Admissionado Review

Admissionado was founded in 2007 by two Brown University classmates. The company has grown rapidly since its inception, and now has a team of over 100 full-time and part-time professionals. They have reviewed more than 35,000 applications over a decade. In this comprehensive Admissionado review, we’ll break down their services, prices, and consultant quality.

Admissionado features a team of 47 consultants on their website; 24 (about half) of whom specialize in undergraduate admissions.

Here are the colleges these consultants graduated from:

• Columbia University
• Johns Hopkins University
• New York University
• Wesleyan University
• University of Oxford
• Tulane University
• Yale University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Stanford University
• Harvard University
• Aston University
• University of Chicago
• Princeton University

Admissionado separates their consultants from their essay editors. They have a team of 6 essay specialists who help with the college essays. These specialists are responsible for helping students craft compelling and effective college essays.

Admissionado’s approach is about locating potential and stretching potential.

Locating potential: Admissionado helps students to identify their strengths, both overt and hidden, and to align those strengths with what admissions committees are looking for. 

Stretching potential: Once a student’s strengths and weaknesses have been identified, Admissionado helps them to craft a compelling narrative that highlights those strengths and showcases the student’s potential. 

To engage with Admissionado as a next step (either to purchase a package or free consultation), you need to fill out a form and wait for them to get back to you.

Admissionado splits its services up into Mentorship Package and Application Help Package. Within each of those two packages, there are different tiers.

High level overview: the Mentorship Package (aimed at 9th -11th graders) is one-on-one consulting in hourly blocks. It does not include application or essay help. 

The Application Consulting Package (aimed at 12th graders) covers putting together the application and essay development.

Mentorship Package (9th – 11th graders)

Silver Mentorship:

• Priced at $1,650
• 6 hours of mentorship

Gold Mentorship:

• Priced at $2,640
• 12 hours of mentorship

Platinum Mentorship:

• Priced at $4,620
• Includes 24 hours of mentorship

Students can spend these hours however they like with their consultant. Admissionado suggests the following ways:

• Summer planning
• Extracurricular activity planning & strategy
• Coursework planning & strategy
• Community service / volunteer work
• Discussion & debate
• Leadership training

Application Help Package (12th graders)

Silver Package:

• Starting at $3,440 for 1 school. Add-as-you-go price of $1,100 for each additional school.
• Price increases with the number of schools, up to $7,120 for 5 schools
• Help come up an action plan for application
• Focus on helping with essays (4 drafts per essay)

Gold Package:

• Starting at $5,400 for 1 school. Add-as-you-go price of $1,400 for each additional school.
• Covers everything in the Silver Package 
• (Additional from Silver Package) Review Activities List
• (Additional from Silver Package) 4 hours video chat for first school, 2 hours video chat for additional schools
• (Additional from Silver Package) A seasoned consultant will review the application
• (Additional from Silver Package) 2 sessions of interview prep
• (Additional from Silver Package) Additional support (e.g. help with being waitlist, choosing from accepted schools, etc)

Platinum Package:

• Starting at $8,500 for 1 school. Add-as-you-go price of $1,400 for each additional school.
• Covers everything in the Gold Package 
• (Additional from Silver Package) 4 sessions of interview prep
• (Additional from Silver Package) Tailored recommendations for colleges
• (Additional from Silver Package) 9 additional hours of email / phone 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.

Admissionado features a team of 47 consultants on their website, 24 of whom specialize in undergraduate admissions. The consultants have strong academic backgrounds from top-tier schools, and we believe that the overall quality of Admissionado’s consultants is high.

However, we have two concerns:

Separation of consultant and essay specialists: 

Admissionado has 6 essay specialists who help with essays for both MBA and undergraduate admissions. While this can be beneficial for students, it also means that each essay specialist is responsible for reviewing and editing about 3,500 applications per year (the company boasts 35k applications reviewed over the last 10 years). 

With about an average of 2-3 essays per application and Admissionado specialists going through 4-5 rounds of edits over the course of a 6 month admissions application cycle: this comes out to about a minimum of 38  – 72 college essays per day that each of the 6 specialists has to edit and provide feedback on.

That’s a lot of essays for a small number of specialists, and we worry that it may not give them enough time to really learn about each student and bring out their full narrative in the essays.

Ivy League Insider Audit: 

Admissionado’s most popular service is its Application Consulting package, which focuses on application development for students who are in the actual process of applying to colleges. One of the main differences between the base tier and premium tier is the “Ivy League Insider Audit,” where a “seasoned veteran on the team reviews your app.” 

While this may be a nice assurance for students paying for the most expensive package, it raises questions about whether students in the lower-tier packages are getting the same level of expertise from their consultants. It raises questions like, “Does this mean my regular consultant / essay specialist isn’t as good as this Ivy League Insider? Are the consultants even reviewing my application?”

Overall, we believe that Admissionado has a team of qualified consultants. However, we encourage prospective clients to carefully consider the two concerns above before making a decision.

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.

Admissionado’s consultants appear to be qualified to provide valuable feedback and mentorship. But we’re concerned about the disproportionate ratio of consultants to essay specialists (47:6, or 1 essay specialist for every 8 consultants).

While ongoing mentorship throughout high school is undoubtedly beneficial, a crucial aspect of the application process is, well, the application itself. No matter how accomplished you are, if you can’t effectively present yourself through your essays, all the mentorship in the world goes to waste.

With Admissionado, the consultant who has a thorough understanding of your case and has crafted a personalized strategy for you…is now removed from the writing process. Instead, when it comes time to put pen to paper, your essays are handed off to an essay specialist who you don’t get to interact with.

Finally, Admissionado’s consultant matching process is based on availability. So, if a more experienced consultant is booked up, you may be stuck with a less experienced one.

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 Admissionado review we’ll consider their pricing to the most common needs:

• 12th graders who need help with essays for 1 school: $3,440 minimum (Silver Tier – lowest tier)
• 12th graders who need help with essays for 3 schools: $5,460 minimum (Silver Tier – lowest tier)
• 12th graders who need help with essays for 5 schools: $7,120 minimum (Silver Tier – lowest tier)
• Non-12 graders who want advice on the college admissions process: $275 per hour. *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.

Unlike most admissions consulting companies that include the important Activities section of the Common App in their 1-school review packages, Admissionado’s base package (Silver Tier) does not. This means families will need to shell out additional cash from its à la carte menu, raising the overall cost of the application and essay review above the industry average. Its hourly mentorship rate falls within the industry average.

Given our concerns about the essay specialists, we believe Admissionado’s mentorship and a la carte hourly services offer better value for money than its application package.

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.

Getting in touch with Admissionado for initial inquiries can be a bit tricky, as they don’t provide traditional contact methods like a phone number or email address. Your only option is to fill out a form on their website. 

However, once you’re through that initial hurdle, the support after enrollment is satisfactory. Their team responds to emails within 24 hours, ensuring relatively quick communication.

Your interactions with your assigned consultant will mainly be via email, but the specific scheduling mechanism will vary depending on the consultant. Some consultants may assign tasks with deadlines, and if you miss those deadlines, they may escalate the issue to your parents, adding a layer of accountability.

To avoid back-and-forth email scheduling, it’s recommended to set up the next meeting at the end of your current one.

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.

While every consultant is listed as a “senior consultant,” this special designation of a “review from a seasoned veteran” at a premium tier raises questions about whether consultant quality is consistent across different service levels. This distinction could imply that clients who opt for lower-tier services may not receive the same level of expertise or experience.

On a positive note, we really like that Admissionado’s 20-day grace period policy allows clients to make changes to their purchased services or even cancel and receive a full refund to the packages, minus the hourly fee for any hours used.