Solomon Admissions Consulting Packages: Full Breakdown

Who Is Solomon Admissions Consulting?

Solomon Admissions Consulting is one of the largest college admissions consulting firms in the country. Their pitch is straightforward: every consultant is a former admissions officer from a top university, and they use a proprietary framework called the Solomon Methodology to maximize two specific ratings elite colleges use internally - intellectual vitality and extracurricular strength.

The firm has had its acceptance results independently verified by the accounting firm BPM - which is genuinely unusual in this industry. Most competitors just post testimonials. Solomon posts audited numbers. According to their published data, clients get into Ivy League and top-20 schools at rates four to five times the national average. That's not a marketing claim they made up. It's been checked by a third party.

That credibility is exactly why their name gets Googled so much. Parents don't just want a consultant - they want proof. Solomon has invested in that proof.

The firm is led by two corporate attorneys who are graduates of Georgetown Law, and their bench of former admissions officers - with a combined 600+ years of admissions experience and over 700,000 applications reviewed across their team - is one of the largest in the industry. That depth of insider knowledge is the core of their value proposition.

The Solomon Methodology: What It Actually Means

Before you can evaluate any Solomon package intelligently, you need to understand what the methodology actually does. Because it's not just "essay help." It's a positioning framework built around two internal ratings that elite admissions offices use when evaluating applicants.

The first is intellectual vitality. This is a measure of how genuinely curious, academically engaged, and intellectually distinct a student appears across their application. Elite colleges aren't just looking for students who got good grades in hard classes. They're looking for students who pursued ideas aggressively, developed an academic niche, and can demonstrate real intellectual initiative. That's a very different bar than a 4.0 GPA.

The second is extracurricular strength. This is not "did the student play three sports and volunteer at a soup kitchen." It's a measure of depth, impact, and uniqueness in how the student spent their time outside the classroom. Admissions officers score applicants on whether their extracurricular profile reads as authentic and differentiated, or whether it reads as a checklist built to impress colleges.

The Solomon Methodology is designed to maximize both scores simultaneously - not just for the essay, but across every element of the application. Essays, activity sheets, recommendation letters, and interview performance are all engineered to point toward the same positioning narrative. That coherence is what distinguishes a professional consulting approach from just getting your essays edited by a smart adult.

Understanding this framework matters when you're comparing packages because a stronger package buys you more time and more touchpoints for the consultant to apply the methodology deeply. A weaker package applies it more narrowly. That's the real difference between tiers - not just "more essay reviews."

The Full Solomon Package Menu

Solomon organizes their packages around the student's current grade level and target outcome. Here's how the full menu breaks down, from middle school through graduate programs:

College Application Packages (12th Grade)

This is the flagship offering. High school seniors work one-on-one with a former admissions officer on every piece of the application - school list strategy, personal statement drafting and revision, supplemental essays, activity sheets, recommendation letter approach, and interview prep. The scope is comprehensive: they're not just editing your essay, they're building a positioning strategy that runs through every element of the application.

Specifically, what's included in a senior-year College Application Package:

• Positioning Strategy development - a comprehensive analysis of the student, their background, interests, and how to best frame their candidacy for target schools
• Strategic school list selection - including where to apply Early Decision or Early Action, and which schools to prioritize given career goals
• Personal statement drafting and revision - the most important single document in any application
• Supplemental essay support - school-by-school guidance based on insider knowledge of what each institution actually values
• Activity sheet development - not just listing activities but framing them to maximize the extracurricular rating
• Recommendation letter strategy - advising on which teachers to ask, how to approach them, and what to provide to help them write strong letters
• Interview preparation - mock interviews and coaching on how admissions evaluators actually score candidates
• Resume and writing sample development where applicable

Packages are tiered by the number of schools. There is no hourly billing - you buy a block of support scoped to a specific number of applications, capping at 10 schools. Solomon explicitly recommends applying to safety schools independently, which is one of the practical critiques of the model (more on that below).

Premium vs. Standard Packages

Within each package type, Solomon offers a Premium tier and a Standard tier. The difference is meaningful:

• Premium: You're matched with a Senior former admissions officer from a top-30 school. Essay reviews are unlimited. All consultants in this tier are published scholars.
• Standard: You work with a former admissions officer from a top-40 to top-100 school, and you receive a set number of essay reviews - typically two to three rounds depending on the package. Some clients have reported a noticeable quality gap between these two tiers, so if you're targeting highly selective schools, the Premium tier is the one that matters.

This distinction matters more than most families realize before they sign. The consultant you're assigned is the product. The methodology is a framework, but a Senior former admissions officer from Columbia or UPenn is applying it with a much richer internal reference library than someone who worked in the admissions office at a top-80 school. When you're spending this kind of money, know exactly who you're buying access to before you sign anything.

Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior Packages

These are multi-year coaching packages for 9th, 10th, and 11th graders. The goal is to build the student's extracurricular profile and intellectual vitality rating before they ever fill out an application. Consultants help students identify which activities and summer programs will actually move the needle - things like competitive research programs, nonprofit work, and academic niche development.

What makes these packages worth examining carefully is the inclusion of application support in addition to the multi-year coaching component. You're not just paying for pre-application strategy - the senior-year application work is bundled in. So families who start in freshman or sophomore year are essentially buying a multi-year runway toward a college application outcome, not just a strategy consultation.

The coaching plans include summer activity recommendations - from forming a nonprofit to demonstrate leadership, to applying for competitive summer research programs. These aren't generic suggestions. They're calibrated against what specific schools want to see in their incoming classes, which is only possible because the consultants have reviewed those applications from the inside.

For 11th graders, the junior package is particularly strategic. Junior year is the last chance to meaningfully shape the extracurricular and academic profile before applications go out. A consultant who starts working with a student in September of 11th grade still has time to identify gaps and address them. That window closes fast.

Middle School Packages

Yes, Solomon works with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. The logic is that elite college positioning starts well before senior year. If you want a shot at top-tier schools, the strategic groundwork - course selection, activity focus, academic narrative - needs to start early.

The middle school package focuses on foundational skills that compound over time: identifying and nurturing an academic niche in middle school to increase intellectual vitality, selecting the right high school to maximize college admissions results, developing a curated reading list, and shoring up academic weaknesses before high school begins. It also includes assistance on college applications as provided in the full College Application Package - so families starting in 6th grade are buying one long engagement that covers the entire journey.

Whether middle school consulting is right for your family is a values question as much as a strategy question. If you believe that elite admissions is a multi-year positioning game (and the data suggests it is), starting early makes strategic sense. If that feels like too much pressure too early for your kid, that's a legitimate counterpoint. But from a purely strategic standpoint, the students who get into Ivy-level schools rarely built that profile in 12th grade.

Transfer Applicant Packages

For students who want to move from their current school to a more competitive one, Solomon offers transfer-specific consulting. Admission rates for transfer applicants are significantly lower than for incoming freshmen - it's genuinely a harder game to win. The strategic calculus is different because you're not building a profile from scratch; you're explaining why the school you're at now wasn't the right fit and making a compelling case for why you belong somewhere more selective.

Solomon's transfer packages address that directly. Consultants analyze the weaknesses in the student's prior college application, develop a compelling narrative that addresses the student's reasons for transferring, and ensure that essays, coursework history, and resume all support that narrative. They also build a strategic school list tailored specifically to maximize transfer admission chances.

Gap Year Packages

Solomon also offers packages for students taking a gap year. This is an underserved niche in the consulting space - most firms don't have a structured offering for students who deferred their enrollment or are reapplying after a gap. Solomon's gap year package applies the same positioning methodology to a context where the student has additional experiences to draw from, which can actually strengthen an application considerably if framed correctly.

Graduate Admissions Packages

Solomon isn't just for undergrad. They offer packages for medical school (including BS/MD combined programs), MBA programs, law school, and K-12 private school admissions.

The medical school track is particularly notable. It includes a 10-week Research Program - a one-on-one engagement with a PhD research advisor where students produce a college-level research project. Solomon reports that completing this program makes students four to five times more likely to be accepted into elite colleges. That's a significant value-add, but it's not available to everyone - students must already be enrolled in a Solomon package and pass an evaluation of their transcripts and test scores to qualify.

The BS/MD track is one of Solomon's more specialized offerings. Getting into a combined 8-year direct-admit BA/MD program straight out of high school - programs like Brown PLME, Northwestern HPME, or Rice/Baylor Medical Scholars - requires a very specific positioning approach. These programs are more selective than Ivy League undergraduate admissions in some cases. Solomon consultants with medical school admissions backgrounds are the right people to help navigate that process.

The MBA and law school packages apply the same one-on-one former admissions officer model to graduate applications. The strategic positioning methodology translates - every graduate admissions process has its own version of intellectual vitality and extracurricular fit, and an insider who's read thousands of MBA or law school applications knows where candidates differentiate themselves and where they get lost in the pile.

Premed College Packages

For students already in college who want to optimize their path to medical school, Solomon offers premed consulting packages for college sophomores and juniors. These are designed for pre-med students who want to get a head start on the medical school admissions process while there's still time to strengthen their profile. The focus is on selecting the right activities, building research experience, and positioning the student before the med school application cycle begins.

Medical School Reapplicant Packages

This is one of the most important packages Solomon offers that doesn't get enough attention. Getting rejected from medical school and reapplying is a specific, difficult situation. You're not just resubmitting - you have to demonstrate meaningful improvement, explain what changed, and target a different set of schools. Solomon's reapplicant package includes a detailed analysis of the deficiencies in the original application, advice on a new set of medical schools to target, and insider guidance on how to rework the personal statement, secondaries, and interview approach for the new cycle.

K-12 Private School Packages

For families navigating private elementary, middle, or high school admissions, Solomon extends the same former-admissions-officer model to K-12 applications. This is particularly relevant for families in competitive markets where private school admissions is as competitive - and as strategically complex - as college admissions.

How Solomon Pricing Works

Solomon does not publish pricing on their website. You have to get on a free consultation call with one of their admissions strategists to get actual numbers. This is a deliberate sales structure - they want to qualify you first and present pricing in context.

That said, third-party sources put their entry-level packages starting around $5,000, with more comprehensive multi-year programs running significantly higher. The all-access packages that include tutoring, test prep, and multi-year mentorship have been reported ranging from $4,700 to $36,000 depending on scope. For families starting in middle school and going all the way through senior year, the total investment can be substantial.

The pricing model is package-based, not hourly. There is no option to buy a single session or an a la carte essay review - if you want Solomon's help, you're buying a structured program. That's a feature for some families (clear scope, defined deliverables) and a barrier for others (higher minimum investment, no way to test the water cheaply).

To give you context for what you're comparing against, Prepory starts their packages at $4,900 with hourly options at $325 per hour. College Zoom starts packages around $3,000. Hourly consultants at the high end of the market charge $300+ per hour in general. Solomon sits at the premium end of the market on price, which matches their positioning as the firm with audited results and the deepest bench of former senior admissions officers in the country.

Solomon vs. Competitors: An Honest Side-by-Side

Let me give you a direct comparison between Solomon and the major alternatives so you have real context before making a decision.

Solomon vs. Prepory

Prepory is one of the more flexible alternatives in the market. They offer both package and hourly options - packages starting at $4,900, hourly at $325/hour - and they include career coaching alongside admissions consulting. If you want a la carte flexibility or career guidance alongside admissions strategy, Prepory is worth a conversation. If you want pure admissions positioning depth from someone who actually sat in the admissions office at the school you're targeting, Solomon wins on that axis.

Solomon vs. IvyWise

IvyWise is a well-known firm that also uses former admissions officers. The main difference is that IvyWise tends to offer more flexible hourly options alongside packages, while Solomon is package-only. IvyWise also publicly publishes more information about their pricing structure. For families who want more flexibility in how they engage, IvyWise is worth comparing. For families who want the most structured methodology and the deepest team bench, Solomon makes a credible case.

Solomon vs. Admissionado

Admissionado gets strong rankings from independent reviewers as a top overall choice for Ivy League consulting. Their model includes both a primary consultant and an essay specialist on the same engagement - a dual-advisor model that's unusual in the market. If your student struggles specifically with narrative development and writing, the dual-model may be worth considering. Solomon's strength is the depth of actual admissions office experience across their team.

Solomon vs. College Zoom

College Zoom starts their packages around $3,000, which is meaningfully below Solomon's entry point. They report a 96.1% success rate of students getting into one of their top schools. If your target schools are strong but not Ivy-level, College Zoom is a more affordable path with solid results. If your student is targeting Ivy League or top-10 programs specifically, Solomon's audited acceptance rates at those schools put them in a different category.

Solomon vs. Top Tier Admissions

Top Tier Admissions is built around a four-day Application Boot Camp that has sold out every year. It's a highly structured, intensive format that works well for certain types of students and families. The Boot Camp model is fundamentally different from Solomon's year-long engagement model - it's a concentrated sprint versus a sustained positioning campaign. They're good at different things.

Solomon vs. Hourly Consultants

There's a real market for independent consultants who charge $300-500 per hour and offer completely flexible, a la carte support. If you only need help with one or two essays, or you want to test the relationship before committing to a full engagement, hourly consultants can be a reasonable starting point. The trade-off is that you lose the coherent methodology and you're betting entirely on that individual's quality, with no institutional framework behind them. Solomon's value is that the methodology creates a consistent floor of quality even if your individual consultant varies.

What Solomon Does Well

A few things genuinely stand out about this firm:

• Audited results. Having BPM Accounting independently verify their acceptance rates is genuinely rare in this space. Solomon clients are admitted at rates significantly above the national average at schools like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. It matters when you're spending this kind of money that the numbers have been checked by a third party, not just curated by a marketing team.
• Insider knowledge on financial aid and school-specific preferences. Because their consultants came from inside admissions offices, they understand which schools have the financial resources to meet demonstrated need - and they advise on that. They also know the specific preferences of each admissions office in a way that general advice can't replicate. Every university looks for different things in its applicants, and most applicants don't know what those preferences are.
• Interview prep is a real focus. Many consulting firms skim over interview preparation. Solomon makes it a priority for every student, including mock interviews and coaching on how admissions evaluators actually score candidates. Colleges fill out evaluation forms after interviews - Solomon coaches students specifically on how to score well on those forms.
• Strategic positioning, not just editing. The methodology focuses on building a coherent narrative across every part of the application. Essays, activities, recommendations, and interviews all point in the same direction. That's the right way to think about elite admissions. Most essay coaches work on the essay in isolation. Solomon treats the entire application as a single strategic document.
• Team depth. With over 100 former admissions officers on the team, Solomon has more insider coverage of more schools than most firms. If you're targeting a specific school, there's likely someone on their team who actually worked there.
• Recommendation letter strategy. This is a weak point for most students and most consultants ignore it. Solomon advises on which teachers to ask, how to approach them, and what materials to give them - including helping students prepare a cover letter and portfolio from a recommender's class to maximize the quality of the letter. Most top students end up with surprisingly average rec letters. This is a real differentiator.

The Real Weaknesses You Should Know About

No firm is perfect, and Solomon has real limitations worth understanding before you sign:

• The cap on schools is low. Packages max out at 10 schools, and Solomon specifically tells you to handle safety schools on your own. If you want comprehensive coverage including safety and match schools, you'll be managing part of the process without their help. For families who want a consultant to hold their hand across the full list, that's a meaningful gap.
• No hourly option. You can't buy a single session to test the fit. You're committing to a full package from day one, which is a significant decision with no easy way to pilot the relationship first. For families who are cost-sensitive or uncertain, this is a genuine barrier.
• Standard vs. Premium gap. Multiple client reviews have noted a real quality difference between the two tiers. Some clients who purchased Standard packages and expected a Premium-equivalent experience came away disappointed. The consultant you're assigned is the product - get clarity on exactly who they are, which school they came from, and how many students they're currently working with before you sign.
• Pricing opacity. Not publishing prices online isn't a consumer-friendly approach. It's a sales tactic. Go into the consultation call knowing you'll need to ask specific questions about exactly which tier you're being recommended and why. Ask for the price before the call ends. Don't let them schedule a follow-up before you have a number.
• Consultant assignment is not entirely in your control. Some negative reviews reference being assigned a consultant whose credentials didn't match what was promised - for example, paying for a senior consultant and receiving someone with minimal experience. Ask explicitly about the consultant assignment process, whether you can request a specific consultant, and what happens if the fit isn't right.
• Not designed for safety school coverage. Solomon is explicitly positioned for elite admissions. If your student's target schools are mostly match or safety schools, the cost-benefit math changes significantly. There are better-value options for students who aren't targeting top-20 programs.

How to Prepare for the Solomon Consultation Call

Solomon's consultation call is a sales call. That's not a criticism - it's just true. Understanding that going in puts you in a better negotiating and decision-making position. Here's how to get the most out of it:

Before the call, have these numbers ready:

• Your student's current GPA and unweighted GPA
• Any test scores (SAT/ACT) or plans for testing
• The grade level your student is currently in
• A realistic list of target schools, including aspirational and realistic options
• Your budget range - even a rough one helps you navigate the pricing conversation

During the call, ask these specific questions:

1. Who specifically would be assigned to work with my student? What school did they come from? What role did they hold?
2. How many students is my student's assigned consultant currently working with?
3. What's the difference between the Premium and Standard packages for our situation? Why are you recommending one over the other?
4. What exactly is the deliverable count - how many essay revisions, how many calls?
5. What happens if we're not satisfied with our consultant assignment? Is there a reassignment option?
6. What schools are not included in the package, and what do you recommend for safety schools?
7. What does the timeline look like from start to first deliverable?

Don't end the call without getting an actual price. Admissions consultants - like any consultants - will sometimes prefer to schedule a follow-up before disclosing pricing. Push for the number in the first call. You can always take time to think about it afterward, but you need the number to evaluate the decision intelligently.

I go deep on what effective discovery conversations look like - both from the buying and selling side - inside my Discovery Call Framework. The principles apply whether you're the one doing the consulting or the one hiring a consultant.

How to Evaluate Any Admissions Consulting Package (Not Just Solomon's)

Whether you're evaluating Solomon or any other firm, here's the framework I'd use:

1. Ask about your specific consultant, not the firm average. Results vary widely by individual. Ask for your assigned consultant's background, which schools they came from, and how many students they're currently working with. The firm's overall acceptance rate means nothing if your consultant is new or overloaded.
2. Demand clarity on deliverables. What exactly is included? How many essay revisions? How many calls? Is there a cap on communication response time? Get it in writing. Use a solid engagement structure - I have an agency contract template that covers most of these scope-of-work issues if you want a starting point for what to look for in any consulting agreement.
3. Verify results independently. Solomon has BPM Accounting verification. Not every firm does. Ask if results have been independently audited, and if not, how reported success rates are calculated. "96% success rate" means something very different depending on whether success is defined as "got into one of their top-three schools" or "got into their first-choice school."
4. Understand the positioning methodology. A good consultant has a framework, not just opinions. They should be able to explain to you clearly how they approach positioning a student's application before they've ever seen your kid's transcript. If the answer is vague, that's a signal about what the engagement will be like.
5. Start early, but not so early that the investment is wasted. There's a difference between starting in 9th grade with a clear strategic plan versus paying for consulting in 6th grade when the deliverables are fuzzy. Ask for specifics about what exactly gets done at each stage if you're considering a multi-year package.
6. Compare the cost against the value of the outcome. A degree from a target school isn't just a credential - it's a network, an opportunity set, and in many fields, a prerequisite. If the difference between a student's current trajectory and a better-positioned application is $15,000, and the target school meaningfully changes their career trajectory, the math can work. Do the math explicitly.
7. Start with a discovery call that actually digs. Don't just listen to a pitch - ask hard questions about their process. What do they do when a student isn't a strong candidate for their reach schools? How do they handle a student who isn't executing on the plan? What's the escalation process if you're dissatisfied?

What the Research Program Actually Is

The Solomon Research Program is one of the firm's most distinctive offerings and it deserves its own explanation because it's frequently misunderstood.

It's a 10-week one-on-one engagement between the student and a PhD research advisor. Over those 10 weeks, the student conducts original research and produces a college-level research project. Students can do this in person or online. Solomon reports that students who complete the program are four to five times more likely to be accepted into elite colleges than their peers.

The caveat: it's not available to every student. You have to already be enrolled in a Solomon consulting package. After enrollment, if you're interested in the research program, you request consideration. Solomon then evaluates your transcripts and standardized test scores to determine whether you're a fit. Students who don't meet the bar don't get in.

That gatekeeping is actually part of what makes the program credible. If Solomon let everyone in, the results would dilute. The research program is designed for students who are already strong candidates and need a specific academic differentiator to break through at the most selective schools. For the right student, a published or presented research project in a competitive academic niche can be exactly the intellectual vitality signal that tips an application from waitlist to acceptance.

This is also where the multi-year engagement model shows its value. A student who starts with Solomon in 9th or 10th grade has time to genuinely develop a research interest, complete a serious research project, and build the rest of their academic niche around it. A student who starts in 12th grade doesn't have that runway.

The Early Decision and Early Action Question

One area where Solomon's insider knowledge is particularly valuable - and one that most families don't think about enough before the process starts - is Early Decision and Early Action strategy.

Most families think of Early Decision as simply "apply early and get a slight edge." That's not how the strategic calculus actually works at elite schools. At many highly selective schools, applying Early Decision to the right school meaningfully increases acceptance probability - sometimes by a significant margin. But applying Early Decision to the wrong school, or to a school where your profile doesn't align with what they're optimizing for in their ED round, can actually hurt you.

Solomon consultants know how specific schools use their ED pools, what they're looking for in that round, and how to position a student's application timing to maximize probability. That's not something a generalist college counselor or an essay coach can tell you. It requires having actually worked in those admissions offices during ED review cycles.

The same logic applies to Early Action schools. EA deadlines create a sequencing decision for your entire application season. Getting that sequencing right - which school to ED, which to EA, which to apply Regular Decision - is one of the highest-leverage strategic decisions in the process, and it's made well before most families start thinking about essays.

Red Flags to Watch for in Any Admissions Consulting Engagement

I've studied a lot of consulting business models at this point - from agency retainers to coaching programs to SaaS subscriptions. The admissions consulting market has some specific red flags that families should know before signing anything.

Guaranteed acceptance claims. No legitimate firm guarantees acceptance to a specific school. The admissions process involves factors outside any consultant's control. If a firm is guaranteeing outcomes, that's either a misrepresentation or a narrow contractual definition of "success" that doesn't mean what it sounds like.

Vague deliverables. "We'll guide your student through the process" is not a deliverable. A real engagement agreement specifies number of sessions, turnaround times on document reviews, number of revision rounds, and what happens at the end. If the contract is vague, assume the engagement will be vague.

Consultant assignment after payment. Some firms take payment and then assign you whoever is available. By the time you find out who your consultant is, you've already signed. Ask who your consultant will be before you pay - not after.

Success rates without methodology. "95% of our students get into one of their top schools" is a stat that can be massaged easily. Ask how they define "top schools," whether the target list was set before or after the consulting engagement, and whether results are independently verified.

Pressure to decide immediately. Any consulting firm that pushes you to sign at the end of the first call is optimizing for conversion, not fit. Good consultants want clients who are the right match. Take time to compare options and ask hard questions before committing.

I have an agency contract template that covers the scope-of-work and deliverables structure you should look for in any consulting agreement. While it's designed for agency work, the underlying protections - clear scope, revision limits, escalation procedures - translate directly to evaluating what a good admissions consulting agreement should contain.

Is Solomon Worth the Investment?

If you're targeting Ivy League, top-20, or highly selective schools, and you're willing to invest in the Premium tier, Solomon is a legitimate option with verified results. Their consultant quality at the Premium level is strong, and the methodology is more structured than most competitors.

If you're looking for comprehensive support across safety and match schools, or you want hourly flexibility, Solomon is probably not the right fit. There are alternatives - firms like College Zoom start their packages around $3,000, and Prepory offers hourly options at $325/hour for comparable experience. The right choice depends entirely on your specific target schools and budget.

The decision framework is simple: what's the monetary and career value of a degree from the schools you're targeting? If a better admissions outcome materially changes a student's trajectory, the consulting investment is easy to justify. If the target schools have broadly similar outcomes, the math gets harder.

One honest framing: Solomon is a premium service priced for families who have already decided that elite admissions is worth serious investment. If you're still on the fence about whether to pay for consulting at all, start with a free consultation and ask hard questions. If you're already committed to getting professional help and targeting top-10 schools specifically, Solomon is one of the few firms that has third-party verification to back their claims.

The Consultant-to-Student Ratio Question

One thing most families don't ask about before signing - and should - is how many students each consultant is currently working with simultaneously.

A former admissions officer who is actively working with 40+ students at once is not going to give your student the same attention as one working with 15. The quality of the engagement scales directly with available time. Most consulting firms don't publish this information voluntarily. You have to ask.

For Solomon specifically, ask during the consultation call what the typical caseload is for the consultant type you're being matched with. Premium consultants with smaller caseloads are worth more than their package price implies. Standard consultants who are overloaded are worth less than their price suggests.

This is also why the Premium vs. Standard distinction matters beyond just seniority. Senior consultants from top-30 schools may have lower caseloads precisely because they're more expensive - which means the actual time and attention per student is higher. That's a harder thing to put in a marketing brochure, but it's one of the real drivers of outcome differences between tiers.

What Consultants Can Learn from Solomon's Package Model

I'll say this plainly - Solomon's package structure is smart business, and if you run any kind of consulting practice, there are lessons here worth studying.

They've eliminated hourly billing entirely. Packages are scoped by outcome (number of schools) not time. They have two tiers that create a clear upsell path. And they require a discovery call before pricing is revealed - which means they can qualify and tailor the pitch before the number lands.

The outcome-based pricing model is particularly sharp. You're not buying "hours of consulting." You're buying "applications for 10 schools, handled completely." That reframe shifts the client's mental model from evaluating cost-per-hour to evaluating cost-per-outcome. It also eliminates scope creep disputes - you applied to 10 schools, you bought a 10-school package, the scope is clean.

The two-tier model creates a natural upsell without requiring a completely separate product line. Standard is the entry point. Premium is the upgrade. The consulting methodology is identical - the difference is consultant seniority and essay review depth. That's a lean and clean tiering structure that's applicable to almost any consulting business.

If you're structuring packages for your own consulting business, I have a Proposal AI template set that can help you build tiered offerings with clear scope and deliverables. The fundamentals of good package design are the same whether you're selling admissions consulting, marketing services, or anything else.

The other thing Solomon does well is outcome positioning. They don't sell "consulting hours" - they sell a specific result (acceptance to top schools) with a specific mechanism (the Solomon Methodology) backed by verified proof (audited acceptance rates). That combination - specific outcome, named process, third-party validation - is why families write five-figure checks without price being publicly listed anywhere. That's a masterclass in premium consulting positioning, and it's worth studying regardless of what business you're in.

If you want to go deeper on how to apply these packaging and sales principles in your own practice, that's exactly what I cover inside Galadon Gold.

Frequently Asked Questions About Solomon Admissions Packages

Does Solomon Admissions guarantee acceptance?

No. Solomon does not guarantee acceptance to any specific school. What they do offer is a verified track record of acceptance rates significantly above national averages at elite schools, confirmed by an independent accounting firm. No legitimate admissions consulting firm can guarantee acceptance to a specific institution - there are too many variables outside any consultant's control.

Can I buy just the essay editing service from Solomon?

No. Solomon does not offer a la carte essay editing or single-session consultations. The engagement model is package-based only. The minimum commitment is a full package, which is why the consultation call exists - they need to match you with the right package before engagement begins.

How do I know which package is right for my student?

The grade level your student is currently in determines the applicable package category. Within that category, the Premium vs. Standard choice should be driven by your target school list. If you're genuinely targeting Ivy League or top-10 schools, Premium is the tier that matters. If your realistic target list includes mostly top-30 through top-50 schools, a Standard package may be appropriate and cost-effective. Ask the consultant during your call to walk you through exactly why they're recommending the tier they suggest.

How far in advance should I start with Solomon?

The earlier the better, practically speaking. Students who start in 9th grade have time to shape their extracurricular profile and academic narrative before applications are due. Students who start in 11th grade can still meaningfully strengthen their positioning. Students who start in 12th grade are working with what they have - the consultant's job at that point is to present the existing profile as compellingly as possible, not to build it strategically from scratch.

What is the Solomon Methodology?

The Solomon Methodology is a structured approach to college admissions consulting that focuses specifically on maximizing two internal ratings used by elite admissions offices: intellectual vitality and extracurricular strength. The methodology shapes every element of the application - not just essays - to tell a coherent positioning story that targets both ratings simultaneously. All Solomon consultants are trained on the methodology, which creates a consistent quality floor across the firm.

Is the Research Program worth it?

For the right student - one who is already a strong academic candidate and wants a specific differentiator at the most selective schools - yes. For students who primarily need help with positioning and essay strategy, the core consulting package is the priority investment. The research program is a high-leverage add-on for students who are competitive candidates and want to specifically address the intellectual vitality rating with a concrete credential.

What's the difference between Solomon's medical school and undergraduate packages?

The medical school packages are designed specifically for the medical school application process, which has different requirements than undergraduate admissions - including MCAT considerations, research experience requirements, clinical hours, and secondary essays. The medical school consultants are former medical school admissions officers, not former undergraduate admissions officers. The strategic frameworks overlap but the insider knowledge base is different and more specialized.