Vantaggi
The structure of IGP is really wonderful for the students and as someone who is a teacher and has extensive experience working with students at the high school and collegiate level, I believe in the company's effectiveness with helping students become more competitive in their candidacy.
Svantaggi
For part-time contracted workers, the pay is not nearly enough for the work and time required. You are given an email account and receive regular communications that are important to stay up-to-date with, but you are not compensated for this time. You are given an amount of money based on the plan that the student signs up for, but it breaks down to about $25/hour for the meeting time that you spend with the student. But the meetings are not enough to actually provide the service that the students deserve, so there is research and follow-up work, reviewing work that the student submits, all the email correspondence with students, families, and IGP Staff. So I would say compensation actually drops to about half ($12-13/hour) considering all the time that should be put in to provide good service. I've had to learn to limit my availability and how often I read and respond to correspondence from IGP because otherwise they really take advantage of the fact that they are getting so much free labor. However, I take working with students seriously and I will continue to provide good service in my work with them. I've definitely worked with some FAO's who are putting as much effort into it as they are getting paid--and believe me, they have every right to--but wow, it's sad to see that level of service... it's not fair to the students.