It often starts with misinformation.
A video opens with a statistic. It sounds official. It sounds urgent. It is just believable enough to hook you and just wrong enough to steer you off course.
Acceptance rates are plummeting. Admissions officers are secretly looking for this one thing. You must do this exact activity or you have no chance.
Some of the facts are technically true. Most are distorted. A few are completely made up. All of it is designed to make you feel like you are already behind.
Then comes the appeal to authority.
The person talking got into Harvard or Stanford or another highly selective school a few years ago. They have a ring light, a following, and a confidence that sounds like expertise.
But getting into a selective college does not make someone an expert in admissions. It gives them one experience. One outcome. One data point. It does not mean they understand how applications are evaluated, what is changing year to year, or what actually happens in the rooms where decisions are made.
Then comes the fear.
You will be rejected. Admissions officers are hiding the truth. Your school counselor is not really helping you. But if you buy this course, follow this framework, or start early enough, maybe you will have a chance.
This is not college counseling. This is exploitation.
Before you take advice from anyone, ask a simple question:
What does it actually mean to be an expert?
Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, describes real expertise as sitting at the intersection of lived experience, research, and genuine curiosity. He also points out something worth holding onto: the moment someone believes they have mastered college admissions, their knowledge is already outdated.
This field changes constantly. What worked three years ago for one student at one college is not a formula. It is a single story.
Real expertise tends to come from multiple full cycles of admissions work, whether that means years inside a school counseling office or time spent in college admissions and financial aid.
As a parent, you most likely understand this. Your kids, however, are being flooded with messages that say otherwise. Be in tune with it. Ask about it. Spend five minutes on Reddit or TikTok and you will see it. They may tell you that you just don’t know any more. Don’t completely believe it.
Bottom Line: If an “expert” leads with fear, keep scrolling.
If every conversation orbits a handful of schools with single-digit acceptance rates, as if those are the only paths that matter, take a step back.
If someone puts down school counselors to make themselves seem more essential, ask why.
Those are signals. Trust them.
There is no code to crack — except the one that has always been there.
Show up for your classes. Do the work. Actually learn the material. Take the most challenging courses you can handle. Prepare for tests as well as you can. That is the foundation. Everything else is noise.
There is you: your interests, your values, your experiences, your voice.
There is good guidance out there. There are thoughtful ways to approach this process and people who can genuinely help. But anyone selling certainty, shortcuts, or fear is not offering what you need.
They are selling anxiety. And it is costing students something they cannot get back: the chance to figure out who they actually are before someone else decides who they should be.
You do not have to buy it.
If you follow a college admissions consultant that doesn’t make your blood pressure rise with every single post, mention them in comments for others to see! I have a few favorites myself that I’ll add.
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