The Most Misleading "Success" Metrics are "Advantage Multipliers"
They Often Hide Underwhelming Top-Choice Outcomes.

Some private college counselors boast that their clients are admitted at a rate of over 3x a college's national admit rate. It sounds impressive—until you understand how that statistic is built.

During the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard trial, 10 years of internal admissions data revealed that a student’s odds of getting into Harvard are essentially determined by their candidate evaluation scores—unless influenced by institutional needs. Harvard rates applicants across five categories on a 1–6 scale. Students who earned a 1 or 2 in every category had ≈70% chance of Harvard admission. But as soon as even one “3” appeared, their odds dropped to 0%—unless they were a recruited athlete or VIP donor's child.

The same holds true elsewhere. At a 2017 NACAC workshop, Yale’s Director of Admissions revealed that 40% of Yale applicants didn’t even have the grades to be considered—and that’s before their non-academic ratings were even factored in.

So when a firm compares its admit rate to the “national average,” it’s including tens of thousands of uncompetitive applicants who never had a chance. Against that weak baseline, even a firm's 15% admit rate for a college  can seem impressive against the college's 5% national admit rate. One college consulting firm, for instance, advertises a 27.3% Harvard admit rate and a 7.5x Harvard multiplier—audited by a third-party accounting firm. Yet this metric becomes far less impressive when compared to Harvard’s own 70% vs. 0% binary, score-dependent metric. That’s why College Zoom's scores students on an admissions evaluation rubric upfront before families commit to additional services.

📉 Top-Choice Success Rates vs Admit Rate Multipliers

Ironically, the higher the firm's admission advantage multiplier, the weaker its top-choice outcome tends to be.

*Company size determined by the number of consultants focused on undergraduate college admissions, when discernible.

⚠️ CollegeVine: A Cautionary Case

CollegeVine helped popularize the “market admit rate” metric during its VC-funded growth phase. At one point, it claimed its clients were admitted at 3x the national rate for top schools. But as the firm scaled aggressively and uncontrollably, its service quality dropped. By 2019, only 74% of clients were being admitted to a top 3 choice college—a number quietly revealed in a press release. Meanwhile, the “top 3 admit rate” disappeared from their website in favor of the 3x admissions advantage metric. Eventually, CollegeVine abandoned 1-on-1 coaching entirely and pivoted its business model.