Do you hire former admissions officers, and does that actually help?

We don’t prioritize it, and here’s why — even though we completely understand the appeal. “This person sat on Stanford’s admissions committee! If anyone knows what they’re looking for, it’s them!” It makes intuitive sense. Who better than the gatekeeper?

But think about it this way. A food critic who’s reviewed hundreds of restaurants knows exactly what makes a great dining experience. That doesn’t make them a great chef. The skills are adjacent but fundamentally different — one evaluates, the other creates. A former admissions officer can tell you what they used to look for at one institution during the years they served. That’s a data point, and it can be useful. But the work of an admissions consultant isn’t to evaluate your application from behind a desk — it’s to sit across from a seventeen-year-old who doesn’t know their own story yet and help draw it out. To build strategy across twelve schools, not just the one where they used to work. To coach, not just judge.

We’ve worked with former deans. Some brought valuable perspectives. But we found the value of those insider insights to be temporary — useful as background knowledge, not as a consulting superpower. Meanwhile, the skills that actually move the needle — diagnostic instinct, emotional intelligence, the ability to adapt coaching style to very different personalities — those are things a former dean may or may not have. We’ll take a better consultant over a former dean of Harvard any day. The credential helps you make more sales. It doesn’t automatically produce better work or better outcomes for the people who matter most.