When my daughter was a junior in HS, she began researching colleges and gathering information on her own. Her school did not get too involved until her senior year (i.e…mtg w/college reps visiting her school, mtg w/college counselor, etc…) We realized in hind sight that they got involved a little too late and her/our experience in dealing with applications, rejections, visits, etc. was a disaster. Maybe because my kids attend a private, college prep HS, I was expecting too much from them.
Fast forward 3 years, and my son is now a junior. In speaking with other parents who have juniors at other local prep schools, my son’s school is way behind in the game again. Other schools are meeting individually either at the end of 10th or beginning of 11th to start going over the beginnings of lists, meetings with college reps thru school and day field trips to local colleges (William and Mary and CNU). Our ‘junior night’ is in the spring and our college counselors are meeting with kids individually at the beginning of their senior year. I feel like that is too late. My kids school is so focused on dealing with the seniors that the juniors seem to be floundering.
We just got a list of colleges visiting our school thru November and only got it because one of our junior ambassador parents pushed the administration for it. Apparently, the visits started 2 weeks ago which means we missed out on a few school representatives that my son would have loved to meet and talk to. Frustration is an understatement!
They first start talking seriously about colleges when they go over the PSAT results with the kids in January of junior year. We went on our first college visits over spring break for the oldest and over a February break for the youngest. The GC meets with the parents and requests a brag sheet from them at some point junior year. They also ask the students to ask to teachers to write a general recommendation for them that the GC can use to get a fuller picture of who the kid is. (These teachers don’t have to be the same as the ones the kids will use for the college applications - in fact after we saw one of them - a non-academic teacher anyway - we knew we’d never use a recommendation from him. It was perfectly nice, and perfectly useless.)
I’m sure it varies from school to school. Our high school is a college prep school so the college conversations start taking place freshman year. All students are welcome to attend the visiting college presentations. All are encouraged to go to the returning student discussions (where former high schoolers, now college students, talk about their college experiences and their transitions.)
Early junior year each kid gets a binder. Time is allotted each week to work on it, and the college counselors work one on one with the kids too. By the end of junior year, the kids will have all taken the ACT and SAT, have their initial college essay written and asked their two chosen teachers for recommendations. One college counselor sits down with each teacher at the end of the kids’ junior year and discusses each kid so that the counselor can begin to draft a recommendation. They also sit down with each student to go over their basis for the recommendation. We get an online survey to fill out too.
At the end of second semester/beginning of third semester junior year, the counselor sends each parent a plan for senior year.
They also hold a senior night in the fall to go over the college application process. I skipped this year’s presentation but saw the slides. The advice seems right out of college confidential
Our school offers annual college nights, aimed mostly at the parents of juniors and seniors but anyone can attend. It’s just general college info. College rep visits are published in the school’s e-newsletter, but kids have to be juniors or seniors to get a pass to attend and some teachers are not very supportive of missing their class for these.
There really isn’t any individualized college counseling. My college kid’s counselor never sat down with us to go over college lists or applications. I was actually expecting this to happen, but realized in the fall of senior year that it never had, and wasn’t going to. The last time I ever saw my college kid’s counselor was in Feb of her junior year when I think we got the PSAT scores and registered for senior classes. I haven’t met my current junior’s counselor yet. We just worked that stuff out on our own. My kid informed her which colleges she was applying to. Brag sheet? I never heard of this until my kid handed it to me after getting home from some EC late at night senior year and said she needed to turn it in tomorrow. Not much time to reflect on it.
Our public school does not organize any college visits. That’s strictly a family affair. And they don’t even excuse kids for college visits–those are unexcused absences and more than a few days per year can land a kid and their parents in trouble, which makes it extremely hard for kids to do a lot of out of state touring. We have had situations where the school was not providing transportation for an EC, and parents who had volunteered to drive the kids to a college campus for that activity took it upon themselves to organize a college tour for interested kids.
D’s GC for the first 3 years just retired. She never offered any college counseling during that time, other than to hand D a packet of forms to be completed (e.g. the parent brag sheet). Her new GC is still working at another high school and won’t be “released” to come to ours until they find a replacement. We suspect we won’t see her until January at the earliest. So, in summary, guidance doesn’t get involved beyond doing the counselor recs for applications, which hopefully someone else will do for D. I feel bad for kids whose parents don’t have the time or ability to help.
Mistake number one is relying on the GC to guide your child through the process.
D’s school has college nights, tasks assigned each year in Naviance, many meetings on financial aid, etc, and lots of reps come through. All grades are invited to college-related events. But each family needs to be proactive. No handholding here. The school is too big for that.
At my D’s private high school, the process begins in earnest January of junior year after the counselors have completed the application process for the seniors. This includes helping them to come up with a list of schools to begin to to look at and/or visit during spring break.
My kid attends a prep school. In freshman year their advisors map out their intended course schedule for the remaining 3 years based on their interests and college aspirations. As sophomores, they tag along with the juniors to attend a college fair where there are reps and info from about 100 colleges. The college counselors also are in touch with parents around this time. We started our campus visits at the end of her sophomore year. In Junior year, they have a term-long class called College Seminar, which covers everything from how to begin narrowing down choices and making a list, to the application process itself, creating their resumes, interviewing skills, test prep, Naviance, etc. They attend another college fair. They started completing their Common Apps at that time, as well. The college counselors also began meeting with parents during junior year. They were in close touch with the students during the summer – my kid emailed her CC after each college trip to share her thoughts about the visits. The seniors went back to school a few days early for ‘College Boot Camp’, where they focused on their apps, interviews and meetings with the CC. ( For early-bird self-starters and obsessed parents, the counselors are always willing to meet with kids and parents as early as the beginning of freshman year.) It is very individualized. Both my kid and I have felt very supported by the CC during the process thus far.
D’s school has college nights, but we didn’t really find the high school helpful at all. D told her counselor what colleges she was looking at and gave her an outline of accomplishments so she could right the counselor rec and make sure all forms, etc., were sent. That’s better than one counselor who forgot to send recs in on time for about 30 kids.
CC was my main source of information and assistance. And D. D was a force to be reckoned with once she decided what she wanted in terms of college.
@cameo43 - I failed to mention all of the steps that you mentioned which for my D also began in 9th grade with very hands on counseling. That is why by the time the students are seniors, their counselors are able to write them in-depth recommendations since they know them well. There are 4 college counselors for a class of 125. I was speaking of when it starts in earnest. There are college fairs, parent workshops and other activities prior to January of junior year, but that is when they begin to get the undivided attention of the counselors. Trust me, I went to a large urban public school, it was not like that at my school in the 70’s and it is not that way in our county public schools today.
@Tperry1982: Me too! I attended public HS in NYC. There were 1200 in our graduating class, and only the top 50 or so kids had the benefit of the attention of the college counselor. Our kids are fortunate indeed.
At the start of junior year I think the guidance counselors meet with the students in groups and talk about the timing of standardized tests etc. Individualized ollege planning help from guidance counselors begins in earnest a few months or so into junior year. We did a lot of research on our own and started visiting some nearby schools in the fall of my kids junior year to help them to get a good sense of the choices that were out there.
I did not mention that there is a big college night with at least 8 breakout sessions every year of which you could attend two. It’s aimed at juniors, but I went every year. The sessions had 6 to 8 college reps each with a theme. “Selective college admissions”, “LACs”, , “NYS schools (both public and private)”, “SUNY Admissions”. Parents could ask questions. There was a college fair with even more college reps. There was another separate night devoted to financial aid and one devoted to sports recruiting. The NYS Regents curriculum covers all the bases, but certainly schedules were designed from the start to be demanding enough for the caliber of the student.
My son went to private school and beginning in Dec. of junior year they have a class (about 5 kids per class) with the GC that meets once a week on all things relating to the application process through the end of November their Senior year. They work on formulating the list of colleges they are interested in, work on their essays, getting all the recommendations, work on their “brag sheets,” etc. Their apps are all checked before submission (which they do from the GC office.) All we had to do was take S to visit colleges and hand over CC to pay app submissions. We never even saw his apps (including any of his essays.) The school also had strict rule that all ED/EA to apps had to be into the GC office by no later than mid Oct and RD by Dec 1. Also many college reps visited the school during the day to meet with students who might be interested in applying. The GC would often tell the student do go meet a certain college rep.
All parents met individuality with GC during Jan to discuss the app process, their student, etc.
The school also had an evening session for parents of Juniors during the spring on paying for college. Lots of very good info about FA/Merit aid, Fafsa, CSS, etc.
There was also group SAT/ACT prep classes (extra fee) but we chose a private tutor instead.
Obviously from 9th grade on there was counseling on an individual basis about students courses, etc.
He graduating class had 63 students so obviously the luxury and the money to provide this level of guidance.
I have really enjoyed reading all of the replies so far! With my daughter, I really didn’t have any comparisons as she was my first, but bc of our not so great experience, I have found myself researching every angle as to what we could have done differently and finding the CC website has been a real eye opener!
There is only one college counselor for 120 students (a combination of both the junior and senior class). I am convinced that the junior class needs its own counselor and then the students would have a better grasp of where to begin. While I have been through the college process already, and have researched tons of schools for my son as a really interesting new hobby, I still feel like there is so much to learn. When I try and discuss schools with him, I think he takes it as nagging. If the school would get involved in the discussions, he would take it as part of the curriculum and would be more apt give concrete answers.
I have done so much research on schools, majors, SAT’s and application processes that some junior parents have started coming to me for advice and information. If the school decides to hire another college counselor, I am up for the job!
I forgot to mention that we hired an SAT tutor for my son at the beginning of the summer and he has been more of a source of information as far as college information and class selection than we have ever had from the school. He has been worth every penny and then some!
When I was in high school, my graduating class was over 600 and the high school guidance counselor only spoke with us once a year to sign off on next year’s course enrollments. And there was never any advice or guidance about anything college related. It was pretty pathetic.
At the high school where a friend’s kids go, the guidance counselor has never even mentioned or suggested to sophomores that they take the PSAT in the fall of junior year in order to qualify for the National Merit Scholar program. However, my friend’s kids attend a high school in a lousy neighborhood with a high drop out rate & large amount of gang activity on campus, so I’m betting that the GC’s focus is mostly on the troubled students who get into trouble a lot.
My kids’ high school has a once/week class for seniors with the guidance counselor. In September, there are usually 2 college info nights: 1 for seniors only and another for students & their families for grades 8-12, the latter college info night includes a presentation about financial aid along with the regular college application process presentation. The school also has all of the students use Naviance and they walk them through how to use it. The school also arranges high school-site visits from certain typically hard-to-get-into colleges and seniors can schedule their interview with the college representative on site at the high school. However, they have to meet w/the guidance counselor beforehand. And in the once/week GC class, the GC (along with discussing many other college app-related topics) coaches them on how to conduct yourself in an interview, they even do mock interviews, how to dress for the interview, the sorts of questions that you’re likely to be asked. In another class, the school also provides etiquette training to high school students…so that they’re prepared with what to do, which fork to pick up first, how to make polite small talk, etc. at formal luncheon or dinner parties. …the thought being that they want the students to be prepared for some of those big interview weekends that some colleges have where you’re competing with a ton of other applicants for a big merit scholarship and you have to attend a big luncheon or dinner at a large table with a university representative & with other people who you don’t know. I wish that all schools would do something like this.
My GC so far has been mildly involved in my college interests (I’m currently a junior). In freshman and sophomore year, during scheduling, he would ask “What are your goals after high school” (college/military/workforce/etc), and then, when scheduling, would make comments if he had anything to say about the classes I wanted to take the next year. Sophomore into junior year, he asked me if I had a list of colleges I was thinking about, and the already mentioned comments. This Friday, he is going to stop in with the entire grade at some point and talk about the October PSAT. I assume that the nitty gritty college talks will be coming sometime around January, when PSAT scores come out, as well as scheduling the SAT. I know there is a college fair for juniors and seniors at some point. Also, the school has a few college visits set up for seniors to colleges near us.
To my knowledge, my GC is open to talking about college stuff whenever you want, as long as he is available to talk. I’ve asked him about some things by myself before, like unofficial class rankings (they don’t become “official” until senior year… but I’m #7!).
I love our school – each counselor has about 29 seniors (along with the same number of juniors and they will meet with sophomores if asked). Lots of sophomore parents attend the informational programs on admissions, applications, and aid, particularly in the spring. I think we have a particularly good program, but if the school has the resources, then they shouldn’t be waiting until senior year.
Juniors are strongly encouraged to start getting involved in the college search in the fall – most of us took kids to visit a few schools over fall break. Most juniors attend the college fairs and representative visits (although they may have to ask permission, while seniors automatically can leave class). There were mandatory meetings in January junior year to plan a testing schedule, put together initial lists, and start planning visits. I exchanged emails with his counselor through the spring semester to let him know about tests and spring break visits, along with planning summer visits and suggesting additional schools to research based on what my son did and did not like about the visits he had made. By April, every junior had to identify 2 teachers and get their agreement to write recommendations; they also had to give each teacher a form with resume information (and yes, my son’s counselor had already reviewed both of those letters by the beginning of September, because teachers could write them over the summer). They also make the kids fill out resume forms that essentially mirror the common app. so that that information on service, ECs, and awards is pretty much pulled together by April (they also use it for junior book awards). Both the kid and the parents also complete a very lengthy questionnaire on Naviance for the counselor to use for his/her recommendation – it’s ideal for making sure they know about special circumstances and they ask very specific questions about need and budget, so you don’t get kids telling a counselor that money is not a problem…
Before school started, seniors were (very) strongly encouraged to attend half day bootcamps on completing the Common App. and how to order test scores and ask for transcripts to be sent (and they all had accounts by the end) and another on writing college essays. There’s another mandatory meeting with the counselor by the end of this month. He basically helped my son finalize a list and make decisions about what early applications were realistic (my plan to do EA for every school on his list that offered it was adjusted to recognize that it was better to spend more time on the ones that he truly cared about). My son isn’t really going to see the reps visiting his school except to show interest at schools to which he plans to apply (although I may make him go to a few for match schools I think he rejected too quickly).
His school is private and I think pretty good, but it is not one that anyone on CC has heard of. They do take pride in finding schools that fit for every kid. We actually have a high number of fine arts/dance/music kids and a ton that end up at small liberal arts schools that they had never heard of before the counselor told them to take a look, so they’re not just about the high stats kids.
