Parents with prospective college freshmen living under their roofs have turned to hiring college coaches to help their children gain entry to their dream schools. These coaches are part advisor and part magician because they promise to boost your child's acceptance prospects well above the usual suspects of safety schools. Business Week recently reported that some parents pay up to $40,000 for these services. It's also not uncommon for parents to pay an average of $15,000-$20,000 to help their children gain coveted places in top-tier universities. So are these investments really worth it? Well, Clark admits that he has a big-time bias: He knows plenty of people who went to mediocre schools and have gone on to be very successful in life. So he believes that simply having a degree is a more important predictor of success than going to a particular prestige university. Of course many parents feel the opposite and want to get their children into a specific school. But Clark thinks it's crucial to just get the education and not worry about any particular school name being on the diploma.