After our son scored well in SAT, we started our exploratory journey to seek support for him. We knew that we didn’t have enough relevant knowledge to provide guidance to him.
Well, we took the easy way first – Google-search for experts in Global University Admissions! Second – reached out to our son’s school seniors and their parents. Made a shortlist and met the top guys in the business!
Counselor A: Conducts a mock SAT. Almost every single student gets exactly the same ‘low’ score! Yes, it’s almost always 1250! Then, you are told that they will help you to get 1500 (so that you can get into the best Universities) if you enroll the student with them for SAT coaching. Plus, the Counseling charges, btw!!
Counselor AS: Humble to a fault, brilliant pedigree. And then comes a quote of almost a million rupees! For ‘support through the admissions process’. And as we knew by then, there are no guarantees!
Even above-average students are given ‘looks’ in introduction meetings. These looks are like “…how can you score so low and yet expect us to help you get admissions…”
We have heard from students who have moved to Ara about ‘getting negative vibes there’ and ‘intimidating looks and questions’ through all conversations if they didn’t have ‘great background, great scores, and great existing pedigree’. These students have also experienced ‘different effort and attention’ being given to ‘ivy material students’, while ‘non ivy material students’ are sidelined. A parent complained: ‘students are templatized’, while praising Ara’s uniquely customized approach for every student.
Counselor E: “It’s okay to ‘hype-up’ achievements; Universities don’t verify what you write anyways…” Well, we refused to compromise the truth.
Counselor Bb: “We will arrange for certificates. You don’t have to worry about it.” “We have associated NGOs who will give you certificates and LoRs. We will arrange for everything. You don’t have to go there to work.” “We have an app developed by our team. You can show that as your creation.” “We have some partners. They have some gadgets. You can show one of these as your creation.” We refused to compromise integrity. We chose to go on our merit.
Counselor En: Offered to write LOR (Letter of Recommendation) on behalf of School Principal and/or School Vice Principal and/or School Counselor!! We asked ourselves: “Isn’t that unethical?”
Counselor J: Impressive first meeting with the owner. The moment you enroll (because of that meeting), that is the last you see of him! You spend all your time after that following up with his team. You do deadline tracking, you keep calling ‘your-personal-counselor’ who is never available, and your essay is almost always accepted (with almost no qualitative inputs; you wonder why you needed help then!)
Counselor Md: In the business for over 25 years; all-women team, we had great hopes! Through references, we heard from students that she/team doesn’t listen. The boss insists on what she wants! Parents felt that she doesn’t try to understand their perspectives at all…
Counselor P: Didn’t know the difference between Early Action and Restrictive Early Action!
Counselor S: She was literally ‘selling’ Universities from ‘her list’… Didn’t listen to what we were looking for. We had done reasonable homework to know that none of the Universities from ‘her list’ were even in our ‘C’ list, let alone our top choices!
Counselor U: The chief didn’t know full form of STEM!
Counselor V: Got an appointment with this Celebrity Counselor for 8 months later than the day we asked!! (That put first ‘spanner-in-the-wheel’ for our plans!) Almost all of one hour was spent on him giving us guidance at his speed…so fast that none of us could make any notes…and very little opportunity to ask questions. We felt inadequate (about ourselves)! By the way, that time cost us Rs. 70,000!
He was categorical that he won’t interact with parents at all and would have just two sessions with the student! Well, despite his celebrity status and success, for that high cost of almost half of a million Rupees, we couldn’t convince ourselves… we thought, we could do with regular updates (as parents) and more personalized attention for our son!
Common among almost all of these: 1. Will call you a zillion times till you make payments. Then it’s the other way around!! 2. Limited hour service. You get only a certain number of hours of their time! 3. If you call and they aren’t available; well, they are busy. If they call and you aren’t available, you have ‘lost those hours’ for good! 4. They have affiliations (read: Paid Partnerships! Commission agents, you know!) with certain Universities – and you are ‘pushed hard’ to apply to such ‘very good colleges’!
Having lost some serious money, we became ‘Atmanirbhar’! Surprised ourselves with the quality of admissions we got for our son and for some of his close friends in our very first attempt. Two in global top-10 Universities. Ten more in global top-35 Universities. 80% of these were in Computer Science Engineering!
That is how Ara was born.
And yes, your experience with Ara will be like ‘none of the above’! Guaranteed!