Each year, it seems the competition to gain admittance to a top college intensifies. In addition to achieving a high grade point average, being in advanced placement classes and excelling in the SATs (not to mention the SAT subject tests), high school students are also expected to actively involve themselves in extracurricular activities, community volunteer work and to take on leadership positions.

It’s no wonder that every year hopeful parents employ private college counselors in the hopes of setting their kid on the path that will get them into the right school. On average, these counselors charge $95 to $375 an hour, according to the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), a national association for independent college counselors. (Prices are based on a recent survey of IECA members.) But, in many cases, paying for advice might be unnecessary, since the counselor at your teenager’s high school probably provides similar counsel–free of charge.

The exception would be if your child’s high school has significantly more than 50 or 60 students per guidance counselor—say, 400. In that case, you’d probably want to consider getting a college counselor, says David Burke, director of college counseling at Pembroke Hill School in Kansas City, Mo., and a former admissions officer at Dartmouth.

2. “We have few credentials.”

If you’re expecting the college counselor you hired to have some sort of official credential for the job, think again. It’s possible that the person may be no more qualified than you are to help your kid get into college. There are two major national associations for independent college counselors — the IECA and the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC); both require members to demonstrate a certain level of experience but don’t offer formal accreditation.

One group that offers certification for counselors is the American Institute of Certified Educational Planners (AICEP), which according to its guidelines, requires a master’s degree or higher in a relevant education-related field, five references and a written exam. But the organization, which has more than 200 members, concedes that these requirements are flexible. “We’re fairly self selective and don’t turn away very many people,” says Steven Antonoff, the founding chair of the AICEP Commission on Credentialing, noting that a master’s degree in an education-related field is not strictly necessary. It’s really the counselor’s experience that counts, he says, and the exam more than adequately tests for that.

“There are thousands of people calling themselves educational consultants. Most of them don’t have educational training or commitment to ethical practice,” says Mark Sklarow, executive director of IECA. “I hear almost every day from someone who says, ‘I got my daughter into Swarthmore, so now I want to help others do this.’”

3. “By the time you hire us, it’s too late.”

College admissions is a numbers-driven process: Many colleges weigh most heavily an applicant’s GPA during sophomore and junior year and his or her SAT scores. This means that signing up your child with a college counselor during their junior year can have little effect. But that’s when most kids seek out help — and counselors aren’t likely to dissuade them. Marcy Hamilton, a private college counselor in Greenbrae, Calif., says that most of her colleagues sign up the bulk of their clients as juniors, just after they get their PSAT scores. “By then it’s really late,” she says.

Whether parents decide to hire a private counselor or to go at it alone with the help of the high school’s guidance counselor, they and their children should begin preparing for the college admissions process from as early as eighth or ninth grade. Students who decide to go at it alone should be in constant touch with their guidance counselor and should set out goals for where they’d like to be by senior year. For example, a student who wants to take AP Calculus during his or her senior year would have to get good grades in math from early on, says Rod Skinner, a college counselor at Milton Academy in Milton, Mass.

4. “Your essay will be so good, colleges might know you got help.”

Perhaps one of the fastest-growing parts of the college-prep business is essay help. You’ll find numerous websites offering to assist students in focusing and proofreading their essays. Consider EssayEdge.com, which boasts it’s the “one source for admissions essay editing and a one-stop shop for applicants seeking to make their essays the best they can be” and that its network of professional college essay editors includes Ivy League graduates. The company, which is owned by student-loan administrator Nelnet, claims to return a student’s edited essay within 48 hours (or for an additional fee within 24 hours). Prices are based on total word count and range from $115.95 for an essay of up to 250 words to $401.95 for essays between 4,001 and 5,000 words. Nelnet didn’t return calls for comment.

Don’t think colleges won’t notice. Dan Saracino, assistant provost of admissions at Notre Dame, can spot a professionally-edited essay a mile away. “The essays that are not done in the authentic voice of the student are readily apparent,” he says. He recounts an incident where the word “solipsism” was used in the essay of a student who had a poor verbal SAT score. Saracino concluded that the student either had not written his own essay or had done very little of it.

5. “Visit colleges? We can’t be bothered.”

One of the most important jobs of a college counselor is to visit colleges in order to develop the expertise to really know which school is right for your child. Unfortunately, it seems that such visits are few and far between. Sklarow remembers the time a parent called to complain about how he’d paid an independent counselor (who wasn’t an IECA member) $2,000 — and how, in their second meeting, all the counselor did was rip out some pages from a college guide and circle a few names. Paul Taylor, regional director at the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit source for enrollment verification, gets the sense that such situations are the norm rather than the exception. Taylor once polled a number of his counterparts and found that independent educational consultants weren’t exactly banging down admissions directors’ doors.

“A good consultant does extensive research, knows the campus inside and out, and is looking for a match…that will allow a student to thrive,” says Sklarow. He has heard many complaints from students who didn’t realize how isolated their chosen college was. “That’s because counselors haven’t visited campuses,” says Sklarow, who says he gets a couple calls a week from unhappy parents who complain that their counselor must have known very little or nothing about their child’s school.

6. “We can’t guarantee a better SAT score.”

SAT preparation has become a given in the college-admissions process, and while classes may help your child get ready for the test by teaching him or her certain methods or time-saving strategies, some professionals believe that a motivated, hardworking kid will do just as well without. “A disciplined student can take one of those books or interactive software programs and do well on their own,” says Marcia Hunt, director of college counseling at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and former NACAC president.

That’s not to say that SAT courses don’t help a student to boost their score. But don’t buy into company pitches claiming to raise your score by an exact number of points. There’s little evidence that students improve by as many points as the companies claim they will, says Bob Schaeffer, public-education director of FairTest, a nonprofit test-monitoring organization in Boston, Mass. “Their claims should be viewed the same way as any self-serving advertisement.”

Parents should also consider the price. At the Princeton Review, for example, SAT (and ACT) classroom courses cost a total of up to $599 for 18 hours, while 30-hour courses average around $999 but can cost up to $1,199, depending on the location. And, shelling out even more money for a private tutor might not be the answer either. Such tutors often charge up to $200 or more per hour, says Schaeffer. Princeton Review’s private one-on-one tutoring starts at $2,400 for a package of 24 hours – and can go up to $8,000. “Private tutoring provides students with the ability to meet one-on-one with a test prep professional around their schedules and creates a platform best suited for their unique educational needs,” says Amy Schuyler, executive director of private tutoring at the Princeton Review.

7. “Be wary of our scholarship services.”

Scholarship scams are nothing new — for years parents have been taken for a ride by companies making false promises of guaranteed tuition funds or scholarship matches in exchange for a “processing” or “application” fee. In the past few years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been aware of several companies offering so-called scholarship seminars or one-on-one home visits from a scholarship consultant, all at no cost. And, in 2009, the FTC received 838 consumer complaints about scholarships and education grant programs, up from 177 in 2007.

Here’s how a popular scheme goes: Unsuspecting parents are lured in by the typical promise of information on how to get more scholarship money. But once they’re in the door, they get the hard sell on additional “financial advice,” such as how to shave thousands off their family’s expected tuition contribution or how to get more financial aid and can end up forking over as much as $2,000 for these services. “They justify the higher price by saying they do more than find scholarships,” says Gregory Ashe, senior staff attorney at the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. According to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, an online guide to financial aid, there are several dozen such seminar companies out there today, up from just one or two about 10 years ago. What’s worse, the information you actually get is often of little value since most scholarship information is available for free online, through your child’s high school, and the local groups, nonprofits and corporations that are running the programs.

8. “Once you’re in the door, we might not let you go.”

In the past few years, some test-prep companies have started foisting admissions counseling on students as soon as they’re in the door.

“There are SAT tutors who, once they lure kids in, say they have to stay for help with college admissions,” says Hunt. She says that she receives about 10 calls a year from parents who have gotten such a pitch. Skinner, of Milton Academy, says that in recent years, he, too, has seen this tactic employed by test-prep companies: “The kid comes in for what is ostensibly SAT prep work, but may find himself being offered a full slate of college-admission counseling,” he says.

One of Hunt’s former students even told her that he had to lie to his SAT-prep tutor about applying to colleges other than state schools because the tutor would not stop badgering him about helping with the applications.

9. “We’re a built-in handicap.”

Admissions officers will tell you that diversity is a priority. So what’s the first impression made by a student who has had help from a private admissions counselor? Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions at Duke University, admits that the mere whiff of help from an upscale private consultant could be a detriment to your child’s chances. Guttentag explains that often independent counselors are a privilege of the already advantaged student and that selective colleges struggle against this built-in bias in the admissions process. “We are very aware of this, and we try to take it into account when we’re looking at applications,” Guttentag says. (However, he points out that getting an independent counselor is helpful in some cases, like for students whose high school counselors are overworked and at high schools with few resources. )

At his old job as an admissions officer at Dartmouth, Burke saw “these fantastically packaged applications with names of Such-and-Such Associates on the cover and with the applicant’s name in the window.” Recalls Burke, “That gave you a bad feeling right from the outset. Here you are, making a case that you’re ready for the nation’s finest schools, and you can’t even do your own application.”

10. “Don’t believe all of our promises.”

Some parents are comforted by a college counselor’s promise that he or she can get your kid into an Ivy League university. Leslie Goldberg, a private educational consultant in Braintree, Mass., has seen it happen. “We have heard claims from such consultants,” she explains. “It says something about how guidance counselors don’t know the students well and only a consultant can guarantee a child admission. They might cite Ivies that their students got into and say that if you work with them they can guarantee connections with these schools.” Not only is it not true, she says, it’s also “very unethical.” She says that consultants should partner with guidance counselors for the highest level of success for each student.

Saracino of Notre Dame has noticed the same problem—as a parent. A father of three, Saracino recalls a letter he received when his youngest was a freshman in high school. “It made false claims, real false claims,” says Saracino. “They said, ‘We can definitely help your son in preparation for tests and raise his score dramatically, and also help him gain admission to colleges.’” Saracino called the company only to find that it consisted of just two people whose own kids had gotten into good schools and who then decided that they were qualified to become admissions experts. “I immediately saw this as a sham,” he says, “but I was concerned for the unsophisticated families who might think, ‘Well, I’ve got to do this.’”