Guidance For Sale

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Another concern is that counseling could cross the line into cheating. "Counseling helps you explain away the difficulties in your record and highlight your best features," defines Andy Rosen, CEO of Kaplan. But when does "editing" become writing a student's essays for him? Achieva insists that it only gives guidance and makes students do Internet and college-guide research and their own writing. Still, Andy Lutz, a vice president at the Princeton Review, admits the distinction is tricky. "There's a line between suggesting and rewriting," he says. "But it's a gray area."

And what does it mean for Achieva to be coming to the rescue of some public schools? It has become routine for schools to hire private companies to do, say, catering and security. But when the seven high schools in San Jose's East Side Union school district contracted with Achieva for college counseling, it marked perhaps the first time a business had been hired in public schools to handle an academic area. And this year Fred deFuniak, principal of Silver Creek High School, is thinking of hiring Achieva not only for test prep but also to teach reading and writing skills. "This may be controversial, but you have to be innovative to get results," he says. "Parents and legislators are demanding accountability."

DeFuniak says hiring Achieva is a bid not only for better results but also for efficiency. For $60,000, he can add one new guidance counselor, which would just reduce the student-to-counselor ratio to 650 to 1. Moreover, the person hired would be saddled not only with giving college advice but also with staying on top of disciplinary and psychological problems. For the same amount of money, DeFuniak is planning to employ three Achieva counselors to do only test prep, a service he expects to translate into a 50-point jump in SAT scores. He says such gains are more likely to help his kids--87% of whom are minorities, many from disadvantaged families--make college an option.

Still, private involvement in public education raises questions about whether the schools are relinquishing their basic function. While public school guidance counselors have to be certified and hold specific degrees, there are no guidelines for outside professionals. And, asks Stanford's Reider, "shouldn't DeFuniak's English department be doing reading and writing skills?"

Nicholas Lemann, author of The Big Test, a look at the SAT and educational meritocracy, says Achieva's success is the result of crazed but confused parents. Only nine universities take less than a quarter of applicants. In fact, 1,900 of the 2,100 four- year colleges accept at least half those who apply. Thus it is the families, more than most schools, that can afford to be selective. But then there is the perception that unless a kid goes to Harvard, his life is over. "The parents get obsessed, which makes the kids obsessed," says Lemann. "It turns the high school years into a nightmare." Lemann predicts the rise of an industry that will shoehorn kids into the most prestigious colleges, even if they aren't the best fit. Diagnosing the problem as laziness, he believes that parents and students are abdicating responsibility in a process they could navigate at little cost. "You go to the store and buy the guidebook," he snaps. "What's so hard about that?"

Watson says his critics don't understand the broader mission of Achieva. "This is not just college prep but life prep," he argues. He says his goal is to help students choose the best, not the flashiest, college for themselves. (Recently the service helped an investor's daughter decide that the University of California at Santa Barbara should be her first choice.) Some parents say the high price tag is worth it for calmer, more focused kids who are willing to listen to a voice of reason, so long as it does not belong to a parent. Arlene Kace, a Burlingame nurse, says Watson helped her daughter Kate turn a personal essay about the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes into a paean to the need to lace serious pursuit with joyful diversion. It was an idea Arlene had resisted as a mother, but she says it provided the extra lift that got Kate, a solid but not stellar student, into the University of Pennsylvania. "What Mom screams, I can say with greater results," says Achieva co-founder Jeff Livingston.

Perhaps the criticism directed at Achieva is just a lament for a world long gone. The new college universe is one where Aruna Balakrishnan was the only kid in her high school with a 4.0 average, 1560 SATs and the position of tennis-team captain. Her family spent $2,000 to have Achieva help her with her applications. "My father and I decided if it made only a 1% difference in getting into Harvard, it was worth it," she says. Three weeks into her freshman year at Harvard, she calls it money well spent. Why? She takes a minute off the line--"Boy talk, you know"--and comes back. Quietly, she says, "I'm here."