How to work with independent counsellors

I still remember the phone call I received, more than a decade ago, from a fellow university adviser who worked at another international school in same city. He was calling to tell me he had purchased a letter of recommendation on my school’s letterhead with my signature on it. He wanted to explain it over the phone before sending me the fraudulent letter. 

He had heard there was a test prep centre in our city where all kinds of school documents could be purchased. The company running the centre also offered university admission advice and application support. They openly bragged about their placements to highly selective universities, often showing photos of happy students standing in front of the company’s logo sharing the name of the university their client would soon be attending. 

My colleague from that neighbouring school came to discover the company was doing more than just offering advice. They were actually manufacturing student profiles for those willing to pay for the service. He made this discovery when some of his more diligent students expressed their frustration with those who were paying for what they had worked so hard to achieve. He convinced a couple of his students to pose as potential clients seeking some of the backroom support this agency provided. 

He used what he discovered to convince his school’s leadership to prohibit their students from working with agents. He was hoping I would convince my school to do the same. While I empathised with his motivation, I did not follow suit.

I had somewhat of a different perspective that came from organising counsellor bus tours for the International Association for College Admission Counselling (IACAC). These week-long tours often included a handful of independent educational consultants (IEC). Spend a week on a bus with someone and you get to know them well. 

I found the IECs that I met to be some of the most knowledgeable, earnest and ethical people in the profession. Why would I forbid students from seeking advice from the same people I often turned to? 

I also wondered how I would enforce such a ban. Most of the students at my school came from affluent families. Their parents hired people to do all sorts of tasks, and it made sense that they would hire someone to help their children with their university applications. 

While I would tell families I thought it was unnecessary, I did not take it personally when they hired an IEC. I thought a ban would only make the practice more clandestine, and go against promoting a healthy parent-school partnership. 

Instead, I chose to extend this partnership to the IECs our families were employing. At the beginning of Grade 12, I have families sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which explains how to request school documents, that letters of recommendation are confidential, etc.

That year, I decided to ask for the name and contact information of their IEC if they were using one. Like any new policy there was some trepidation, but it ended up leading to some unintended, positive outcomes. 

Even before this policy, I could usually tell when a student was working with an outside consultant. If a student came to me with an unusual, and often urgent, request, I would ask where it was coming from. It was almost always coming from an outside consultant. 

Now that their IECs were aware of our policies and deadlines, last-minute requests vanished. Not only did many IECs reach out to me directly, most thanked me. Many had worked, or were currently working, with students whose schools would not work with IECs. Some had to advise their clients to keep their arrangement secret from the school. They welcomed the ability to work openly with their client’s school, knowing that mutual cooperation would make both our jobs easier and hopefully lead to better outcomes for the students, which is what it is all about in the end. 

There were one or two consultants who refused to share their contact information with me. In those few cases, I would advise the families to question the wisdom of employing an educational consultant who would not want to forge a positive professional relationship with their child’s school counsellor.

Every profession has bad actors. University admissions is no exception, but most are earnest and ethical.

Many families hire specialists to assist with all kinds of tasks, college admissions is seen in the same light. Don’t take it personally if one of your students hires one.

Communicate basic information about your school’s policies regarding confidentiality, deadlines and turnaround times of documents with IECs. You will find that the good ones will want to work with you. It could be a “red flag” if they do not want to communicate with their client’s school.