20 Reasons Why Crimson Stands Out Above Other College Admissions Consultancies

2021-10-2521 minute read
20 Reasons Why Crimson Stands Out Above Other College Admissions Consultancies

As the world’s leading US/UK university admissions consulting company, Crimson Education takes college admissions consulting to a new level. Through personalized admissions support, essay review, extracurricular mentoring, and so much more, Crimson increases students’ chances of admission to the Ivy League, Oxbridge, and other top universities by up to 700%. Let’s take a deeper dive into what makes Crimson stand out above the rest.

1. The Best Admissions Experts in the World

At Crimson we go out of our way to source and recruit staff who are, without exaggeration, the best at what they do. Our strategists, mentors, and tutors are graduates from the Ivy League and other top schools; our extracurricular mentors have launched ground breaking initiatives and have made their own individual impacts on a national, or in some cases international scale; and our tutors are top scorers in the SAT, ACT, AP and more. In other words — our experts have ‘been there and done that’ and know from first-hand experience what it takes to ‘get in’.

What makes Crimson different?

2. Support on Every Aspect of University Applications

While many competitors offer tutoring or essay prep, we surround our students with a team of hand-picked experts who focus on strategy, test prep, essay writing, extracurricular and leadership/project building, interview training, and teacher/counselor recommendation letter support. Most importantly, every one of our students is paired with an expert strategist who oversees the entirety of their application, helping them narrow down on a well-researched and strategic list of safety, target, and reach (and even extreme reach) schools.

Why do we surround our students with such a robust team of experts? Because we know they need the support of more than one, or even two specialists in order for them to have the best chance of success. If you are told by other companies that one all-knowing consultant can do it all, the truth is they can’t. Your child has one shot at their university applications, so we want to make sure they get the support they deserve. Learn more about our Admissions Support Program in the link below.

3. Unique Services — Unavailable Elsewhere — Which Boost Our Students’ Admit Rates Significantly

From Crimson Rise (the premier college preparatory program for students aged 11-14), to Crimson Research Institute (a unique Crimson program whereby talented high school students complete a research project under the guidance of top university faculty and PhDs), Crimson offers an array of college prep opportunities unavailable elsewhere. Understanding that the number of quality applications to top colleges is growing year upon year, we equip our students with unique, exciting, engaging, and enlightening opportunities that lift them above the increasingly rigorous competition.

What is the Crimson Research Institute? Feat. Columbia Professor Nora Isacoff

4. Our Student Success

At Crimson we measure our success by that of our students — so when we are able to report that our students are 4x more likely to gain admission to the Ivy League and other top schools than the general applicant, we are simply proud to have been part of each student’s journey towards admission to the college(s) of their dreams. This year more than ever, we are particularly honored to say that our students had their best admissions round to date (despite a year of COVID obstacles and the uncertainty that accompanied studying through a global pandemic) with their acceptance to schools such as Duke and UChicago being 6-7x higher than that of general applicants. We cannot wait to see what our next round of seniors can achieve in the year to come. Learn more about our accepted student’s journey in the link below.

5. Extracurricular Support Like No Other

At Crimson we pride ourselves on being leaders in the extracurricular and leadership support space, providing our students with a range of unique out-of-classroom opportunities — from the ability to intern at Uber or PwC, to teaming them up with like-minded scientists, coders, humanitarians, artists and/or musicians from around the world.

While academics are an extremely important part of the application process, more and more admissions officers are looking at a student’s activities list to decide whether or not they will make an impact on their university campuses. Our students rose above the competition through their pure passion and energy, fueled by their dedicated ECL mentors who helped them create projects they never believed they were capable of building — and all on an efficient, low-stress, organized timeline!


Ready to start your college application journey? Book a free consultation with our advisors to learn more about how Crimson can help you!

6. Former Admissions Officers (FAOs)

Aiming at Stanford, Oxford, or Harvard? These are just three of the top universities where our former admissions officers have worked. Our experts know what goes on in the admissions offices of the best schools in the world because they have previously been the decision-makers who made the call on who would be accepted and who would not. Our FAO service includes a full application review, leaving no stone unturned. Their inside knowledge is invaluable in the highly competitive landscape where even the smallest of details can result in a good application ending up on the rejection pile. Check out our free webinars run by our FAOs in the link below!

7. State-Of-The-Art Education Technology

While the expertise of our FAOs, strategists, tutors, and mentors sets us aside as a consultancy dedicated to a highly skilled and individually crafted experience for every student, it is our technology that makes that experience flawless in its organization and communication. Crimson has invested heavily in proprietary technology that operates on many levels. All of our students are matched with their supporters and mentors based on a sophisticated psychometric testing process that aims to make the most out of their Crimson team experience.

Further, all tutor/mentor bookings and communications take place through the proprietary Crimson App (which also assures regular parent reporting and easy access to a student’s progress). Roadmaps are built, test papers are distributed and marked, feedback is given, appointments are made, and unnecessary time-wasting and confusion are removed from the sometimes stressful application process. We have more than 1000+ proprietary videos and take a moneyball/data-driven view making sure our students receive every piece of information available to increase their chances of admission.

Further, once onboarded with Crimson, our students immediately become part of the Crimson Community, a platform on which students form groups, share ideas, watch exclusive tutorials, build extracurricular projects, and communicate with Crimson alumni who are now walking the campuses of the very universities our current applicants are aiming for.

What is the Crimson Community?

8. Connections and Partnerships

They say you can judge a person by the company they keep… and perhaps a company by the partnerships they form! In our case, we are honored to name US News and World Report and Times Higher Education as two of our major partners.

We also partner with companies such as Uber and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who provide our students with some of the most unique internships available to young people today. Further, we have worked with most, if not all, of the world’s leading schools. We are trusted by counselors and teachers alike, with an increasing number of schools recognizing the value of our support. Learn more about our major partnerships in the link below.

9. Opportunities for Life

We do not believe that a young person’s education starts or stops at any given age; rather, we believe in supporting our students from their early years of high school all the way through to their postgraduate degrees and eventual careers. There is a reason why our students end up at companies like Google, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Weiss Management, NASA, and many more.

There is a reason why they are gaining entry to the best postgraduate programs in the US and UK — including Stanford’s and the University of Pennsylvania’s coveted MBA programs. There is also a reason why our students are attracting major investors for their start-ups: because they are extraordinary, and we have been honored to have supported them every single step of the way. This is what sets us aside; we are truly student-outcome obsessed and once a member of the Crimson family, you and your family, are part of our family for life.

Harvard Medical School: Where Are They Now?

10. Internationally Recognized Competitions

At Crimson we are lucky to attract highly respected companies and entities such as Tiger Global and the Harvard Crimson as our student competition partners. The Tiger Global Case Competition (the world’s biggest high school case competition) and the Harvard Crimson Essay Competition are just two of our bespoke extracurricular offerings which set our students above and beyond other applicants in the highly competitive extracurricular space.


Ready to start your college application journey? Book a free consultation with our advisors and learn how Crimson can help you succeed!

11. Dedication To Leveling The Global Playing Field

Crimson is the launching pad that equips young students to compete on the world stage — and we believe that all students, regardless of circumstance or geography, deserve the right to a top-tier education. This is why we have launched a number of internal scholarships and other initiatives aimed at equalizing the top university admissions playing field. Of particular note is our Crimson Access Opportunity program, which identifies and supports dedicated students in their college admissions efforts. We take pride in the fact that a great number of our students are first-generation and we are dedicated to helping all our students with dedicated assistance on financial aid and scholarship applications.

The Te Ara a Kupe Beaton Scholarship

12. National and Global Alumni Networks

We have all heard about the power of being part of the alumni networks of great universities like Harvard or Princeton, but being part of the Crimson Alumni Network means connecting across universities — linking students from all eight Ivy League schools, MIT and Stanford in the US, and Oxford and Cambridge in the UK.

Our alumni network grows every year with many of our older students honored to ‘give back’ and support those coming after them. Our Crimson Community binds these connections together, reaching across campuses, and even continents, to enrich the lives and opportunities of Crimson students all over the world.

13. Hundreds of Raving Testimonials and Reviews

They say the ‘proof is in the pudding’ and in our case we are honored to showcase some amazing testimonial videos and reviews from current and former Crimson students and their families. You can find our testimonial videos on our YouTube Channel and check out some of our reviews.

We are very proud to report that our service has rated an average of 4.74 out of 5 in over 82,000 reviews. Further, we are the only consultancy that has testimonial videos from students at every Ivy League school — highlighting both the quality of our services and the desire of our students to share their positive experiences with others.

How Ayaka Got Into Brown University

14. Founders That Have Been There, Done That

Our founding team has studied at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Oxford personally. Many college counseling companies are run by people that have never actually been at the institutions you desire to study at, so they don’t actually know what it takes to succeed at a competitive institution like Harvard in recent years… but we do! Our co-founder and CEO Jamie Beaton is still only 26 but already a graduate from Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford. At 18, Jamie applied to 25 of the world’s best universities and got into all of them — which is why he started Crimson with the desire to help other students do the same.

Excitingly, Jamie’s first book ACCEPTED! will be available soon — and you can order a copy in the link below!

*For those outside the US, preorder is only available at this time through the Barnes & Noble link.

15. Globally Respected Investors

We are the only college admissions company to be backed by sophisticated investors like Tiger Global, who have similarly backed other transformative companies like Uber, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more than 120 other unicorns (or $1B private companies). Our investors believe in our ability to be a market leader in the college admissions space as a company dedicated to providing families with the service they deserve and delivering the results they expect.


Ready to start your college application journey? Book a free consultation with our advisors to learn more about how Crimson can help you!

16. Universally Admired Advisors

Crimson has attracted Advisors including Larty Summers (former Vice President of Development Economics and Chief Economist of the World Bank, former director of the National Economic Council for President Obama and ex-President of Harvard University), Tomohiro Hoshi (current head of the Stanford online high school), Sir John Key (former Prime Minister of New Zealand) and other key leaders in their respective fields. We are proud to have these and our other valued advisors as part of the Crimson team. Learn more about them in the link below.

17. Expert Authority in Global Media

Crimson has been featured in many top publications/broadcasts as a voice of authority in the college admissions space. These include the New York Times, Times Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, TechCrunch, and many more. Journalists often seek us out for reliable data on college admissions trends and insights, understanding that our highly detailed, student-focused, ‘leave-no-stone-unturned’ approach makes us experts on all the latest trends and changes in the often complex top school application space.

What is Crimson Education? - BBC News

18. Upcoming Book On Getting ACCEPTED!

In February of 2022, Wiley Publishing — a multinational authority in the education publishing space — will release our CEO and Co-Founder Jamie Beaton’s first book: ACCEPTED! The Secrets Of Gaining Admissions To The World’s Top Universities. The book includes endorsements from figures such as Amy Chua, Scott Galloway, Julian Robertson, Larry Summers, and 2 former Prime Ministers. More information can be found in the link below.

*For those outside the US, preorder is only available at this time through the Barnes & Noble link.

19. You Want Niche — We Got It!

Unlike many consultancies, we hire talented staff who specialize in very specific college admissions areas including the arts, music, architecture, computer science, and many other unique degree programs and specialties. We have over 2,500 mentors from top universities working alongside our full-time team of more than 100 strategists and student success managers, meaning you can tap into niche expertise about any program or institution that interests you.

Day in the Life of a Crimson Tutor from the London School of Economics

20. We Let Our Students Do The Talking

While Crimson’s history is still less than a decade long, our students are already out-pacing those serviced by our competition. In this case, we will let our wonderful students’ results speak for themselves!

Crimson EducationOther Admission Consultancies
IVY LEAGUE OFFERS373~250
US TOP 50 OFFERS2,500+1,500+
HARVARD OFFERS IN THE 2019/20 ADMISSIONS CYCLE8~2
HARVARD OFFERS IN THE 2020/21 ADMISSIONS CYCLE13~6
NUMBER OF STUDENTS ACCEPTED TO ONE OR MORE OF THEIR TOP THREE SCHOOLS95%91%

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Interested in learning more about how Crimson can help you with college admissions support? Schedule a free 1:1 consultation with one of our academic advisors. They are looking forward to meeting you and showing you how Crimson can help you reach your university admission goals.

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