How much would you pay to help your child get accepted into Harvard, Stanford, or MIT?
$10,000? What about $100,000, or even $750,000?
Hundreds of families are paying six-figure price tags to a young millennial named Christopher Rim to get their kids into their top college choices. As the founder and CEO of college admissions consultancy group Command Education, Rim has become a wizard of sorts for how to crack the Ivy League code. Over the last five years, 94% of his clients have been accepted into their top three college choices.
And while the $3 billion college consultancy industry may sound like another leg-up the rich have to get their children into schools, Rim says it’s about helping students reach their dreams and unlock their potential. After all, on average, only about 5% of pupils who want to go to an Ivy League school actually get in.
“You have one chance. That’s it,” the 30-year-old tells Fortune. “You can’t go back to college or apply to these selective universities again.”
Unlocking potential is something that hits home in Rim’s own story toward success, both in his own journey trying to attend an Ivy League school as well as trying to find his footing as a young graduate.
Using doubt and failure as a motivator
As a public high school student in New Jersey, Rim was told he’d never be cut out for an Ivy League institution.
While he admits himself that he wasn’t the smartest kid in his class, he had a mission to attend Yale University, and decided to apply even when his guidance counselor pleaded with him to settle for Rutgers University, an in-state public school. Out of the nearly two dozen students from his school who applied to Yale, he was the only one who got in—despite having a lower GPA than the rest.
As a student, he kept the ball rolling by charging high schoolers $50 to edit their admissions essays and advising them on how to strengthen their resumes and “authentically stick out.” After his first two clients got into MIT and Stanford, he realized he might have a gift, and thus Command Education was born in 2015 in his New Haven, Conn., dorm room.
However, Rim still wasn’t sure it was the key to a post-grad career. Then came the time to apply for jobs.
“I applied to over 200 jobs senior year. All my friends were getting jobs at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, BCG, major corporations. I got none. I got zero,” he says. “And that was the best thing to have that happen to me.”
Instead of letting the rejection defeat him—like what happens to millions of young adults each year—Rim used it as motivation to help others reach their dream college, too.
“Everyone has this potential, and I was able to instill that confidence and belief and motivate them through the process,” Rim says. “I think that was a major reason as to why my students succeeded, which, of course, led me to succeed with the business.”
So far, Command Education has guided over 1,500 students into top-tier schools, with acceptance rates that soar far above the national average—more than seven times higher at places like Harvard, Caltech, and the University of Chicago.
And with parents investing close to $100,000 on average for his services, Rim isn’t just shaping student futures, he’s built a booming business in the process.
While he declined to comment on his company’s revenue, his average fee and high demand would put that figure in the millions. (Rim also explained that the $750,000 price tag was a one-off example that included working with a student starting in middle school and having unlimited access to services.)
The growing price to get into college
With or without professional help, getting into a top institution is no easy feat. In fact, over the last decade, colleges have only gotten more selective in the students they accept.
However, it’s not because schools have gotten much smaller in size, it’s because more students are applying. For Harvard’s class of 2028, who just finished their first year of college, over 54,000 applicants battled for just 1,970 seats; an acceptance rate of 3.6%. That’s up from about 37,000 applicants competing for 2,080 spots for the class of 2019, an acceptance rate of 5.6%. Even then, not all accepted students ultimately choose to attend that school.
At the same time, college is only getting more expensive. Tuition and fees at private universities have increased by about 41%, when adjusted for inflation, according to U.S. News and World Report. And while some colleges have made attempts at softening the burden for many lower-income students—like Harvard making tuition free for families making less than $200,000—attending a top college remains an uphill battle for many students.
However, Rim says services like his aren’t making the process less equitable, but rather helping young people find their true calling.
“I know I am not helping my student take a spot away from a middle-class student or a lower-income family student,” Rim adds. “I’m helping other wealthy families and their kids compete against other wealthy families.”
And despite some students feeling that their degree wasn’t worth the cost, Rim says demand is higher than it’s ever been before. But young people are expanding their interests outside of the traditional Ivy Leagues to other top-ranked schools like Duke University, Vanderbilt University, and the University of North Carolina.
“If you want to get a specific job at a bank, consulting firm, or become a doctor or lawyer, your school is going to matter a lot,” he tells Fortune. But at the end of the day, he says it’s about finding students’ passions and interests.
“I really will never tell a student, join the debate team, join band club, join newspaper club, because we think that’s what colleges want. In fact, it’s the total opposite,” Rim says. “Do what you want.”
