<p>This post isn't aiming to insult any guidance counselors or people with similar jobs. Rather I want to see what kind of counselors people have and what they think about them.</p>
<p>I'll start off. Honestly and objectively, my guidance counselor knows almost nothing about college admission. She only talks about getting good SAT scores and believes that visiting a college will get someone into the school when it clearly says on the college's website that they don't track visits. She loses paperwork from students (bunch of my friends experienced), doesn't listen to students' suggestions, and most importantly, thinks she knows the best. </p>
<p>And, as students, we can't say anything back to her since she can play a negative role in our admission if we get her angry. We just gotta agree with her on everything because she "knows college."</p>
<p>I assume this isn't uncommon at all. My question is, though, are counselors really needed? They don't contribute that much to our college success and they write GOOD recommendation letters for EVERYONE (making the value of recommendation letter significantly pathetic). What is the purpose and advantage of guidance counselors?</p>
<p>My school’s guidance department has little to do with college admissions. They don’t talk to you about selecting schools or how to get into college or what your chances look like. They don’t update our Naviance and sometimes lose things or mix them up. </p>
<p>My counselor is nice and helps me navigate the system that is school bureaucracy (i.e. breaking rules as nonchalantly as possible). In fact, my schedule would be far less rigorous/awesome if she didn’t show me alternatives to the “mandatory” classes.
However, it bugs me that (coming from a sub-par HS here) she doesn’t know what the AMC’s or the Science Olympiads are. How will she highlight my accomplishments if she doesn’t know what they are?</p>
<p>A lot of my friends see guidance counselors as a barrier in their way of taking high-leveled classes. In my case, though, my guidance counselor helped me to convince my mom that I was capable of taking the classes that I signed up for. But Ms. Harmon also told me that if I don’t take a gym class online over the summer, she’ll make me take a full year of Team Sports even though I have a semester of gym down already. Ain’t nobody got time for that. </p>
<p>@DigitalKing
Grrr. I can’t find the thing to edit the post. Although honestly speaking, I feel as if there are hundreds of people with the same name and occupation that a name doesn’t do any more. Not to say that I won’t edit the post when I find a way too. Ahaha. </p>
<p>Before getting rid of guidance counselors, get rid of the deans. They are the truly useless bunch. At least in my school, the guidance counselors do a lot of things other than what counselors do. Anyone could be a dean.</p>
<p>Sure there are helpful counselors. I don’t doubt that. It seems like it depends on the school and its ability to hire real counselors, which does involve the school’s financial ability.</p>
<p>My guidance counselor put me in the Yearbook class because the classes I wanted didn’t fit in with the rest of my schedule. I know it isn’t her fault, but Yearbook is the worst kind of class…</p>
<p>In the grand scheme of things most high school kids don’t care about selective college admissions…the purpose of the guidance department isn’t to get you guys into HYPSM. </p>
<p>My school is really misguided when it comes to classes. It’s a small school of 600 students, and we have a focus on technology classes. We also have AP classes and Dual Enrollments available through a nearby state school. The opportunities are great and all, but I feel like guidance counselors should be able to help the students better when it comes to figuring out which direction to take. Next year I’m going to be taking five AP classes when I could’ve taken three AP’s and two DE’s.</p>
<p>My counselor is nice, knows me fairly well I suppose, and is knowledgeable about the workings at our school. She let’s me take as many AP classes as I want (and one of my favorite teachers/department heads made the master schedule so all of my classes fit!). She got the forms I needed submitted on time. However, she and the other counselors at my school know nothing about privates. They only know about CCCs, CSUs, and UCs. What a shame.</p>