In the college planning world, we can never truly prove our coaching makes a difference because we’d need parallel universes: one where the student joins our program, one where they don’t. Cole gave us exactly that. He attended a prestigious East Coast boarding school, got rejected from every dream school including UVA, took a gap year, worked with us on his college admissions story, and reapplied with the exact same grades and test scores. The only thing that changed was how he told his story. Eleven months later, he was admitted to UVA. Same profile. Different result. That’s as close to an A/B test as you’ll ever get in college admissions.
Today I want to highlight one of those ultra hardworking, ultra self-motivated, ultra high-performing students who got a second chance in the college planning journey. That is an incredibly rare scenario. The student’s name is Cole. Before I tell you about Cole, I need to give you some context on something that can actually be very frustrating in the college planning industry, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But Cole’s story changed that. Cole gave us the parallel universes I’ve always wanted, and what we learned confirmed everything I’ve believed for 15+ years about the power of telling your college admissions story properly.
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The parallel universe problem
Here’s what frustrates me about our industry. Our ultimate goal is to say: students, parents, you come into our program, we will change your lives. We will help you understand the rules of the college planning game. We will help you maximize your profile, maximize your transformation as a high schooler over four years. And because of that, you will receive outsized results compared to if you had not joined our program.
That’s the goal. But here’s the problem.
You can’t prove causation
The only way to ultimately determine if our program made a difference would be to have two parallel universes. One where the family joins our program, four years later they get into their dream school. The other where they don’t join our program, they do it on their own or find some other form of help, and then see the results.
If you compare those two parallel universes and it both ends up with the student getting into the exact same school, well then joining our program, while helpful, didn’t actually deliver a different result. Maybe it made things less stressful over the four years. But at the end of the day, if you get into the same school doing it on your own versus joining our program, I would look you in the eye and say: do not join our program. Save your hard-earned money.
The question families really should ask
Families often ask, “What schools have your students gotten into?” I understand that question because that’s what you have to go off of. And to be honest, when I get that question, our answers look pretty impressive. Every single year we send students to the top schools in the country. Every single year we send students to Ivy League schools. Every single year we send students to their number one choice dream schools.
But here’s the thing. The real question should be: what schools did you get students into who in a parallel universe would not have gotten in?
And what’s so tricky about that is I always have a gut feeling, but I can’t prove it.
The honest admission I have to make
I’ve been doing this for 15+ years now. I have students every year who I know, in my heart of hearts, if they hadn’t worked with us for four years and really deeply built their profile and made the transformations we helped them achieve, they would not have been accepted.
Recently, one of our students got into Duke this year. I know without our program, our coaching, our methodology, and by the way, the student and parents’ incredible efforts, they wouldn’t have gotten in. We had a student get into MIT this year. Same thing. MIT has a 3.8% acceptance rate.
But I have to be honest
There have absolutely been situations where I say, “Wow, that student got into Vanderbilt, 6% acceptance rate,” and I do wonder sometimes: they were such an elite student. Would they have gotten in without our help?
And there are times when I say they might have.
Did we make it easier? Did we make it less stressful? Did we make them more confident when they applied? Absolutely. Maybe did we help them get more scholarship money? Absolutely.
But in my heart of hearts, I’d be lying if I didn’t say, you know, that student was so elite on their own. High school grades and test scores are the two most important factors in college admissions. Those are entirely out of our coaching control. Might they have gotten in without us? Yeah. I’d be the first to admit that.
So why do I give you all this context?
I give you this context to tell you about Cole.
The most unusual inquiry I’ve ever received
A few years back, we had a situation that is incredibly rare. It provided the parallel universes I’ve always wanted.
Cole’s mom, Suki, came to us because Cole had now graduated from high school. So it would have been at least four years ago at this point, since Cole has now graduated from college.
Suki found us online. She saw what we do, saw what we’d been doing for 11+ years at that point. She saw our results, saw our methodology. We do like to take an approach of: we’re really good at what we do, but we can also have fun along the way. A kid only has four years of high school. She liked that.
But here’s what made her inquiry the most unusual I’ve ever seen
She said, “Jack, I’m reaching out. I found your stuff. Here’s the deal. My high schooler, Cole, is a senior.”
Now, here’s the interesting thing. Just so everyone knows, if you have a senior, we do not work with high school seniors. We are a four-year program.
But get a load of this. Here’s why we did end up working with Cole.
She said, “For the last four years, Cole has gone to a very prestigious boarding school on the East Coast. They’re from California. And part of the reason we sent him there, we’d have to ask her what the percentage of the value was, but part of the reason she admitted was because they thought having Cole attend this prestigious East Coast boarding school would give him a leg up in the college admissions journey.”
He’d have ultra personalized support. And on top of that, the brand name of the school would help.
She was reaching out senior spring because Cole had gone through all of that. They had paid tuition that, I don’t even want to surmise what that amount was, but let’s just say it’s not that far off from a college tuition. They had been told Cole’s going to be set when it comes to college admissions. He will reach his ceiling.
Then senior spring came around
Cole got rejected by every single one of his dream schools. Including his top choice school: University of Virginia, out of state.
By the way, you can look it up. Out of state versus in-state at UVA is a whole different ballgame. Out of state at UVA these days is somewhere between 12% and 16% acceptance rate.
She said, “Jack, we are perplexed. We are devastated. Cole is about to graduate from high school in six weeks and we don’t know what to do.”
What I saw when I met Cole
I met with Cole and Suki together. And here’s what I saw.
I looked at this kid and I said, “You’ve got it all. You’ve got the profile. You are high achieving. You are hardworking. You just did not know the rules of the game.”
And unfortunately, your private school did not teach you the rules of the game.
And unfortunately, you simply did not know how to tell your story.
The decision we made together
Together, we decided Cole was going to take a gap year.
In this country, you can reapply to a school every 365 days. And in a crash-course 365-day period, we enrolled Cole in our Reverse Admissions Framework: having him describe as a student deeply what he wants out of college and work backwards to tell that story to college admissions.
He had none of this coaching prior. Not from the prestigious boarding school. Not from anywhere.
It’s one of my favorite stories because of what happened next.
The result: parallel universes confirmed
Eleven months later, Cole was admitted to his dream school of University of Virginia, out of state. His top choice.
Parallel universes.
One of the few times in the college admissions world we can actually know for a fact what made the difference.
What changed and what didn’t
Let me be crystal clear about this:
- Profile didn’t change
- Academics didn’t change (he didn’t go to school for another year, academics stayed the same)
- Test scores didn’t change (he didn’t take the test again)
What changed? How he told his story.
He utilized our frameworks. And by the way, he went all in. He didn’t just join and say, “I’ll kind of do what they say, but I’m just going to take a gap year and go have fun.”
Nope. Cole was ultra high performing. He cared. And it was incredibly apparent from day one. Everything we guided him to do, he did. Every tweak of his profile, he did. Every deep thinking critical exercise, he completed.
Why authenticity matters
Here’s the thing, folks. If you want to have a powerful story, it has to be authentic. You cannot have a college coaching company say, “Here’s your story. Do this.” It doesn’t work like that. Has to be authentic.
Cole did the work. He thought deeply about who he was, what he wanted, and how to communicate that to admissions. We provided the framework. He provided the substance.
And he told his story properly. And that resulted in a parallel universe situation where we got to see once and for all if proper coaching of high-performance students has an effect.
I’ve always known in my heart of hearts it absolutely does. But how cool was it to actually see it proven.
If your student is struggling to articulate their story, start with my free College Story Audit. It shows you exactly where the gaps are in how your student is presenting themselves to admissions.
What this means for you
To this day, Cole is on our website. Cole’s mom is on our website. They say the Reverse Admissions Framework and the CollegeConsulting.us program changed their lives.
And it’s really cool. It’s why we do what we do.
The lesson from Cole’s story
Where an expensive private school, boarding school, could not help Cole, we stepped in and took over. When I started this company 15 years ago, my goal was to help high-performing students reach their full potential. Cole was one of those students.
And what a great result to see: he was able to embrace our learnings and actually reach his full potential.
Once a student of ours, a student of ours for life
By the way, Cole actually texted me on his graduation day from University of Virginia, four years later, thanking me once again.
I did not need the thanks. You know why? He put in the effort. All we did was provide the guardrails, the structure, and the step-by-step plan. And he thrived.
The bottom line: story matters
Cole’s case is the closest thing to a controlled experiment you’ll ever see in college admissions. Same student. Same grades. Same test scores. Same extracurriculars. Different result.
The only variable that changed was how he told his story.
That prestigious boarding school, with tuition approaching college-level costs, couldn’t teach Cole the rules of the game. In 11 months, working with us, he learned them. And he got into his dream school.
If you’re a parent watching this and you have an ultra high-performing high schooler, I hope Cole’s story makes you think. Not about whether you should panic. But about whether your student knows how to tell their story in a way that admissions officers will understand and remember.
Because the difference between rejection and acceptance might not be about doing more. It might be about communicating what you’ve already done in a way that lands.
Ready to take the next step?
If you have an ultra high-performing high schooler in 8th, 9th, 10th, or 11th grade, feel free to book an entirely free college planning strategy session with our team.
I’ll be upfront: our calendar is packed with families inquiring about our limited spots. Why do we have limited spots? It’s purposeful. I mandate that we’re able to provide that Cole-level, that Suki-level attention. And so we have limited spots in our program.
If you’re interested, please take your time filling out the application. It’ll take 5-7 minutes. And please ensure you deeply feel that your high schooler is high performing and hardworking.
Our support and guidance can change lives. But it will absolutely, unequivocally fail if a student, and to some extent a parent, is not willing to put in consistent small efforts week over week over week.
Cole put in those efforts. And four years after graduating from UVA, he still texts me to say thank you. That’s what this work is about.
Frequently asked questions about gap years and reapplying
Can you really reapply to a school that rejected you? Yes. In this country, you can reapply to a school every 365 days. Many students do this successfully, especially if they’ve meaningfully improved their application in that time.
Do colleges look down on gap year applicants? Not at all. Many colleges actually appreciate gap year students because they tend to be more mature and focused. What matters is what you do during the gap year and how you present it.
What if my student’s grades and test scores are already set? Cole’s story proves that grades and test scores, while the most important factors, aren’t the only factors. How you tell your story matters enormously. If your academics are fixed, focus on everything else you can control.
Does every student need coaching to get into a good school? No. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. Some students are so elite on their own that they’d get in anywhere. But for the vast majority of high-performing students who aren’t in that top 0.1%, proper guidance on how to tell their story can make a real difference.
How do I know if my student’s story is the problem? If your student has strong grades and test scores but isn’t getting the results you’d expect, the story is almost always the issue. It’s the most common gap we see.
Is it too late if we’re already in senior year? For our program, yes. We don’t work with high school seniors because we’re a four-year program. Cole was a rare exception because of his unique circumstances. But if you’re in 8th, 9th, 10th, or 11th grade, there’s still time.
