What to Look for in a College Admissions Coach
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6/1/26
“We already have a coach but we’re not happy. The last coach was in his 20s and we don’t think he did a great job with our daughter’s summer application essays. We think you’d be stronger,” a family told me recently as they enrolled in my practice.
I regularly sign families who are in process with other firms but then choose to hire me. They have to break contract with the firms and often lose the entire cost of the coaching engagement.
Let me save you time, energy and money.
Here’s exactly what I’d look for in a coach if I were hiring one for my own daughter.
For background, I’m a Stanford graduate, journalist and coach of admission coaches. 92% of my top students have gotten into an Ivy-level school or UC Berkeley / UCLA over the last 12 years of my practice.
I’ve seen what works — and what doesn’t.
Expertise
Many firms build credibility by hiring former admissions officers.
But there’s a huge difference between someone who evaluates applications and someone who can write applications that win admission.
Reading is easy.
Extraordinary storytelling is insanely difficult.
To be honest, I’d look for someone who has journalistic experience to work with my child.
In this uber competitive era of college admissions, personal statements are crucial.
A strong journalist can identify a great story — and you always need a killer story for the essay.
A journalist not only knows how to write, but more importantly, knows how to frame a story with all the most important components – character development, emotion, tone and impact.
They know what details to include and what to leave out.
That’s exactly what I do for my teens — and it’s what I teach my teens to do for themselves.
It’s something AI will never be able to replicate.
In addition to teaching my students how to write, and by proxy think, my journalistic method of inquiry helps students clarify their values, strengths and life direction.
Experience
I would also look for a very senior consultant who has decades of work and coaching experience.
As someone with a track record of 14 years in coaching, a decade plus in journalism, and 17 as an entrepreneur, I bring a very different perspective to my students than when I was a 23-year old, fresh out of Stanford, working at a college admissions consulting firm in Palo Alto.
Back when I was younger, my insights and priorities were limited.
My only goal was to get my students into college.
Nothing more.
Now, with decades of work, life and parenting experience, I have different goals for my students.
Yes, college is incredibly important because it lays the foundation for one’s career and network.
But now I take a much longer view.
In this era of AI overtaking jobs, I prioritize career coaching.
I use college admissions as a vehicle to develop career skills including pitching, networking and finding mentors.
Finally, as a parent, I place a tremendous value on mental health.
If my students are completely stressed out or burning out, all of what we’re working towards is for naught.
Mental wellness is the foundation of everything.
The happier my students are, the better they do — in everything.
Company Size
Many of the “elite” firms are huge, with hundreds of coaches.
The senior consultant sells you the package and you rarely ever see them again.
You get passed around a team of junior strategists, essay coaches, project managers, capstone specialists and so on.
No one truly knows you or provides deep, overarching strategy for your specific case.
As a parent, I’d want one person who truly sees my child.
That’s why in my practice, I do not outsource.
Especially not for something as crucial as essays.
I do this because I want to develop a comprehensive, cohesive strategy for my students.
I get to know my students so thoroughly I end up suggesting ideas, angles and content for their application essays and resumes.
That depth of coaching is what drives my students’ success.
Caseload
Some counselors have hundreds of students.
I have five.
That’s how I get extraordinary results.
I like to do live — not email — essay editing because it’s the gold standard of writing coaching.
I can ask questions, bounce ideas and help them quickly, before an idea is lost in lag time. We can riff on big ideas and themes, and I can also teach them how to think by drilling down to minutiae, including sentence structure and word choice.
Live essay work is the epitome — and it is also an extremely cognitively demanding process.
I don’t like to see more than 1-2 students a day during application season, and I also like to see my students right after school – not evenings – so they are mentally fresh.
That narrow timeframe and protected cognitive bandwidth severely limits my practice capacity.
The reality is that every advisor has finite time, energy, and attention.
By capping my caseload, I devote substantially more of those resources to each student.
It’s how I get results.
Track Record
I’m listing this parameter last because it’s the hardest to truly identify.
Many large firms will quote a stat like “85% of our students get into one of their top three choices for college”.
I find that metric meaningless because the counselor heavily influences the list – they often discourage students from applying to reach schools if they don’t think they’re qualified.
The metric I track is this:
Of my academically qualified students, what portion get into elite schools?
92% over 12 years.
This is an incredibly meaningful metric because my students are mostly Asian, well resourced and STEM – which means they face admit rates far below the published ones of 4-10% at elite schools.
Intuition
At the end of the day, go with your gut.
Who do you trust with your teen?
Trust is what fills my practice with referrals, younger siblings, cousins, and Stanford alumni.
I have classmates I haven’t talked to in 30 years hire me via email, without a live “match” meeting, because they trust me.
Find someone you trust because you’re allowing this person to shape the trajectory of your teen’s life.
They will impact your teen’s mindset and belief in what’s possible.
My philosophy?
Dream big.
Take action.
Create your own success.
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Do you want your teen to aim high and create their own opportunities? Apply to join Alice Chen’s coaching practice. 1 spot open for each of the Classes of 2027 and 2028.
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Read More:
From Mopping Floors to Lunching with CEOs: What I Wish I Knew in High School
How 92% of My Qualified Students Get into Ivy-Level Schools or Top UCs