Admissions secrets of the rich and ambitious

The new San Francisco Magazine features a profile of a Bay Area woman who has been coaching — really too gentle a word — the anxious offspring of the wealthy and ambitious through the college admissions process for years, using her own distinctive program.

The admissions whisperer
When it comes to applying for college, some well-connected Bay Area kids have a secret edge: a coach named Mary Clarke.

By Natasha Sarkisian, Photography by Julia Galdo
You follow a lot of rules if you’re one of Mary Clarke’s kids. You leave your shoes outside, you complete your work on time, and—no matter how many AP classes, student government meetings, varsity practices, riding lessons, and volunteer gigs you’ve crammed into your busier-than-a-hedge-fund-manager schedule—you’re never, ever late.

This piece is worth reading — both for whatever useful tips applicants might glean and also for a look at the entire values system around the admissions process.

Writer Natasha Sarkisian wins my admiration for addressing the questions that immediately sprang to my cynical mind:

Her critics — and over the years, Clarke has accumulated many of them, especially in the prestigious private schools that nearly two-thirds of her students attend — complain that she’s just adding to the insanity of an out-of-control process that values brand names over a quality education or the good of a child.

Sarkisian addresses the issue that Clarke's work is essentially about helping the rich get richer — she is definitely not into mentoring "First in the Family" college applicants. The article quotes Jon Reider, college counselor at San Francisco's University High School (and a helpful source of information for this blog on occasion), making the same point that immediately struck me:

Reider seriously doubts that most outside counselors give students much of an edge, anyway — especially if they work only with smart, well-educated, highly motivated teenagers: “Those kids are going to get into Stan­ford regardless.”

Good story, in any case.