Latest news with #ChristopherRim
Telegraph
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Harvard sues Trump over foreign students ban
Harvard University is suing the Trump administration after it banned the Ivy League institute from enroling foreign students. The Department of Homeland Security revoked the university's ability to enrol foreign students and ruled current international students have to leave the university or lose their right to be in the US on Thursday. The ban affects around 7,000 international students studying at Harvard, which make up around 30 per cent of the school's student body. In a lawsuit filed on Friday, Harvard accused the Trump administration of wielding a 'campaign of retribution' against the university after it refused to capitulate to the administration's laundry list of demands to overhaul its hiring, admissions and teaching practices. On Friday, a US judge blocked the administration's policy and issued a temporary restraining order freezing the measure. The ruling came from from Allison Burroughs, a US district judge and one of Barack Obama's appointees. Christopher Rim, a university admissions coach, said four international students he helped get into Harvard are affected by the ruling, including one from the UK who was set to be among the 70 to 80 British students who enrol in the university each academic year. Three of the students were scheduled to enrol this year, after selecting Harvard out of a string of other Ivy League universities they got into. He told The Telegraph he is advising the students to think about taking a gap year, including the student who is already at Harvard, although this will be 'disruptive' to his studying. 'These students have worked so hard... they've been focusing on this moment forever, and they've worked hard, and they achieved their goal of getting into Harvard, like, arguably one of the best universities in the world, or the best university, and I don't want them to just transfer, I want them to wait and take a gap year and then start freshman year next year.' Harvard has so far been the only institution to push back against the White House amid Donald Trump's crackdown on universities. Last month the university sued the Trump administration after it froze $2.2 billion of the school's funding for refusing to agree to its demands. Harvard said the blocking of foreign students was evidence of a 'clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to control Harvard's governance, curriculum and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students.' 'With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard's student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,' the lawsuit said. 'Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,' the university added. Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard. — Harvard University (@Harvard) May 23, 2025 The 389-year-old school asked a federal judge to block the revocation, citing 'the immediate and irreparable harm inflicted by this lawless action.' Dr Alan M Garber, Harvard's president, said the action was 'unlawful and unwarranted'. In a letter to the Harvard community, he said it 'imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfil their dreams.' The termination of Harvard's student and exchange visitor programme certification, effective with the 2025-2026 academic year, was announced by Kristi Noem, the Homeland security secretary. Chinese students make up more than a fifth of Harvard's international enrolment, according to university figures, and Beijing said the decision will 'only harm the image and international standing of the United States.' 'The Chinese side has consistently opposed the politicisation of educational cooperation,' foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said. She said the termination was justified because of Harvard's 'fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.' It comes weeks after Ms Noem demanded a large trove of information from Harvard about student visa holders. In his letter on Friday, Garber said Harvard responded to Homeland Security Department requests as required by law. Responding to the lawsuit, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson accused Harvard of not attempting to 'end the scourge of anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist agitators on their campus'. 'Harvard should spend their time and resources on creating a safe campus environment instead of filing frivolous lawsuits,' she added. Harvard was one of scores of US universities where controversial pro-Palestinian protests erupted last year on campus, with students forming encampments on university grounds. An internal report on antisemitism from Harvard published earlier this year found Jewish students reported feeling unsafe and pushed to the 'periphery of campus'. The row over antisemitism saw Claudine Gay, the former president of the university, resign. It came after she took part in a disastrous congressional hearing about antisemitism at US universities, during which she failed to unequivocally condemn calls for genocide against Jews. Asked whether such calls breached Harvard's bullying and harassment policy, she said it depended 'on the context'. Columbia University, which was ground zero for the pro-Palestinian encampments, had $400 million federal funding cut by the Trump administration over claims it had failed to sufficiently clamp down on acts of antisemitism on its campus. The university caved to the Trump administration's demands, which included banning masks and putting the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies under 'academic receivership,' meaning it will be placed under control of someone outside of the department. The university has not had its funding restored. This week the White House accused the university of violating civil rights law by 'acting with deliberate indifference' toward discrimination against Jewish students.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
COMMAND EDUCATION'S BESPOKE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS MENTORSHIP EARNS 94% ACCEPTANCE RATE FOR FIFTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR
Command Education Empowers Students Worldwide to Navigate the Path to Ivy League Success with Personalized Mentorship and Global Expertise NEW YORK, May 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Command Education, the premier college admissions consultancy founded by Yale graduate Christopher Rim, is transforming how ambitious students, especially those from international and highly competitive private school communities, gain admission to the world's top universities. For the fifth consecutive year, 94% of Command's students were accepted to one of their top three college choices, including Ivy League schools. Command Education's unmatched success stems from its deeply personalized, concierge-level approach. Unlike mass-market admissions services, Command Education intentionally only works with a limited number of families each year, and in Korea, restricts its services to only a select few families per graduating class. This ensures that each student receives dedicated attention, strategic insight and individualized support. Command Education's team of experts has successfully mentored students from top Korean institutions – including Seoul International School, Korea International School and Daewon Foreign Language High School – who have gone on to earn acceptance at Ivy League and other top-tier universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Princeton. "At Command Education, we believe every student has a unique story. Our role is to help them uncover that story, shape it with purpose, and present it in a way that's authentic and powerful," said Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of Command Education. "Our process is deeply personal and completely student-driven. Mentors work around the clock to provide support that's as individualized as the students themselves." Combining white-glove service with unparalleled expertise, Command Education offers a truly bespoke mentorship model designed to help students discover their true passions and craft standout applications for the most competitive top-tier colleges. Working with students as early as 7th grade, Command Education delivers highly personalized, around-the-clock support through a global team of elite mentors, each a recent graduate of top-tier universities like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. Trusted by families around the world, Command provides a concierge-level experience, with some clients investing over $500,000 to secure the firm's unmatched guidance and attention. For international families, Command Education offers an unmatched level of expertise, global perspective and admissions insight. In Korea, where competition among top students is especially intense, families trust Command Education and its strategic guidance. From mastering the nuances of the American admissions process to building standout extracurricular profiles and compelling personal essays, the firm's tailored mentorship has helped students across Korea gain admission to Ivy League and other top-tier universities year after year. "For an international student like myself, the personal essay and its significance in the admissions process were a vague and difficult task for me to master," said Jimmy O., a client of Command Education. "[My mentor] helped me understand what colleges were looking for in an essay and helped me learn how to convey my personal voice to admissions. He helped me earn acceptance to Stanford; I couldn't be more grateful for his help." From year-round mentorship and strategic college planning to intensive summer essay programs, Command Education is committed to helping students not only gain admission to the most selective universities but also thrive once they get there. ABOUT COMMAND EDUCATIONCommand Education is a premier college admissions consultancy that takes a personalized, student-centered approach to help students gain acceptance to top-tier universities. Through a near-peer mentorship-driven model, the Command Education team provides expert guidance that goes beyond traditional test prep, fostering each student's unique passions and strengths. Founded in 2015 by Yale alum Christopher Rim, Command Education helps students nurture their passions and transform them into a foundation for lifelong success, ensuring they not only gain admission to top schools but also thrive once they're there. To learn more, visit Logo - View original content: SOURCE Command Education
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
High school seniors reject Columbia University as Trump admin reviews money for Ivy League schools
Students who have been accepted to Columbia University are declining to attend the Ivy League school amid anti-Israel protests that have caused chaos on campus, the New York Post reported. According to a college admissions consultant who spoke to The Post, 10 college seniors whom the consultant guided through the process and who were accepted to Columbia have all decided to enroll elsewhere. "This would not have been the case three years ago," Christopher Rim, CEO of Command Education, told the Post. "The actual brand has been tarnished." Rim also said that the students who will enroll for the 2025–2026 school year are ones "who didn't get in anywhere else" and said that there is too much "up-and-down craziness" making Columbia seem like an unstable center for higher education. Columbia University Yields To Trump Admin Demands Over Revoked $400M In Federal Funding His clients who have been accepted to Columbia are instead choosing schools like New York University, Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania and Washington University in St. Louis, he said. Read On The Fox News App Columbia has been ground zero for anti-Israel riots and demonstrations during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza in response to the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack targeting Israeli concertgoers. President Donald Trump responded by revoking $400 million in federal funding from the school after his Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested and revoked the green card of accused riot ringleader Mahmoud Khalil. Trump also demanded that the university ban protesters from wearing face coverings. Ice Agents Arrest Anti-israel Activist Who Led Protests On Columbia University For Months The university caved to Trump's demands, enraging students and graduates alike. Former Columbia President Minouche Shafik stepped down in August, and interim President Katrina Armstrong also resigned at the end of last week, less than eight months into her tenure. Columbia University President Resigns After Months Of Mounting Pressure Over Anti-israel Protests Fox News Digital reached out to Columbia for comment. Ivy League woes extend beyond Columbia, though. After watching Trump's intervention on Columbia's campus, Interim Harvard Dean of Social Science David M. Cutler reportedly dismissed faculty leaders from the school's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), saying that the school's "programming on Palestine was insufficiently balanced," according to the Harvard Crimson. CMES' director, Turkish studies professor Cemal Kafadar, and associate director, history assistant professor Rosie Bsheer, were reportedly purged from their posts inside the center. Harvard's chapter of the American Association of University Professors responded with condemnation of their own. "Not only has such a standard never been required before of any other centers, but the standard itself, if real, would be a new ideological attempt by critics of the university to undermine its faculty's subject-area expertise and to dictate what its faculty teaches," the chapter said in a statement. The Department of Education also recently announced a "comprehensive review" of federal contracts and government-funded grants at Harvard, as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on antisemitism on campuses. The agency said in a press release on Monday that it will review more than $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard, its affiliates and the federal government, plus nearly $9 billion worth of grants. Fox News Digital reached out to Harvard. Fox News Digital's Andrea Margolis contributed to this article source: High school seniors reject Columbia University as Trump admin reviews money for Ivy League schools
Fox News
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
High school seniors reject Columbia University as Trump admin reviews money for Ivy League schools
Students who have been accepted to Columbia University are declining to attend the Ivy League school amid anti-Israel protests that have caused chaos on campus, the New York Post reported. According to a college admissions consultant who spoke to The Post, 10 college seniors whom the consultant guided through the process and who were accepted to Columbia have all decided to enroll elsewhere. "This would not have been the case three years ago," Christopher Rim, CEO of Command Education, told the Post. "The actual brand has been tarnished." Rim also said that the students who will enroll for the 2025–2026 school year are ones "who didn't get in anywhere else" and said that there is too much "up-and-down craziness" making Columbia seem like an unstable center for higher education. His clients who have been accepted to Columbia are instead choosing schools like New York University, Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania and Washington University in St. Louis, he said. Columbia has been ground zero for anti-Israel riots and demonstrations during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza in response to the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack targeting Israeli concertgoers. President Donald Trump responded by revoking $400 million in federal funding from the school after his Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested and revoked the green card of accused riot ringleader Mahmoud Khalil. Trump also demanded that the university ban protesters from wearing face coverings. The university caved to Trump's demands, enraging students and graduates alike. Former Columbia President Minouche Shafik stepped down in August, and interim President Katrina Armstrong also resigned at the end of last week, less than eight months into her tenure. Fox News Digital reached out to Columbia for comment. Ivy League woes extend beyond Columbia, though. After watching Trump's intervention on Columbia's campus, Interim Harvard Dean of Social Science David M. Cutler reportedly dismissed faculty leaders from the school's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), saying that the school's "programming on Palestine was insufficiently balanced," according to the Harvard Crimson. CMES' director, Turkish studies professor Cemal Kafadar, and associate director, history assistant professor Rosie Bsheer, were reportedly purged from their posts inside the center. Harvard's chapter of the American Association of University Professors responded with condemnation of their own. "Not only has such a standard never been required before of any other centers, but the standard itself, if real, would be a new ideological attempt by critics of the university to undermine its faculty's subject-area expertise and to dictate what its faculty teaches," the chapter said in a statement. The Department of Education also recently announced a "comprehensive review" of federal contracts and government-funded grants at Harvard, as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on antisemitism on campuses. The agency said in a press release on Monday that it will review more than $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard, its affiliates and the federal government, plus nearly $9 billion worth of grants. Fox News Digital reached out to Harvard.
Telegraph
30-03-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The admissions guru who gets the children of billionaires into college for $750,000
How do you get your child into a fiercely competitive, world-renowned Ivy League university? You pay admissions guru Christopher Rim $750,000. The 29-year-old chief executive of Command Education is the mastermind behind hundreds of teenagers from wealthy families winning coveted spots at the world's best institutions. With his team of mentors on call 24/7, Mr Rim offers students from as young as 12 unlimited help with everything from preparing for exams to cultivating a 'compelling hook' to draw in university admissions staff. 'Demand is really growing, our business is operating incredibly well, so I'm very happy about that,' Mr Rim tells The Telegraph. He's not wrong – the company turns over more than $20 million a year. Mr Rim owns a $7.5 million home in Miami and a $2.3 million apartment in Manhattan. He has tapped into the booming industry of independent education consultants which, according to marketing firm IBISWorld, has ballooned in value from $400 million to $3 billion in a decade. Command's current clients include one of the top 10 most followed influencers on Instagram, the chief executive of one of the largest banks in Europe and the president of a country. While the majority of his students are based in New York, a third are international and include British teenagers studying at Harrow, Eton and Radleigh. They get students Oxbridge places every year, although most end up choosing elite US schools. 'All I can say is that we work with a lot of influential families in the UK,' Mr Rim adds. One of his British clients asked him to sign a 40-page NDA. The billionaire parents who pay for Mr Rim's services are so passionate about their children's education they will cancel board meetings to join calls with Command Education advisers, the chief executive says. 'It's really cool to see that. These are highly influential people across the globe.' They are also willing to go to great lengths to boost the chances of their child's success. One father of a Trinity School, Manhattan student offered Mr Rim $1.5 million not to work with any other pupil in his child's class, an offer he declined. A survey of Harvard's class of 2027 found 23 per cent of respondents had used a private college counsellor to help with their applications. With an acceptance rate of less than four per cent, the Massachusetts-based university is often ranked among the hardest colleges to get into in the world. 'At this point, they're not looking for a well rounded student, these top schools are trying to put together well rounded classes made up of students who are experts in individual fields,' Gabe Cramer, the managing director of Command Education, says. 'You don't need someone who's an amazing orator and a computer science whiz, you need one of each, and those are made up by two different people,' he adds. 'The classic profile of being a boy scout, a three-sport athlete, playing the piano... at one time, being well rounded in that way was really great. In this day and age having that spike and that hook is the way to go.' Mr Rim, who went to a state school in New Jersey, was, by his own admission 'not the best student' – and was repeatedly told he would never get into a top university with a GPA of 3.7 (equivalent to an A-). 'So then once I got to college, everyone was like, 'Chris, what did you do? How did you get into Yale? You didn't have the best grades?' And I was like, 'well, I think it was my extracurriculars.'' Outside of the classroom Mr Rim had founded an anti-bullying non-profit organisation as well as earning a spot on the Youth Advisory Board for Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation. He wrote his personal essay about the pop queen herself. After his success, he helped two younger students from his school get into Stanford and MIT from his dorm room, and charged $50-an-hour for essay writing help. When he graduated in 2017, Mr Rim took the business full time. He initially charged $75-an-hour for consultancy, until one of his billionaire clients sat him down and insisted nobody would take him seriously unless he upped his hourly rate to $1,500. Now, parents pay him and his team of 42 $120,000-a-year for their help. The full package from seventh grade to university admission costs $750,000, which includes unlimited tutoring for SAT and ACT exams. Seven years ago, Mr Rim had around 40 students, this year he is helping 220. In 2024 one student got into seven of the eight Ivy League universities. The eighth, Cornell, was the only school they had not applied for. If parents come to Mr Rim after their children fail to get into their college when early decision acceptances come round in December, Command Education charges $250,000 for a two-week service to help them streamline their application for regular admissions. Command touts the statistic that over the past five years it has helped 94 per cent of its students get into one of their top three university choices, although it adds the caveat that this 'excludes students who did not follow our advice'. 'We're getting more and more younger students who are signing up for our services now only because of how competitive it is... grades and test scores are the foundation of a strong application but it's really the extracurriculars, it's really the impact you had in your community that's going to allow you to truly stand out and shine through the process,' Mr Rim says. It does not matter what the student chooses for their 'hook', but everything the student does should be carefully tailored to fit this narrative, even where they choose to volunteer. 'Going to the food pantry if you're going to be a computer science major is not necessarily the right place to be volunteering, it's better than no volunteering, but let's identify a place where, at a local library, you're going to be teaching basic foundational computing skills to potential students who don't have access to computers at home. 'Those are the types of volunteer opportunities that are now going to align with the things you're interested in,' Mr Cramer, a former professional baseball player, adds. They also help their students plan a 'passion project' which should be an 'intersection between the things that you are amazing at, the things that you are passionate about, and the areas in your community that require some assistance'. There is no ideal niche students should focus on. They told one pupil who was into beauty and makeup to create a TikTok and YouTube account to review skincare products. Her following swelled to more than 80,000 and she was able to show admissions officers she had made a difference to her community by donating the leftover samples to charity. She got into the University of Pennsylvania. 'What other college consultant will tell a student to do that?', Mr Rim says. Mentoring sessions cover everything from preparing the student for a Spanish test, to making sure the marketing assets and copywriting for their website are in good shape. Command's 23 mentors are made up of recent graduates, meaning the students they work with look up to them like 'an older brother, older sister type figure', which Mr Rim says sets them apart from their competitors. Along with this, he says, they help students develop life skills for after they graduate, such as public speaking and how to write cold emails. The lengths wealthy parents in the US were willing to go to get their children into college was exposed by the Operation Varsity Blue admissions scandal, which saw 57 people charged with crimes. Among those given prison sentences was actress Felicity Huffman, who spent 11 days in jail after paying to inflate her daughter's exam results to help her get into university. Admissions consultants, while completely legal, do raise some moral questions about how much help privileged students can tap into compared to their less fortunate peers. Mr Rim notes that as well as working with the top one per cent, around five per cent of Command's clients are taken on pro-bono. 'Our process does not change whether a student comes to us who is very privileged versus somebody who has free or reduced lunch at school throughout pro bono work,' he says.
