Ivy Coach Always Gets The Siblings

At Ivy Coach, we have a saying: We always get the siblings. We usually get the cousins. We rarely get the friends. What do we mean by that? It means that the younger children of our former clients will, of course, become clients of Ivy Coach. And why? Because we helped their older children earn admission to their dream schools. Throughout what was an entirely stressful process for their peer parents and students was an orderly, even — dare we say — fairly predictable process with Ivy Coach guiding their way.

Yet will these parents tell their own siblings, the parents of other high schoolers or middle schoolers, that their children had help from Ivy Coach in earning admission to their dream schools? Sometimes. It depends on the relationship and how much our parents love their nieces and nephews. But, as to friends, well, our clients rarely refer their friends. And why? Because they don’t want to acknowledge to their friends that their children had help — expensive help — in achieving their dreams. They’d rather shrug their shoulders and let these parents think they did it all by themselves. And that’s ok!

Come to think of it, if a college counseling service says their business is based almost exclusively on referrals, they don’t have much business — unless they’re referring to siblings and sometimes cousins of former clients. Our business at Ivy Coach is almost exclusively based on referrals: siblings and cousins of former clients, more specifically. And how do we know these college counseling companies wouldn’t have much business if they relied on referrals to friends? Because people so rarely refer their friends — it’s human nature. People don’t want to publish their secret sauce and they don’t want to make it known their children had an expensive helping hand in earning admission to the likes of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. Why would they? Frankly, it’s rather understandable.