weight to an application.

Some may argue that all students have a fair approach in college admissions because low-to-middle-income students do have access to high school counselors who help guide them through the college admission process. While it is true that many students rely on their high school counselors, it does not make up for the advantage that many wealthy families have in perfecting the children’s resume through a private college counselor.

While most high school counselors are deeply committed to serving their students, they cannot possibly allocate enough individual attention to each of their students nor even come close to the amount of attention that a student with a private college counselor receives.

Furthermore, many schools do not have an adequate amount of counselors to direct enough attention to each of their students, whereas the wealthy can hire private college counselors, consultants, and tutors for unlimited help for their children.

Whether or not to say this advantage is unfair is another question because, in the end, the wealthy are not necessarily cheating, but only using their expensive resources where low-to-middle-income students cannot.