CollegeVineReviews of collegevine.com

Used to be very good, but AI spambots ruin everything.

For any future college applicants, CollegeVine is not worth it. I canceled my sessions after only 2 weeks and lost around $800. In the 2-3 sessions I did have, the only advice I got was "study more" and "make pro/con charts" from someone only 3 years older than I was. I'm writing this review because I suddenly got a spam email from CollegeVine which made me remember the ridiculous refund policy. I'm currently a student at an Ivy League that applied without CollegeVine's help and utilized friends/family/teachers, which provided much more insight than random college students.

Don't trust their algorithms! Similar to another review I read, CollegeVine provided guidance to my daughter for many "Safety" and "Target" schools with LOTS of "Hard Targets". She only got in a SINGLE Safety school that was at the bottom of the list. After talking with her high school counselor (after the fact), she emphatically said that the "Safety" schools they recommended were in fact NOT Safety schools. Her Safety schools had ~25% acceptance rate... that is not a Safety school. All CollegeVine could say is "Sorry" and "her profile fits these schools, so It's just a weird fluke". This has been devastating.

CollegeVine perhaps ruined my granddaughter's college career with inaccurate, misguided information. Something went terribly wrong with their system or their algorithms or something! Using their advice (after spending $6,000) and applying to colleges which they classified as Safe or Target or Possible, she applied to 18 colleges and was devastated to be rejected by all but 2 "bottom" ones! Now it is too late to apply to other colleges for next year! CollegeVine apologized. They offered no explanation. They offered a partial refund. Money is not the issue. The issue is a child no longer excited about entering college, a child being told, "Just go somewhere you don't like for a year and then you can transfer with no problem." A child who is EXCEPTIONAL (99% SAT and 98% ACT) who now feels mediocre and rejected. Be very, very careful with CollegeVine's advice/mentoring.

CollegeVine is all about marketing their essay review service. Their "chancing" algorithm is complete crap. Northeastern, for example, pops up as a "safety" school. Maybe it was years ago, but any school that has an acceptance rate of less than 30% is not in any way, shape, or form a safety school. The "chancing" algorithm also is extremely inaccurate and faulty when it comes to factoring in extracurriculars. The site is reasonable for collecting basic information about different colleges, but this information is publicly available through other channels as well. CollegeVine is a nice idea, but take the "chancing" algorithm with a giant grain of salt and be aware that everything is geared towards enticing you to use their essay review service. ("Chancing" says essays account for "25%" of the acceptance decision-making process... so you should send them your essays for a review. Bunch of B.S. as essay importance will vary from school to school and CollegeVine has absolutely no legitimate way of quantifying this for any single school.) Addendum: In their response, CollegeVine says Northeastern can be a safety school for students with strong profiles. Um, no. Other sources reveal that Northeastern defers large numbers of students with glowing profiles and has an overall acceptance rate of only 30%. This is not a “safety school” for anyone under any definition. That CollegeVine doesn’t recognize this tells you all you need to know. The site is mostly junk and just a vehicle for marketing their essay service. Maybe the latter is decent... I don’t know and, based on their “chancing” b.s. I would never try it.

Extremely misleading, disappointing and limited perspectives when reading my essays. Advice on what to do to boost my application as well as what schools to apply to was not beneficial and gave me false impressions. Furthermore, they share all of my information to every consultant and client, which I need them to stop.

I’m not sure how effective the program was for my child. Scores did not improve by more than 10 points.