Rob J. Franek, editorial director for the Princeton Review, said he believes students should have free access to the service that thickenvelope.com offers. According to Franek, his company provides a similar service through their Counselor-O-Matic, which scans a student’s application against a database of 3,000 colleges and universities nationwide.

“I think that there should be free access to this type of information, so as to equip a student to be a truly savvy shopper,” Franek said. “The Princeton Review has always been free and we have no intention of changing.”

Stephen D. Singer, head college counselor at the Horace Mann School in New York City, said that predicting admissions among a high-quality pool of applicants is very difficult.

“The more talented the application pool, the harder it is to figure out from any type of statistical analysis,” said Singer, who added that he had never used the site. “I don’t know how they would quantify into the computer a lot of things about the applicant pool.”

Singer, who has followed college admissions for nearly 30 years, said he doesn’t believe the services are worth their cost.

“The kind of kids that would pay for this, if they have the money, could be spent better elsewhere,” Singer said, “and if they don’t have the money then it’s dubious.”

—Staff writer Jeffrey C. Aguero can be reached at aguero@fas.harvard.edu.