US Admission Consultants: India vs USA (expensive)

Do you know how much it costs to get help from Top MBA Admission consultants (educational agents)? Students applying to Graduate school in USA from India should have visited or heard about US admission consultants/agents. Their fees varies from Rs 5000 to Rs 75,000 (~$100 to $1500).

Top MBA consultants, help to get into best business Schools in USA (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Wharton..). Here is a list of 3 MBA consulting firms and their prices.

Stacy Blackman Consulting

• First School    $3,750
• Add 2nd School    +$1,500
• Add 3rd School    +$1,250
• Additional Schools (4th and more)    +$1,000 per school
• Special Packages – purchase multiple schools up front and save!
  • 2 School Package    $4,950 (save $300)
  • 3 School Package    $5,950 (save $550)
  • 4 School Package    $6,850 (save $650)
  • 5 School Package    $7,700 (save $850)
• Hourly fees: $270

mbaMission

• One-school package: $3,500
• Two-school package: $4,750
• Three-school package: $5,550
• Four-school package: $6,350
• Five-school package: $7,200
• Six-School package: $8000
• Hourly fees: $250

Clear Admit

• One-school package: $3,500
• Two-school package: +$1,500
• Three-school package: +$1,500
• Four-school package: +1,000
• Hourly rate: $275

Why are they expensive?

You may wonder, why someone would pay several thousand dollars for admission consultation and why agents in India charge much less for admission to Masters and sometimes to MBA.

Top consulting firms have admission officers who attended top business schools or worked as admission officers. If you need quality, then  you have to pay for it. Above all, they know what they are talking about.

Not every agent in India have experience in studying and living in US. Visiting USA for couple of months will not give them sufficient information to guide a student. In some cases there will be  Agents followed by multiple sub-agents. You will never know that structure. Main agent might be located in Hyderabad and if they don’t have resources to expand to other cities, they will hire sub-agents (consultants) in other cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Coimbatore, etc.

I know several agents who follow HSB and couple of them asked if I can select universities for them (shame). Universities in US will train Agents and they would train sub-agents. When students have no clue about admission process, its sometimes better to work with agents who have some exposure to US admission process. These days its hard to find agents who put students education before money. If you are looking to hire a US admission consultant, do your research and ask intelligent questions to evaluate them.