A consulting firm for college entrance exams in the U.S. will introduce luxury tour packages for 14 students and their parents, who will tour seven prestigious universities for four days by private jet, the New York Post reported on Sunday. The participation fee is a whopping 300,000 U.S. dollars, which is equivalent to four-year tuition at an Ivy League university.
Tour participants will tour New York University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Yale University, MIT, Harvard University, and Georgetown University in order for four days.
The journey will be made up of private Gulfstream G650 jets and luxury vehicles, with five-star hotels in New York and Boston. Each city also enjoys gourmet dinners at famous restaurants.
The tour will be accompanied by entrance examination experts from Yale and Georgetown University. They support students to ask questions at each university briefing session and experience the maximum on campus. Before departure, they provide customized reports for each student, and after the tour, they consult on the entire entrance examination process, including writing applications, correcting essays, and preparing for interviews.
“University visits are one of the biggest stresses in the entrance examination process,” said Ivywise CEO Cart Cohen, who planned the product. “This program is a comprehensive service that solves all travel plans and troubles instead and helps you tour in the right way.”
The difference between this tour is that students can interact closely with entrance examination experts throughout the tour, said Kristin Chu, a counselor specializing in Ivywise entrance exams, adding, “We can secure a strategic advantage in entrance exams through customized strategic advice for each university.”
Although tours to prestigious universities are originally high-demand tourism products, some criticize the product for showing a particularly fierce U.S. university entrance examination and ultra-high-priced private education market.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
