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We\u2019ve read the stories about private jets ferrying families from one college campus to another. One of our competitors has reportedly offered a $300,000, four-day tour per student-and-parent pair, taking seven such pairs to seven universities as part of what it calls the \u201cElevation Experience.\u201d The itinerary promises a Gulfstream G650, private tarmac pickups, chauffeured cars, Four Seasons hotels, VIP concierge service, curated dining, and even apparently designer luggage. The company describes the exclusive experience as providing families with a \u201cstrategic edge\u201d in college admissions.<\/p>\n
Read that description and one can\u2019t help but ask:\u00a0Who, exactly, is this for?<\/em><\/p>\n I ask as a former University of Pennsylvania admissions officer who now serves as a senior admissions consultant at\u00a0Ivy Coach. Over the last 35 years, our firm has worked with plenty of wealthy families, including the children of titans of industry, heads of state, and the glitterati. We\u2019ve even been written about for commanding seven-figure fees to pursue admission to universities with single-digit acceptance rates.<\/p>\n In other words, we\u00a0know<\/em>\u00a0wealthy families. And our clients generally don\u2019t want their children\u2019s privilege put on display. They don\u2019t want their children traveling with six other student-parent pairs in a $300,000-per-family private-jet caravan, only to descend on campus together and risk being seen by admissions officers or, heaven forbid, regular college students. They understand something the college admissions industry has taken decades to learn and it\u2019s that wealth can open doors, but flaunting it can slam them shut.<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t always obvious. Two decades ago, applications routinely contained clues that could make admissions officers wince. A student\u2019s Costa Rica \u201cservice trip\u201d might cost more than an admissions officer\u2019s annual salary. Students \u201csummered\u201d in the Hamptons, apparently because even vacation needed to make the r\u00e9sum\u00e9. They interned at mom\u2019s white-shoe law firm or dad\u2019s wealth-management firm.\u00a0Coincidence? Unlikely.<\/em><\/p>\n The problem wasn\u2019t that these students were wealthy. Admissions officers knew that. The problem was that their boastful applications that flaunted privilege made it look as though their parents had constructed their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s for them.<\/p>\n Eventually, many parents caught on. Today, sophisticated families are much more attuned to the optics of privilege. They are less likely to trumpet the Hamptons, rely on powerful family friends for recommendation letters or believe that a famous name will unlock an acceptance. We haven\u2019t seen a recommendation letter from President Clinton in several years, which, after years of seeing at least one annually, is rather refreshing.<\/p>\n In that sense, college admissions is simply reflecting a broader cultural shift toward quiet luxury and stealth wealth. The millionaire next door today may not be a Hollywood mogul stepping out of a chauffeured Bentley. She may own a chain of auto-parts stores or a plumbing business, and you might never know she\u2019s worth eight figures. That\u2019s increasingly the point. For generations, the stereotype of the\u00a0nouveau riche<\/em>\u00a0was someone desperate to advertise newly acquired wealth. Today, sophisticated wealth often does the opposite. The logo disappears and the vacation doesn\u2019t make it onto the Instagram grid.<\/p>\n Yet some families seem to forget every lesson of quiet luxury the moment their child applies to college. They overengineer r\u00e9sum\u00e9s with expensive summer programs, exotic service trips, connections, and experiences that practically announce what they cost. In an era of stealth wealth, some college applicants and their parents could use a lesson of their own, which is that if you have privilege, you don\u2019t need to prove it.<\/p>\n But families aren\u2019t entirely to blame.\u00a0There remains a remarkable disconnect between what sophisticated families have learned about the optics of privilege and what some college consulting firms and universities themselves continue to sell them.<\/p>\n Consider the market for elite summer programs. A student enrolls in a $10,000-plus program at a prestigious university, ostensibly to pursue an academic interest, but oftentimes because the family believes the university\u2019s admissions office will notice.<\/p>\n Stanford\u2019s Dean of Undergraduate Admission, Richard Shaw, has\u00a0warned students\u00a0not to participate in summer programs simply because they think doing so will improve their chances of admission. In other words, don\u2019t spend $10,000 to impress an admissions office.<\/p>\n At highly selective universities, admissions officers aren\u2019t looking for the applicant who has accumulated the most expensive experiences. Instead, they\u2019re looking for self-initiative, character, and genuine intellectual curiosity. They want students who chart their own paths in, as we like to say at Ivy Coach,\u00a0wonderfully weird<\/em>\u00a0ways.<\/p>\n Stellar grades in rigorous courses and perfect or near-perfect test scores don\u2019t make a student compelling. They make a student qualified. And thousands of applicants are qualified. There simply aren\u2019t enough seats in incoming classes at these elite universities for merely qualified applicants.<\/p>\n Thus the objective is to inspire an admissions officer root for the student. And that brings us back to the private jet. There\u2019s something almost surreal about spending $300,000 to surround a teenager with virtually every trapping of privilege and then asking an admissions officer to see that teenager as independent, authentic, and self-directed. A G650 doesn\u2019t make a student more intellectually curious. A Four Seasons suite doesn\u2019t demonstrate initiative. Designer luggage doesn\u2019t establish character.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s the funny part: after all that, it still behooves the student to take the regular campus tour. After all, visiting a college is, among other things, a rite of passage and an opportunity for a student to engage with the campus and demonstrate genuine interest in attending. A private four-day luxury itinerary may offer VIP access, chauffeured cars, and fine dining, but it doesn\u2019t replace actually experiencing campus life or even signing in for the ordinary campus tour that lets colleges register a student\u2019s interest in attending. At some point, the teenager has to get out of the chauffeured SUV and join, heaven forbid, regular college students.<\/p>\n College admissions is already an arms race. Wealthy families will continue spending extraordinary sums in search of an edge. But the most sophisticated families understand the paradox that the more conspicuously you engineer a child\u2019s advantages, the harder it becomes to make that child look self-directed, authentic, and likable.<\/p>\n At Ivy Coach, our task is to make admissions officers want to root for our students and, frankly, to want to hug them too.<\/p>\n They say you get perspective from 40,000 feet. We say the smartest admissions strategy is knowing when to stay grounded.<\/p>\n The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of <\/em>Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #rich #learning #rich #childrens #college #applications<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019ve read the stories about p… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3797,5141,1657,3108,5529,39,81],"class_list":["post-4434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-applications","tag-childrens","tag-college","tag-colleges-and-universities","tag-learning","tag-rich","tag-wealth"],"yoast_head":"\n