Hernandez College Consulting in the News

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Washington Post (January 16, 2009)

Misguided Colleges Skewer Score Choice
College admissions consultants, serving nervous young clients and their parents, seem to favor Score Choice. Michele Hernandez, of Hernandez College Consulting, said it “is a great help to students in terms of easing stress, letting younger students take a practice test in ninth and 10th grade and providing a risk-free attempt at taking this crazy test that won’t go on your record.” Mark Greenstein of Ivy Bound said, “The SAT requirement would not favor the rich if those who are supposed to be looking out for the non-rich did their jobs better.” Read the full article

Minnesota Public Radio (Midmorning)

The hyper-competitive world of college admissions
Competitive and stressful are the two words most students and parents use to describe the college application process. But does it always have to be that way?
Guests
Michele Hernandez: Author of "Acing the College Application." She’s president, Hernandez College Consulting LLC.
Listen to the story

Business Week Magazine Cover Story (October 22nd, 2007)

I Can Get Your Kid into an Ivy
As one of this fast-growing industry’s most visible practitioners, she uses methods that are publicly scorned by rivals but are nonetheless becoming part of the profession’s standard operating procedures…her clients… rave about the personal service: the regular phone calls to their kids… the academic help… the "brand" positioning… the advice about which colleges to consider and where not to bother; the hours she devotes to each application… Hernandez speaks twice as fast as most people, reads as if it were a competitive sport, and is forceful, opinionated and stubborn…Parents value her confidence; kids, mostly, appreciate her enthusiasm." Visit BusinessWeek.com

National Public Radio - Here and Now (October 29th, 2007)

Michele featured on National Public Radio 10/29/07 on Here and Now Listen to the story

CBS News Sunday Morning

The Tuition (& Admissions) Blues
At the top end of the scale in college coaching, Michele Hernandez says her objective is simple: to get kids into the school they want.

"Every year, 90 to 100 percent get into their top college choice," she said. "Last year, I had seven out of seven kids get into Dartmouth, three out of four got into brown, three out of three got in to Princeton. I spend 50 to 100 hours per each student before they apply, doing applications with them."

Hernandez has admissions experience at Dartmouth. She’s written a best-selling book. And she has a success record she boasts about on her Website. Hernandez charges $40,000 for her services and starts working with kids in eighth grade. The only thing that could go wrong, she says, is college admissions officers finding out that an applicant is using her; but that, she says, has never happened.

"I’m pretty good at hiding my tracks," she said. View Article and Video

London Times Educational Supplement

$36K for one little word: yes
…the admissions process in the US is becoming more cut-throat. Michele Hernandez knows this more than most. The American admissions consultant runs "college application boot camps" and boasts and acceptance rate among clients of 90-100 per cent eight years running at institutions at which only 8 to 15 percent of applicants are accepted. Hernandez touts the "inside knowledge" she gained from four years as an assistant admissions director at Ivy League Dartmouth College…Clients can count on discretion. "I work behind the scenes so that no one except you and your family will be aware that anyone assisted you in the application process"…but demand outstrips supply. She says she had to turn down scores of students last month.

Time

So how do private consultants fit into all this? As many as 1 in 5 applicants to private four-year colleges get some kind of independent coaching, which can range in price from $469 for Kaplan’s three-hour consultation by webcam to $36,000 for four years of hand holding offered by superconsultant Michele Hernandez… "Some of them are very helpful and are helping students learn how to tell us about themselves," says Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania… View Article

BusinessWeek

Dr. Hernandez featured in "What Price College Admission?". View Article

The New York Times

Dr. Hernandez featured in "The Electronic Lowdown on Colleges". View Article

Hartford Courant

Dr. Hernandez featured in story about educational consultants. View Article

The Oregonian

The Oregonian’s "Monday Profile" on Michele Hernandez.

USA Weekend

Dr. Hernandez featured as a go-to consultant in the article Pointers for the college-bound. View Article

Bloomberg Markets Magazine

Halfway into the first meeting with college consultant Michele Hernandez, tax attorney David Selznick walked out of the living room of his home in Somers, New York. He says his head was pounding after he’d listened for more than an hour as Hernandez dissected his son Ben’s high school transcript and college admission test scores, nixed his summer camp plans and described how playing up Ben’s strengths could land him a spot in an Ivy League college. "I was sweating, it was so draining," Selznick, 47, says. "We got four hours of information in an hour." Advice from Hernandez paid off for the Selznicks when Ben, now 18, got admitted to Dartmouth last December. "At first I thought I could do this by myself," says Ben, who graduated in June from Somers High School in Westchester County. "If it wasn’t for Michele, I probably wouldn’t even have looked at Dartmouth."

Sunday New York Times

Michele Hernandez sent a shock wave through college admissions offices across the country a few months ago Unlike most counselors, Ms. Hernandez deals exclusively with Ivy-bound clients. She was assistant director of admissions at Dartmouth from 1992-1997 and used that experienced to write a book, A is for Admission. "Ironically you want to look unpackaged and raw — someone like me can be behind the scenes and make someone look raw without over-packaging them."

USA Today Cover Story

As college admissions deans deliver their final batch of thick or thin envelopes this month to high school seniors, admissions counselors are gearing up for what is perhaps their most unpleasant task each year: the "Why R" calls from parents. "Why R as in, why was my child rejected?" says Michele Hernandez, a college counselor who dreaded those calls when she worked in admissions at Dartmouth College.

Newsweek

This is the time of year when tens of thousands of the nation’s top high-school seniors labor over applications to Ivy League and other elite colleges. But just who are these all-powerful gatekeepers? According to Michele Hernandez, author of A is for Admission, they are not necessarily the best and the brightest themselves.

Atlantic Monthly

The Great College Hustle (Cover Story): Students who are up for this kind of rigor should consider doing several things: First, they should buy a single very useful guidebook: A is for Admission: The Insider’s Guide to Getting Into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges, in a roundabout way Hernandez teaches upper-middle-class kids a lesson that refined mothers used to inculcate from the cradle onward: If you’ve got it, don’t flaunt it.

Wall Street Journal

"You can’t erase four years of C’s and D’s in high school just like that," says Michele Hernandez in her new book. Ms. Hernandez suggests that fifth year programs and sabbaticals work best for two categories of students: late bloomers with solid academic records who show signs of a real intellectual awakening; and Ivy League recruited athletes in need of brush up work.

New York Post

First of all, Ms. Hernandez points out that committee members at elite colleges are seldom of high intellectual caliber. While some bright people, such as faculty wives for example, may serve on admissions committees for a few years, those who make it a career "are not scholars or intellectuals."

Yale Alumni Magazine

New Directions in Admissions (Cover Story): The very difficulty of getting into a good college is making potential students more knowledgeable about the admissions maze and how to negotiate it. "Students now have to be better detectives," says admissions consultant Michele Hernandez, a former Dartmouth admissions officer and author of a how-to-guide for students called A is for Admission. "They have access to a lot more information, and they’re making much finer distinctions among colleges."

Education Week

"The ironic thing is that colleges don’t want to see a package that is over edited. They want to see raw talent. In the most selective colleges, packaging doesn’t help," says Michele Hernandez.

Smart Money

Michele Hernandez puts it even more succinctly, "That essay ís not going to surprise me unless the child dies on the trip."

Chronicle of Higher Education

Michele Hernandez says colleges regularly play with numbers — for example, counting Asian Americans students among minorities in a way that does not provide black and Hispanic students with a realistic sense of the total. "It’s important," she says, "for students to visit campuses, see the racial makeup of the student body for themselves, and ask for numbers confirming their observations."

Baltimore Sun

On using a college consultant: "It makes the difference between not having a chance and having a chance," said Michele Hernandez, a former Dartmouth College admissions officer who works with students from as early as the 7th grade.

The New York Post

"The book tries to debunk the myths," said Michele Hernandez. "It tries to explain the process, exactly what goes on and how it works. The book is about everything that happens — the good, bad and the ugly."

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