This week on The Choice on India Ink, we present news that might serve as a cautionary tale for international students who hire educational consultants.
Gerald and Lily Chow, who lived in Hong Kong, were so eager to get their two sons into an Ivy League school that they invested heavily in a plan from Mark Zimny, an educational consultant, who aimed to get the boys into Harvard, The Boston Globe reported:
First, Zimny's company would provide tutoring and supervision while the boys attended American prep schools. Then, according to a complaint and other documents the Chows fi led as part of a lawsuit in US District Court in Boston, Zimny said he would grease the admissions wheels, funneling donations to elite colleges while also investing on the Chows' behalf.
According to the suit, Zimny warned the Chows against giving to schools directly. “Embedded racism†made development offices wary of Asian donors, he allegedly advised them; better to use his company as a middleman.
Two years and $2.2 million later, the Chows' investment in Mr. Zimny's consultancy, IvyAdmit, failed. (The sons did wind up at top universities, The Globe's Mary Carmichael writes, but neither of them went to Harvard.)
Now the Chows are suing to get their money back, claiming that Mr. Zimny lied to them and committed fraud and breach of contract.
The Globe has PDFs of the legal complaint from the Chow family and Mr. Zimny's motion to dismiss, the invoices to the family, and interestingly enough, the consu ltancy's detailed plan to get the boys into Harvard.
There is no doubt that navigating the American college admissions process can be a daunting task with an unpredictable outcome, especially for prospective international students, so thousands of college consultants have stepped in to help.
However, as the New York Times senior editor Jacques Steinberg wrote in 2009, independent college counselors are jumping into a field that requires “no test or licensing to offer such services, and there is no way to evaluate the counselors' often extravagant claims of success or experience.â€
We'd like to hear about your experiences with educational consultants, and about the growing admissions-consulting industry in general. Please join the discussion in the comments box below.
