from Hacker News

Ultra-Rich Buy Ultra-Luxury Counseling to Get Kids into Harvard

by minzi on 9/16/23, 3:33 PM with 44 comments

  • by legendofbrando on 9/16/23, 6:00 PM

    If you have the money to pay for these services, your children’s “success” (defined professionally by prestige roles) is preordained to be fine because they have a fallback cushion and it’s not that hard to buy your way into these professions. The reason parents do this is so that they can burnish their personal reputation by saying that their kid is good enough for these schools. Viewed through that frame, the whole thing is rather sad…

    The biggest surprise to me is that: 1) Enterprising wealthy parents haven’t figured out that the value of elite schools is only based on their own value of it. I’m surprised they haven’t decided to make another school “elite” that they could control by deciding en mass to send their kids there.

    2) Elite institutions haven’t decided to capture the value of these services that hack their own admissions by acquiring them or offering paid “on-ramps” and “bootcamps” themselves.

  • by uberman on 9/16/23, 3:42 PM

    I cant read past the paywall, but I do work for such a consultancy and if you have questions that dont lead to proprietary answers I would be happy to try to address them. The one question I'll not answer is who the group is. I'm sure the Bloomberg article will help you I'd such orgs and this is not an ad.

  • by rg111 on 9/16/23, 5:50 PM

    > What will it take to get my kid into Harvard or Yale? His answer: $750,000. That’s Rim’s going rate for advice on landing a coveted spot in the Ivy League for students who want to start college prep in the 7th grade. The price is more than twice what it can cost to actually attend one of those eight elite schools.

    > Before the pandemic, Rim worked out of offices in the Beaux-Arts Bergdorf Goodman Building in Midtown Manhattan, not far from the Plaza Hotel. Today, he likes to court parent-clients at the sumptuous Aman Club (a members-only club, where the initiation fee runs $200,000). If that won’t do, Rim will discreetly drop by a client’s home — whether it’s a condo at 15 Central Park West or on Miami’s Fisher Island — for a modest $10,000 deposit.

  • by digitcatphd on 9/16/23, 6:00 PM

    It seems like every few months some hot expose’ comes out about how Ivy League schools are anything more than a legacy diploma mill for the elites and cover it up by accepting a few minorities they can take ample photos of to deny these allegations and every few months people act surprised.

  • by natas on 9/16/23, 7:16 PM

    I know one of these consultants, she's a good friend, she makes $500k/yr; she'll get your kid anywhere and she has a long list of very wealthy clients. I do not know how much she charges though; but her salary should give you some rough ideas.

  • by jtsiskin on 9/17/23, 1:47 AM