<p>For those of you who have employed the help of college counselors, do you feel that their guidance has been helpful in the admissions process? Or is their advice more common sense?</p>
<p>I haven't employed a college counselor, but I'm replying to this anyway.</p>
<p>If people who are wealthy enough to hire a college counselor can't make use of their ample resources without such a leg up, they shouldn't be admitted to a top-tier university. The university's resources are better spent upon people who are clever enough to distinguish themselves without the aid of disposable wealth.</p>
<p>That may be an unpopular opinion here, but I don't see how one could argue against it.</p>
<p>...that said, I doubt even hiring someone to help you could much decrease the anxiety of applying to college, so good luck. :)</p>
<p>My dad's friend hired a college counselor, for help with things such as devising a realistic list and financial aid, and he wound up firing them almost immediately. It seemed that their "help" could've been easily found for free (on a site such as this one). Overall, I personally think it's a good idea to embrace the occasional difficulty of navigating through the college search; after all, there'll be some more tough decisions in college and no professional to help you.</p>
<p>People on a site like this are making use of free resources available online. I would be shocked if you get many positive hits on this query.</p>
<p>I feel the same way. The reason I posed the question is that I've received some brochures from college counselors in the mail, and I've thought to myself, "What can these people possible tell me that I don't already know?" Considering the availability of resources such as college guidebooks and CC, I don't see what kind of help a college counselor could possibly offer.</p>
<p>My school has a few college counselors that are more or less pointless. Mine just adds schools that are either ridiculous safeties or ridiculous reaches to my list. He tells me my 33 ACT is "barely" good enough for Michigan, among other ridiculous things. My brother had a private counselor and it was basically the same thing: him being told that his 3.7 and 1360 wouldn't get him into Michigan, and that American University would be a match for him. Basically, I feel that you can get the same pessimism and idiocy here that you can get from a college counselor.</p>
<p>college confidential is the world's greatest college counselor.</p>
<p>I agree, could a college counselor tell you if asian guys liked white girls?</p>
<p>I thought not.</p>
<p>I debated over paying a hefty price for a college counselor in my area, but after doing some research on College Confidential realized the added value was not worth the high cost. However, I still knew I could really benefit from some advice from someone experienced with the process. </p>
<p>I ended up using two counselors through IvyCore. Both were students at Ivy League Schools who were obviously very successful with the college admission process(one of my counselors had received acceptance letters at 7 Ivies!). </p>
<p>I really feel that often the people with the best advice in the college application process are the ones who have been through it themselves in the past few years AND were successful. I can't tell you have much my counselors helped me, I hope I have a chance to return the favor when I am an experienced student as well.</p>
<p>So to answer your question, Yes I think College Counselors are worth it. It is a very stressful process and it is really helpful to have an experienced handing guiding you and making your message is clear. However, make sure your counselor has some advice that is worth the money you pay. In my case speaking with an accomplished student who knew how to strategize about creative approaches to essays and applications to get into selective schools, it was definitely worth the price!</p>
<p>It can also depends on your personal circumstances, your child, the relationship you have with your child, how much time you have available to support the college search and whether you can afford it. An objective third party who knows the market well can be a great help. </p>
<p>I wouldn't denigrate any parent who felt that they weren't up to the task of college applications and found someone who was. It's expensive (though not compared to the cost of college), but for some families it makes sense. Personally, I wouldn't have wanted to give up the opportunity to undertake this journey with my kids, but others may not feel this way for very valid reasons.</p>
<p>Some friends of ours have engaged a counselor, they think it's worth it. But they are doing this years in advance. The counselor is not merely producing a list of colleges, but has helped convince the kid to make more productive use of his time outside of classroom and focus harder on his studies and test prep. The parents might have told the kid to do these same things, but the kid is actually doing them because he's listening to the counselor. It seems like that to me, anyway.</p>
<p>You may think this is horrible, or whatever, but they don't. And he will have a more compelling application to present to colleges because of it, not merely because the counselor will review it but because, due to the counselor, there will actually be more stuff worthy of being included in the application. And the grades and test scores will also likely be better for it.</p>
<p>Whether the kid is better, for all this , is a different question. But as far as I can tell he's not having any problem with it. And the parents seem pretty happy about it, so far.</p>
<p>No, I feel we got ripped off.
the only thing ours really did was to get us to get the ball rolling.
Other than that, we did all the work, they were very wishy washy when it came to helping my D make any sort of decision.</p>
<p>I guess a lot of the potential for value added may depend on several factors: who the counselors are/ what they really know (ie: a recent admissions officer at a selective college? Or just someone who decides one day, poof, they're a counselor, with no directly applcable inside experience); what you expect them to do; and at what point in the process you seek their services. There seems to be a great deal of variation in each of these factors.</p>
<p>Also, how motivated your kid is.</p>
<p>There was a long debate about this in the parent's forum recently. See the "dirty secrets" thread.</p>
<p>We used a private counselor for my DS last year and very much feel we got our money's worth. Having gone through the process with 2 other kids without one, I have a good comparison.</p>
<p>It's kind of like asking if you need an accountant to do your taxes. No, you don't, there's all sorts of information and books and web sites, just like for colleges. But an accountant who does taxes day in and day out, who has worked for the IRS and become an expert, knows a lot of loopholes and strategies that may not be apparent to someone who doesn't do taxes often.</p>
<p>Like all things in life: caveat emptor.</p>
<p>And there is not one answer for every student. It depends on your goals and qualifications and time frame. It depends on financial situation. Many colleges may admit you if they believe your parents will stroke a big check and not seek financial aid. Despite being "needs blind" officially. It happens.</p>
<p>Some Ivy qualified kids need that extra help, not in picking schools, or even in writing that essay, but in "connections." It happens ALL THE TIME. So if your counselor is just an ordinary person trying to make a buck but has no inside edge at particular schools you are seeking, good luck.</p>
<p>Counselors can also help people keep their feet on the ground, pick solid match and safety schools that fit the student better, particularly where financial aid is an issue. A well seasoned counselor has visited many schools, knows the culture, the academic challenges, and the usual statistics for clear admission, possible admission and no chance in heck of admission. Some kids are not focused enough. Some kids are way out of line in their expectations.</p>
<p>No I am not a college counselor.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>hmom5, that's a good comparison.</p>
<p>Connections are not one of the things you get from a counselor, in fact, they work had to make sure their role is invisible.</p>
<p>Hmom5-I'm surprised you found a counselor valuable, since you are an experienced parent of college students who had already gone through the process twice. I thought a counselor would be most valuable to newbie parents. I'm curious as to what types of things the counselor provided that you thought were value-added.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the counselor. I'm sure there are some very good ones. </p>
<p>We hired a private college counselor for me and I think it was a big mistake. (This was way back in the 90s before CC even existed.) My quick story: I have horrible grades, was diagnosed with OCD right before my senior year, and my grades improved first semester senior year. I had SAT scores a tad higher than the national average, and I wanted to study film or theater. My essays were great and my ECs were pretty good. My parents were adamantly against BFA programs, so those were all out. Money was something of a factor. </p>
<p>The counselor seemed to ignore my academic interests and instead suggest a handful of small schools someone in my situation could get admitted to. I wound up applying to 8 schools and I got in everywhere (making me think I may have aimed too low). None were really a fit in terms of my interests. Most were more money than my parents, understandably, wanted to pay. And truth be told, the best advice he could have given my family was that I should have gone to community college for a year. . . but he didn't, and I wound up at a school I chose basically because of its price, its proximity to home (3 hours--not too close, not too far) and a shiny new communications building. (In his defense, I brought up the college before he did.) It was a terrible fit. I did graduate in four years, but I think the choice of where I went to college was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. </p>
<p>There are definitely other schools he could have suggested if he'd done a little more homework. And I didn't like the fact that he wanted me to lie on my applications (saying I had leadership positions in all my clubs when I didn't, for example). </p>
<p>All I can say for you guys is, thank goodness for the Internet. All the information you find may not be true or useful, but the abundance of information available should help you find possible options. It's a long way from when we had to rely on what counselors told us and what showed up in our mailboxes to guide our decisions.</p>
<p>"Hmom5-I'm surprised you found a counselor valuable, since you are an experienced parent of college students who had already gone through the process twice. I thought a counselor would be most valuable to newbie parents. I'm curious as to what types of things the counselor provided that you thought were value-added."</p>
<p>I'm of course not hmom5, and her situation/ services provided was not the same as our friends', from what I understand. But in their case the value added so far is the kid is actually listening to this guy, and it is resultng in him doing things that are positive that his parents probably would not have been able to get him to do, even if they'd been through the process several times with other kids. </p>
<p>In their case, a parent suggesting something has less weight than an "expert" suggesting something, even though they might be suggesting the very same thing. Parents know nothing, remember.</p>