InGenius Prep Review

Founded in 2013 by former admissions officers from Yale University, InGenius Prep, under the leadership of co-founders Joel Butterly and Yosepha Greenfield, has evolved into a substantial organization. Boasting a team of over 765 consultants, InGenius Prep offers admissions help for undergraduate, law school, business school, med school, graduate school, and general career counseling and tutoring. In this comprehensive InGenius Prep review, we’ll score their undergraduate services along five key metrics so that you have a full picture of whether InGenius Prep is a good fit for you.

InGenius Prep lists 765 consultants on their site, 405 of which are available for undergraduate admissions help, many of which also provide consulting for law, business, medical, and graduate school applications. Notably, the company prides itself on the inclusion of former admissions officers within its ranks, providing clients with insights derived directly from the decision-making process.

Diversity characterizes the team, comprising individuals with backgrounds spanning writing, editing, teaching, and business. While there are many former admissions officers and experts with admissions experience, these consultants come from a mix of academic backgrounds, ranging from prestigious institutions to those of a lesser caliber. It is worth noting that most (if not all) of their consultants are contractors, which may indicate they have other jobs (e.g. non-profit fundraisers, financial advisors, etc.).

InGenius Prep’s approach centers on giving students access to former admissions advisors. The process starts with a free 30-minute consultation, focused on reviewing a student’s background and candidacy. According to their website, they’ve developed a proprietary means of comparing prospective students with those already enrolled, which they employ to help flesh out a tailor-made approach and strategy for a student’s application process.

Once the initial consultation is complete, students are paired with an ex-admissions officer and a coach, working with them through a series of phone calls, emails, and video chats to hone their candidacy and materials.

Candidacy Building

This package is intended for students in 8-11th grade who want consulting help. Each student is matched with a former admissions officer and a graduate coach for guidance. Services encompass a wide range, from mentorship and email support to assistance in planning school breaks and editing summer applications.

There are two tiers:

Silver Package Features ($6,500/year):

• Bi-weekly meetings with a coach.
• Quarterly meetings with a former admissions officer.
  Summer application editing for up to three applications.

Gold Package Features ($12,500/year):

• Bi-weekly meetings with a coach.
• Bi-monthly meetings with a former admissions officer.
• Summer application editing for up to three applications.
• 5 hours of subject tutoring and a 6 hours SAT/ACT Strategy course.

Application Counseling

This package is intended for seniors who are putting their application together. Each student is assigned a coach and a former admissions officer. All packages include help with personal statement, activities list, interview prep, and waitlist & deferral support.

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.

It’s hard to argue with the potential benefits of having access to former admissions officers who are familiar with the process, but we have concerns about the quality and consistency of their experts and what they can offer students. While some of their consultants attended schools like Yale, Harvard, and Columbia, many of their ex-admissions officers attended less prestigious schools—a potential red flag for those hoping to get into Ivy League institutions.

One distinctive aspect of this team is its dispersion, with all experts working remotely from various global locations with ties to different cultures. While we acknowledge that this globalized approach enhances diversity (and could aid foreign students hoping to attend U.S. universities), it increases the likelihood that there is great variability in the quality and engagement levels among experts. To top that off, many of their consultants are contractors who hold other jobs, which may affect their level of effort and engagement with students.

Finally, it is worth noting that the founders are not featured as available consultants.

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.

We have many concerns regarding expected outcomes when it comes to InGenius Prep. With such a large team, quality control and maintaining consistency in mentoring philosophy is incredibly difficult. While some students may be paired with superstar former admissions officers who can help them nail every aspect of an application, others might be left with distracted consultants who can’t offer much guidance or support.

We’re also concerned about how consultants and ex-admissions officers are assigned to students. It seems that this is primarily driven by availability, rather than compatibility. So a student might be targeting a particular school, like Stanford, and hoping to be matched with an expert that worked within the admissions office at that particular institution, but because of limited availability, the student is instead paired with a consultant from a completely different institution.

Finally, we conceptually appreciate the two-prong coach and former admissions officer approach, but the fact students are provided with fewer meetings with the ex-admissions consultant implies that the coaching staff is less qualified. InGenius provides little information about how they differentiate between coaches and ex-officers but it certainly raises more concerns about the quality of their coaches, particularly as it seems students spend significantly more time interacting with paired coaches than former admissions officers.

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. For this InGenius Prep review we’ll consider their pricing for the most common needs:

• 12th graders who need help with essays for 5 schools: $6,500 minimum (Silver tier in College Application Counseling)
• Non-12th graders who want advice on the college admissions process: $230 per hour (minimum purchase of $6,500/year Candidacy Building package). *Note: This number is calculated by dividing the minimum financial commitment for non-12 graders by the expected number of hours of one-on-one consulting.

The pricing for applications and consulting help are below industry average.

The company has a refund policy for “extraordinary circumstances”. There is a cancellation fee of minimum 20% of the total contract price, the cost of rendered counselor and administrative services.

Although InGenius is a more budget friendly college admissions consulting option, the value feels like a gamble given our concerns with the consistency of experts and its harsh and uncertain refund policy.

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.

There are two ways for families to initiate a consultation with InGenius Prep: through a phone call or by filling out a form. When we tried calling the provided number on a weekday afternoon, we were directed to voicemail.

Their email support, on the other hand, is more efficient, typically responding within 12 hours.
Once you start working with them, they offer a couple of consultants to choose from, although this is dependent on the consultants’ availability. Subsequent meetings are usually scheduled on a recurring basis to avoid back and forth scheduling.

The user experience seems to vary, likely influenced by the company’s size. While some families have encountered approachable coaches, others have reported instances of unprofessionalism.

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.

2 things stood out to us:

The dual-expert model. We appreciate the idea of a dual-expert model, pairing students with both a graduate coach and a former admissions officer. But there is uncertainty regarding the distinction between coaches and ex-admissions officers, which introduces great variability into the process (especially as the pricing model seems to indicate that ex-admissions officers are much more qualified than coaches).

Harsh / non-existent refund policy. The company also has a harsh refund policy, requiring families to forfeit 20% of the contract price (and consulting + “administrative fees”) if they decide to cancel their program.