PrepScholar Review

PrepScholar was founded in 2013 by two Harvard graduates, Allen Cheng and Fred Zhang. The company’s services are primarily geared towards test prep, although it does offer admissions counseling, writing, and tutoring services. In this comprehensive PrepScholar review, we’ll score them along five key metrics so that you have a full picture of whether PrepScholar is a good fit for you.

PrepScholar features roughly 30 consultants according to their site, each handling up to five students at a time. While information regarding each consultant’s employment and educational history is not widely available, the consultants highlighted on their website attended institutions like the University of California, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Boston, MIT, and Columbia.

PrepScholar offers a fairly traditional consulting program. Students and parents fill out questionnaires that are then reviewed by their team. Based on a student’s responses and needs, they are matched with a consultant based on targeted colleges, career and academic interests, and their background and personality. Students can request a reassignment if an assigned consultant is not a good fit. 

Meetings are conducted through video chat either weekly or every other week, depending on the program. They focus on helping students score well on admissions exams, honing their application resume, drafting and editing application materials, and—for those in the Annual Mentorship program—tailored pathways towards becoming a well-qualified college candidate. Students work one-on-one with a single advisor throughout the process. PrepScholar does advertise that an Admissions Officer Advisory Panel staffed by former admissions officers reviews students and their materials to provide feedback.

PrepScholar offers several packages for different needs.

Complete Admissions Package

• Intended for seniors
• Includes support for 7-20 applications
  • $6,895 for up to 7 applications
  • $8,995 for up to 12 applications
  • $10,995 for up to 16 applications
  • $12,895 for up to 20 applications
• Weekly 1-on-1 meetings with advisor
• Helps select targeted schools
• Application timeline planning
• Essay drafting and editing
• Interview prep
• Scholarship assistance and financial aid advising

Annual Mentorship Package – $4,895 annually

• For Freshmen, Sophomores and Juniors
• 1-on-1 meetings every two weeks
• Coursework, extracurricular and summer activity advising
• Career and major guidance
• Test prep strategizing
• Passion Project development

Essay Coaching & Editing

• Geared towards Seniors or those working on applications
• Assistance with any writing-related materials from planning and drafting, to editing and submissions
• Includes unlimited editing rounds
• Price is based on length of essay, starting at nearly $1 a word 
• Also offer essay review that touches on style, tone, and messaging, and pricing is also based on essay length (includes 5 rounds of edits and comments)

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.

PrepScholar has a handful of consultants involved in their admissions mentoring, although the exact number is not disclosed. So, there is uncertainty around the profile of the other large group of consultants employed by PrepScholar. Those highlighted on their website went to universities like Harvard, MIT, Columbia, and the University of California. While the founders both graduated from Harvard, they no longer seem to be involved in client-facing activities, as they are not featured as consultants or the advisory panel. The advisory panel seems to include around a half dozen people who formerly worked as admissions officers and attended schools like Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Rice, and NYU.

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.

While PrepScholar has a handful of consultants who have attended prestigious schools, few have actual college admissions backgrounds. We worry they may be less qualified than consultants at other advising companies. After all, you don’t want a consultant who has gotten into a great college, but has never helped others do the same.

We do like that students are matched with one consultant throughout the process, and we appreciate that multiple consultants and members of the advisory board review application materials—more eyes can often lead to better results.

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

• 12th graders who need help with essays for 1 school: $2,075 (assuming Common App essay + 2 supplemental essays).
• 12th graders who need help with essays for 3 schools: $3,299 (assuming Common App essay + 6 supplemental essays).
• 12th graders who need help with essays for 5 schools: $5,324 (assuming Common App essay + 10 supplemental essays).
• Non-12 graders who want advice on the college admissions process: $188 per hour (minimum purchase of their annual mentorship package at $4,895 annually). *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.

While cheaper than some competitors, PrepScholar’s piecemeal approach could quickly become expensive if a student needs admissions mentorship, essay assistance, and test preparation. Compared to other consulting services, their prices are reasonable, but depending on who you get as your essay editor and/or admissions consultant, we worry you may get what you pay for.

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.

To test the ease of reaching support, we tried calling them on a Tuesday at 2pm EST. We were able to reach an operator. Overall, we found PrepExpert highly responsive and administrative operators easy to reach. 

The company handles all one-on-one student and consultant meetings over video chat and scheduling directly between the attendees via email. This is fairly standard practice in the industry.

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.

PrepScholar offers a 3-day trial that allows students to meet with their assigned consultant and get a glimpse into the process while still getting a full refund. We like that they offer a refund if a student or family knows after the initial meeting that the program isn’t a good fit. But, families have to act quickly—as the full refund is only available if the program is canceled within three days of the initial consulting session. Within 7 days of the initial session, families can receive a partial refund if they decide to cancel, less the hours worked by the consultant deducted from the refund at $200 per hour.