Empowerly Review

Empowerly was founded in 2018 by Hanmei Wu and Changxiao Xie. They advertise that they use a data-driven approach to help guide students through the admissions process, assisting in every element from internships and passion projects to the development of research papers and every aspect of college admissions applications. In this comprehensive Empowerly review, we’ll score them along five key metrics so that you have a full picture of whether Empowerly is a good fit for you.

Empowerly has over a hundred counselors from across the country. Empowerly boasts that this team includes college admissions counselors, advisors, researchers, and editors. While they do not provide information on all of their counselors, the counselors they do highlight attended prestigious universities like Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Harvard, and Brown.

Empowerly offers a traditional admissions counseling approach that starts with a 30-minute video consultation with their Enrollment Team. Afterwards, the team offers package and counseling suggestions. Once enrolled, students are matched with a single counselor, but have access to other specialists and counselors depending upon the package purchased. All aspects of their counseling are conducted online, including assistance with writing, academic advising, application material development and editing, and any other questions or resources students might need. Individual sessions are held over video chat and counselors are available to students via email.

Admissions Counseling – 11th Graders

Intended to run from the start of a student’s junior year through senior year, the program is aimed at helping students with boosting extracurriculars, leadership opportunities, navigating course selection, honing writing skills, and the college application process. 

“Basic” Counseling Package – $11,440

• 24 hours of one-on-one counseling
• Essay ideation & editing
• 18 essay edits from Writing Specialists
• 2 Admission Committee Reviews
• Unlimited resource team access

“Standard” Counseling Package – $15,400

• 30 hours of one-on-one counseling
• Essay ideation & editing
• 22 essay edits from Writing Specialists
• 5 Admissions Committee Reviews
• Unlimited resource team access
• Monthly group seminars with professionals

“Premium” Counseling Package – $21,995

• 42 hours of one-on-one counseling
• Essay ideation & writing
• 26 essay edits from Writing Specialists
• Unlimited Admissions Committee Reviews
• Unlimited resource team access
• Monthly group seminars with professionals
• 1 Startup Internship Program Enrollment

Admissions Counseling – 9th Graders

Starting from the moment a student enters high school, this package offers all of the benefits of the 11th grade counseling package but with an earlier start for more hands-on advising throughout their high school career. 

“Standard” Package – $24,035

• 54 one-on-one counseling sessions
• Essay ideation & editing
• 28 essay edits from Writing Specialists
• 5 Admissions Committee Reviews
• Unlimited resource team access
• Monthly AMA group seminars

“Premium” Package – $29,250

• 62 one-on-one counseling sessions
• Essay ideation & editing
• 40 essay edits from Writing Specialists
• Unlimited Admissions Committee Reviews
• Unlimited resource team access
• Monthly AMA group seminars
• 1 Startup Internship Program per year (up to 3)

Empowerly also offers additional programs for students interested in research, startups, and AI. Here are the pricings for those programs:

Research Scholar Program

Students work with a PhD candidate mentor to develop and implement a research-based project.

“Basic” Research Scholar Program – $4,395

• 2 counseling sessions
• 12 week program
• 9 individual sessions with PhD candidate
• 2 individual sessions with writing coach
• End result: 15 page research paper

“Standard” Research Scholar Program – $7,480

• 2 counseling sessions
• 16-20 week program
• 15 individual sessions with PhD candidate
• 4 individual sessions with writing coach
• 3 individual sessions with publication specialist
• End result: 15 page paper and a publication plan

Research Scholar Fellowship – $12,799

• 6 counseling sessions
• 6-12 month fellowship program
• 30 individual sessions with PhD candidate
• 8 individual sessions with writing coach
• 6 individual sessions with publication specialist
• End result: 15 page paper and publication plan

Startup Internship Program – $4,065

Aimed at both highschool and college students, the Internship program pairs students with one of 40+ partnered startups for a fall, spring, or summer internship. These internships are in a variety of fields, including AI, education, finance, healthcare, telecommunications, tech, and fashion. While they work with students from across the globe, the internship program is focused on Bay Area startups. Includes three sessions with a counselor to prepare the internship application.

AI Scholar Program – $3,025

Targeted at junior high and high school students, the AI Scholar program is intended to familiarize students with the applications of AI in eight different fields over the course of 10 sessions lasting a total of 25 hours. Students will learn about the basics of AI, some Python coding skills, and, ultimately, put this knowledge to test developing a final capstone project. Includes 2 counseling sessions to prepare the application and discuss potential areas of interest. 

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.

Empowerly boasts a diverse team of consultants, but the quality of expertise varies highly among them. We are concerned that while some counselors have attended prestigious universities, not all may share this background. Consequently, students can receive differing levels of guidance. 

There also appears to be a high turnover rate of consultants according to customer reviews. Families who have used Empowerly have noted that some of their counselors left the company after a short period of time or were often late to meetings.

Despite the founders’ prestigious academic backgrounds, they do not appear as available consultants on the site. Thus, while Empowerly offers a range of experiences and educational backgrounds among its consultants, students should be prepared for potential disparities in the advice and support they receive.

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 like that Empowerly offers students the opportunity to meet with two different counselors before committing to one for the entire process. This approach allows students to assess compatibility and reduce the risk of being paired with a counselor who may lack a strong academic or professional background. During consultations with the Enrollment Team, students and families can articulate preferences or interests for their counselor, which informs the pairing process. The matching process prioritizes academic interests initially, followed by considerations such as school expertise and geographic location. If a student finds their counselor unsatisfactory, they are welcome to request a change.

Empowerly employs a practice of having multiple counselors review applications before submission. While this ensures a comprehensive review process and potentially higher-quality applications, it may also lead to variations in the feedback provided, especially if there is concern about the consistency of the quality of the consultants (which in this case, there is).

Some families who have used Empowerly have noted the inconsistency in the quality of the consultants, with some consultants actually being current college students instead of a seasoned professional.

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 Empowerly review we’ll consider their pricing for the most common needs:

• Students who want advice on the college admissions process (including essays): $476 per hour (minimum purchase of their Basic package $11,440). *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.

Empowerly’s pricing is above market average. Given the uncertainty around the qualifications of their 100+ consultants, this puts their value to price ratio fairly low in our evaluation.

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.

Once enrolled, students and families will gain access to the Empowerly portal. This is used for all scheduling, deadlines, submissions, feedback, etc, which greatly streamlines the process and makes it easy for students and families to track progress. 

Students and families gain access to counselors via a scheduler on this portal, with sessions typically requiring at least a two-day notice before scheduling. Counselors are also available via email once per day and typically respond within 24 hours. 

The technology built to reduce the friction with scheduling and sending essays makes the user experience at Empowerly more pleasant than a traditional admissions consulting company.

There is no clear refund policy in place for customers.

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.

We like that Empowerly counselors meet with parents to update students’ progress and that their parent portal allows for online monitoring of deadlines and submissions. This level of transparency could help students stay on track and give families peace of mind. 

While a touch gimmicky, Empowerly is unique in that they offer an “Empowerly Score,” a college-readiness score derived using a proprietary algorithm intended to take into account every aspect of a student’s application to predict how competitive their application might be for their targeted schools. We are concerned this feature could give students and families a false sense of security and, given the lack of transparency regarding how the scores are derived, inaccurate information regarding how competitive their application might be for their dream schools.