Consultants make millions from the fierce competition to get into elite colleges

For a 29-year-old, Jamie Beaton is a man of many skills: a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate with six degrees from elite colleges, and a millionaire entrepreneur of a college consulting firm that’s attracting the attention of eager parents and investors alike.

A great article in the Wall Street Journal describes how Beaton’s clients pay his company tens of thousands of dollars or even as much $200,000for a program that offers everything from tutoring for exams to advice on making great teacher recommendations. All with one goal in mind: getting children into elite schools. And so far it’s working: Crimson Education’s customers make up nearly 2% of students admitted to elite schools like the undergraduate class of 2028 Harvard, BrownAnd Columbia.

Crimson is part of the college advising market, whose value is now appreciated ~$2.9 billion According to market research firm IBISWorld, competition for top universities has intensified. In fact, admission rates to top universities like Harvard have plummeted since 2006, falling from around 10% for the class of 2008 to 3.6% for the most recent class of 2028.

Experts warn that students — or more specifically, their parents — continue to be drawn to services like Crimson to navigate the competitive and confusing U.S. admissions process, largely because they have limited knowledge of the black box of admissions. Even the world of college advising, which thrives on complex processes, is bound by few regulations, as recently highlighted by the celebrity-run college admissions fraud scheme of the Varsity Blues led by Rick Singer.

Last year, Harvard student newspaper The Harvard Crimson reported that 26% of incoming freshmen worked with a private admissions counselor. For freshmen from families with incomes over $500,000, that share rose to 48%. Even institutional investors have taken note – after being founded in 2013, the company is now valued at more than 550 million dollarssuccessful investment by VC giant Tiger Management.