Admit Advantage Review

Admit Advantage markets itself as a top admissions consulting firm, offering guidance for MBA, law, graduate, and college applications. They claim to provide comprehensive support throughout the entire application process. However, in terms of undergraduate admissions assistance, Admit Advantage falls short compared to its rivals. In this comprehensive Admit Advantage review, we’ll review their services, prices, and consultant quality for undergraduate admissions.

Admit Advantage features a team of 24 consultants with expertise in a variety of fields, including business school, law school, med school, and other graduate schools on the website. 7 of these consultants can also help with undergraduate admissions.

Here are the colleges where the consultants received their bachelor’s degrees:

• Tufts University
• Northwestern University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Princeton University
• Brandeis University
• Wellesley College
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Notably, Eric Allen and Kofi Kankam, the founders of Admit Advantage, are not any of the consultants.

Admit Advantage works like a traditional consulting firm. You’ll start with a consultation call to discuss your needs, and then they’ll match you with an admissions consultant.

Your consultant will break the process into three stages:

Stage 1: Your consultant will get to know you and your goals, and use this information to create a personalized action plan.

Stage 2: Your consultant will help you put your plan into action.

Stage 3: Your consultant will support you throughout the admissions process with mentorship and additional guidance.

Admit Advantage offers extensive services for Law, Business, and other graduate schools. This review will focus on undergraduate admissions. Their flagship program is called the Premium Comprehensive College Application Support

Here’s everything it includes:

• Kickoff – Client Questionnaire    
• Questionnaire Review / Analysis
• Discovery / Strategy Session
• Branding Strategy / Strategic Action Plan
• Main Essay Pre-Flight (Brainstorming Topic Planning)
• Exhaustive Iterative Drafting Process (Per School Essay Set)
• Peripheral Components Checklist
• Letters of Recommendation Support
• Interview Prep (Standard – 2 Sessions)
• Activities List Review
• Deferral / Post Admit Decision Support
• Waitlist Support (If Necessary)

You can also opt for package pricing at:

• 1 School: $3,950
• 2 Schools: $4,550
• 3 Schools: $5,050
• 4 Schools: $5,550
• 5 Schools: $6,050
• 6 Schools: $6,550
• 7 Schools: $7,050
• 8 Schools: $7,550

Add-As-You-Go: Additional $825 per school

For seniors who are comfortable with their writing, Admit Advantage offers one round of edits and review of your application at $2,000 per school.

Finding a truly qualified consultant is half the battle. Some consultants have not gone to top-tier schools themselves, and repeat advice they hear from others. Also, some firms have a qualified “face” of the company, but then bait and switch you with a less experienced consultant after you’ve paid. That’s why we always start each review by doing full due diligence on the company’s consultants.

Admit Advantage has a team of consultants with a wide range of expertise. But we have some concerns.

First, their undergraduate admissions support is less developed than their support for other areas, like law and graduate school. This is clear from the number of consultants they have for each area and from their bios.

Second, the company’s founders aren’t featured as undergraduate consultants, which raises questions about oversight and quality control.

Third, the quality of the consultants varies, with some being stronger than others. This can lead to mismatches in expectations and expertise, since families can’t choose their consultants.

Overall, Admit Advantage’s undergraduate admissions support isn’t as strong as their competitors. Families looking for tailored, undergraduate-specific guidance may want to consider other options.

Score: 4/10

The biggest risk when applying to college is following bad advice. You only have one shot, so you need to make it count, and choosing the right admissions service can make a big difference. We use a 50-point evaluation system to determine the likelihood a service will help a student get into their desired college.

Our concerns about Admit Advantage stem from the following:

Limited Undergraduate Expertise: Less than a third of their featured consultants on the website specialize in undergraduate admissions. Among those who do, only about half have successfully gained entry into ultra competitive undergraduate institutions. Additionally, many of their undergraduate consultants have a background in graduate admissions, which raises questions about the applicability of their expertise to the undergraduate admissions process.

Lack of Consultant Choice: Admit Advantage assigns consultants to you, leaving you with no say in the matter. This poses a risk, especially if you’re paired with an inexperienced consultant.

Founder Absence: The company’s founders are not listed as undergraduate consultants. This adds to the uncertainty surrounding the quality of their services. In fact, they cannot easily be found on the site. It almost feels as though they started the company and hired other consultants to take over.

Due to these concerns, we have reservations about the likelihood of Admit Advantage guiding families towards a positive outcome.

Score: 4/10

College is already expensive. College consultants shouldn’t be more expensive than they need to be. We want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth, and that your investment is translating into real improvements in your outcomes.

College admissions consulting prices and offerings vary, but we’ve standardized pricing to the most common needs:

• 12th graders who need help with essays for 1 school: $3,950 minimum 
• 12th graders who need help with essays for 3 schools: $5,050 minimum
• 12th graders who need help with essays for 5 schools: $6,050 minimum
• Non-12 graders who want advice on the college admissions process: $300 per hour (minimum 1 hour purchase, billed in 15 minutes increments thereafter)

Admit Advantage’s pricing is a bit higher than the average for admissions consulting services. While this might be acceptable if it meant gaining access to better consultants than average, our concerns about the consultants themselves compared to the caliber of consultants offered by other companies made it difficult for us to justify this higher price tag.

Score: 5/10

College applications are already stressful enough. So any admissions service should be thoughtfully designed and easy to use. We consider factors such as customer support responsiveness, accountability, time commitment, and scheduling constraints.

Their responsiveness is very slow. Whereas most of the other admissions companies we message respond within 24 hours, this company has a response timeframe of 5+ days. 

The level of customer support once you enroll seems to depend on how responsive your consultant is. Some consultants are great, but others may not be as responsive. Since the main office seems to take a long time to respond to inquiries, you may have trouble with customer support issues and conflicts that arise.

Score: 5/10

College admissions is a complex process, with many moving parts. And with the stakes so high, mediocre consultants simply won’t cut it. You really want to find the “best,” but it can be hard to differentiate one firm from another. In this section, we take a look at what makes this service stand out, for better or worse.

It’s a mixed bag for us here. On the one hand, they offer a 20-day grace period for package cancellations, which is nice. This means you can get a full refund (minus the cost of any services already used) if you decide you’re not happy with the service.

On the other hand, it’s also not clear what role the company’s founders play in the consulting process. This lack of clarity can make it hard to know who’s in charge and who’s responsible for the quality of the services.

Score: 7/10