The way Connie Decker sees it, she's not competing with high school guidance counselors, but working with them.
"All counselors would do what I do if they could," she said. "Many refer students to me."
Decker and Deren Finks, both based in Riverside, Calif., are independent educational consultants in the Inland area.
For a fee, they help families navigate the bewildering maze of college admissions requirements. They help clients select the best matches among the nation's 4,084 colleges and universities, fine-tune applications, prod students about test prep and deadlines, steer them to scholarships and financial aid, and refine their essays to boost success at attaining their "reach" schools.
Sarah Farrell, 17, a senior at Riverside's Poly High School, said Decker improved her essays. A ballet dancer with top grades, perfect Advanced Placement scores and superior SATs, Farrell is gunning for such elite schools as MIT and Princeton.
"Sarah did a lot of research," Decker said. "She wanted to major in bioengineering at a name-brand school near a ballet studio."
Scott Kuhlman, a senior at Great Oak High School in Temecula, Calif., said Decker researched equestrian college sports programs to tailor schools to his love of riding. "The whole college thing can be confusing and overwhelming, and Connie really helped me get on track," said Kuhlman, 18.
The independent counseling industry has been growing in the past decade as universities become more expensive and competitive, said Mark Skarlow, executive director of the Independent Educational Consultants Association in Fairfax, Va.
"More power to 'em," said Ben Washburn, a guidance counselor at Redlands High School who handles 420 to 450 students. "Private counselors make my job easier because I can give more time to the indifferent students."
Ranging from solo practitioners to large companies, thousands of such advisers exist in the booming private counselor business, said Sklarow.
UC Riverside Extension recently revised its college admissions counseling program to offer online certificate courses. "As college fees are raised and enrollment numbers are cut, private counselors will be even more in demand," said Mary Ellen Gruendyke, a spokeswoman for the extension.
Some critics say that given private counselors' steep prices and inside connections to admissions offices where many of them used to work, getting into college has become a game best played by the well-to-do.
At $160-$300 an hour, freelance college admissions counselors aren't cheap.
"Some pay a pretty penny because they can afford to," said Finks, who uses a sliding scale to help disadvantaged clients.
He left his job in financial aid admissions at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont two years ago to launch his private counseling business. So far, he has drawn students from L.A. and Orange counties.
"I'm very upfront," Finks said. "I don't believe families at private schools need my services."
Decker has logged between 36 and 42 clients a year since she retired from North High School in 2006 after 20 years as a guidance counselor. She charges $500 annually for 10th-graders, $700 for juniors and $1,895 for new seniors, with discounted packages for returning students.
If not for Decker, Antoinette Bedros, of Redlands, said she never would have known about Southern Methodist University in Dallas, which accepted her in December. Bedros, 17, a senior at Loma Linda Academy, fell in love with the campus and business school.
"Connie understood what I needed to do, how to present myself in the best possible ways to the admissions committees," Bedros said. "She told me what they like and don't like on essays, how to ask a teacher for a letter of recommendation, how to send in the midyear report."
Decker is quick to point out that she's not replacing high school counselors. "They're irreplaceable," she said. "But no matter how much they want to do, they have too many students and too many demands on them."
E-mail Laurie Lucas at llucas(at)PE.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.
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