One way to get into an elite college is to have your rich parents buy you spot in shady fashion. At the opposite end of the spectrum: Start working at it early, meaning well before high school. The Wall Street Journal profiles 29-year-old Jamie Beaton, a New Zealander whose Crimson Education company has made a name for itself by guiding students to do just that. At one recent meeting in New York with a handful of students from around the world to meet with Beaton, the youngest was 11. The newspaper sums up Beaton’s philosophy:

• “Optimize childhood by starting to build skills and interests years before high school. Strategically choose areas where you can excel—if you aren’t going to be a top performer in an activity, drop it and move to something else. And find ways to be unique, whether through entrepreneurship, scholarship or well-placed PR.”

One of the attendees at the aforementioned meeting, a high school student from Japan, described Beaton as the “Steve Jobs of college counseling.” Beaton himself is a Rhodes Scholar, one with a slew of degrees from top schools, who was raised by a single mom of modest means. And while his company has a strong track record on elite admissions—that’s documented in the story, along with Crimson’s growing reputation on Wall Street—the cost is steep: Parents pay from $30,000 to $200,000 for tutoring and counseling programs that range up to six years. The profile includes the view of critics (including those who work in college admissions) that such programs result in students with a laundry list of only superficial accomplishments. Read it in full here. (Or check out other longform recaps.)