PREFACE

Introduction can go here.

MEC does not offer refunds to clients. However, clients may assign any unused hours to a third party.

The beauty of the hourly model is that both parties freely choose to renew the work relationship with every interaction.

MEC leaves the decision of the amount of the prepaid time bank entirely up to the client.

Offering bundles of hours gives the client the impression that the consultant is “locked in” for a pre-specified amount of time and corresponding sum of money, which can lead to non-optimal behavior.

Additionally, offering bundles of hours at a discounted rate introduces the concept of “discount” to the work relationship; which can lead to attempts to negotiate the rate in other contexts.

Too many to number! 

No matter how many caveats an IEC issues, included in writing, upon providing remunerated support for an application to a college/uni, the family will override said caveats and maintain that the IEC believes the student to be a viable candidate. Otherwise, how could the IEC ethically accept to be paid money to support the application?

MEC regularly encounters families with expectations which are untethered from reality.

The task in these cases is to win the trust of the family and to educate the family—armed with reliably-sourced data—about the realm of the possible.

This task is especially important with regard to the ED cycle where making a strategic choice can constitute a make-or-break situation. 

ED advantage for class entering 2024 at selected schools:
11.2X: Northeastern (4% RD admit rate, 43% ED admit rate)
5.2X: Dartmouth (4% RD admit rate, 19% ED admit rate)
4.7X: Columbia (3% RD admit rate, 13% ED admit rate)
3.9X: Northwestern (6% RD admit rate, 23% ED admit rate)
3.5X: Brown/Penn (4% RD admit rate, 14% ED admit rate)
2.1X: JHU (5% RD admit rate, 12% ED admit rate)
www.joinclassaction.us/post/the-use-and-abuse-of-early-decision-in-college-admissions

Schools lock in up to 69% of the class in the ED cycle for the purposes of:

• yield protection (schools are very competitive about published statistics concerning how many offers extended are accepted)

“If you accept enough people early decision, you’ve created a risk-management tool by locking in a big chunk of revenue.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/business/tulane-university-chicago-early-decision.html

• “lowering [RD and overall] admit rates: Since ED allows a college to admit fewer students during the regular decision round, it helps them lower their overall admit rate. For example, in 2024, Northeastern University admitted more than half its freshman class through ED with a 43% acceptance rate. With so much of the class filled already, the admissions office could reject 96% of the RD applicants”

www.joinclassaction.us/post/the-use-and-abuse-of-early-decision-in-college-admissions

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