Attitudes of College Counselling Staff at BS

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
1

Hello,

My son attends one of the well known boarding schools that is frequently discussed on this board. He is about to start his third year (11th grade). Up until now we’ve had almost zero interaction with the college counseling staff.

After reading a post from another parent, it was suggested that we take a look at what the BS school sends out to colleges (aka the school profile and transcript). I reached out to the head of the college counselling office to ask for the school profile and was met with a rude and indifferent attitude. She basically challenged me and asked why I would want to see the school profile, and that it was an unusual request. I was a bit surprised honestly and thought this information was public knowledge? She begrudgingly sent me the school profile later but not without giving me some attitude.

Anyway I’ve spoken to other parents at this BS and they have felt the same type of ‘cold shoulder’ from the college counselling office people. They seem almost to be bothered in returning phone calls or emails from parents. I can understand why they would hate parents who helicopter the entire college process. But this brief interaction has really rubbed me the wrong way. I’m really starting to dread what the college application process will be like dealing with these people.

Do the college counselors at your kids BS treat parents the same way? Would love to hear other stories about your interactions with the college counseling staff.

2

It appears that CC is completely focused on seniors until about January of Junior year, when they go into high gear with Juniors. We did get a lot of info at the end of sophomore year (before summer) but that was almost 100% testing related (SAT/ACT info).

I was annoyed last summer that we did not have the ‘Colleges’ tab activated on Naviance. They only activated in the fall of Junior year. They do not want juniors registering to visit with colleges that come in the fall to the school, apparently the colleges tab activates the ‘register to visit college adcom’ feature, and a bunch of juniors registered. I was told that those college visits are only for Seniors (which is silly, I think).

I did not meet with the rudeness you described, but perhaps you should have called (or emailed) the administrative assistant in the CC office instead of the head. The profile is not a secret and was given to all the parents at the CC Junior Year kickoff meeting in January of Junior year.

3

I can echo that college counseling does not get into high gear until around January of Junior year. That said, many of the schools mentioned here have a wealth of information on their websites with regard to the process and both of the schools that my kids attend have the school profile available on their web sites although it may be under the password protected parents portal.

4

I cannot say enough good things about the counseling staff at my kid’s school. She is a rising senior and beginning last January, the juniors took a class called College Seminar which prepared them well for the application process. I only began to be involved in late spring when I met with her CC (my daughter joined us for part of the meeting, so we’d all be on ‘the same page’ as to her current list). Her CC is a lovely person who responds to parent communications promptly and thoughtfully. I will say, though, that the CCs at every school are usually very much focused on the current senior class at least until all the app deadlines have been met. In any case, there’s really no excuse for a reasonable request by a parent to be met with rudeness.

5

At SAS (at least when our older daughter was there), they didn’t start until Thanksgiving Break of Junior Year…and parents come in a day early to meet with college counselors. When she was a soph, I asked about this and they told me that they do this intentionally…I think to keep the hype/stress down until it’s necessary. IMO, I always felt like that was a bit late. Also, at SAS (again, at least in our experience) they don’t give parents remote access to scattergrams…though they will review freely in person. Their explanation was that they don’t want people jumping to conclusions based on an uninformed reading of the scattergram (“But look, someone got into HYP+S/M with an 1890 SAT score, why can’t my kid???”

At Masters, they started the process in Sophomore year, at least connecting the students with their CC and having a few meetings.

6

Forgot to add (and remembered after the “edit” window had closed) that I thought starting Sophomore year (even in a very preliminary way) made more sense to me…and Masters may even have started as early as second semester Frosh year.

7

@sgopal2 Our experience with the college counselors was very positive, but I didn’t reach out to them before I was asked to, so I don’t know how they would’ve reacted had I done that. Were you just asking for the school profile? Isn’t that usually published on the school website? I know most CCs in general are constantly busy and in bigger schools in particular are stretched thin. The head of college counseling in your kid’s school might’ve been purposefully discouraging so it doesn’t become “a habit” for parents of lower class men to take their time away from their priorities. Don’t be discouraged by this one incident. Once a CC is assigned, you will find most of them are professional and do their job well (although I’ve heard bad stories, and things could vary among individual CCs). And don’t be afraid of reaching out to them either if you see the need. To the minimum, you shouldn’t be intimidated by them. You deserve better.

8

so my kids’ elite BS is in the midst of change. They used to wait to begin talking colleges until winter term Junior year, but now with a new head of College Counseling, Headmaster, and others over the last four years, they are moving it back to at least begin talking about planning Academics and ECs beginning Freshman year. This is something btw parents have been requesting for some time.

With regard to the cold shoulder toward parents and our experience: yes, yes, and yes. A lot of boarding schools want the students to drive everything, but as I have said before there weren’t really any aspects of the BS that WANTED parents involvement. I suggest getting a private college consultant to compliment the one at the school.

I also did not like the College Counseling office asking the Junior class for a show of hands for first generation then promptly walking them out of the room to talk with them separately, placing them in a “special” hooked category.

9

My experience was at SPS. We found the college counseling staff receptive and helpful, although we tried not to act like helicopter parents for this or any other request. All inquiries to faculty/staff are typically responded to within 24 hours.

SPS keeps its College Profile readily and publicly available on its website. I know other schools do as well as I’ve looked at them. You can also find various schools college planning workbooks online. I would be perturbed as well if I received the same reluctance the OP did to her/his inquiry.

Although there are some info sessions held around the topic of college planning for both parents and students prior along with some bailouts, the process at SPS generally kicks in January of 11th grade.

I don’t feel a private college counselor is necessary. Between what you can glean here on CC and what should be available to you at your child’s BS, you should be just fine. If your school is not family friendly, I think that is worth addressing (as long as you are not helicoptering and making a nuisance of yourself).

10

You only get one shot putting the ball in the basket. Our kids at elite BS had that assigned college counseling, and all the benefit of College Conf. That said, You can’t beat private counseling for 1:1 attention. Just my two cents.

11

@sevendad. I agree with you. The college search process should indeed start earlier, and freshman year makes a lot of sense. Waiting until 11th grade can make it difficult to change directions. Nice to hear about your experience at Masters - sounds like they’ve got a great attitude.

@panpacific: yes my email was short and I asked only for the school profile, nothing more. Unfortunately for my son’s school the profile not published anywhere that I could find, which is the reason I asked the CC office. We’ve never helicoptered for our son, so I’m surprised to see this reaction. The other interactions we’ve had with the schools teachers, advisors and housemasters have been wonderful.

@preppedparent: I’m seriously thinking about hiring a private counselor as you suggest. Considering how much I pay for tuition, it doesn’t seem like it would be a bad investment.

12

Interesting they don’t make their school profile public like most of the well known BS do. Did the school profile you received contain full matriculation records for the past few years?

13

@panpacific: yes I was surprised too that they don’t make it public. The matriculation choices for the last 5 years were listed on the school profile (but this is already on the school website anyway). I was looking for the average GPA and grade distribution, which interestingly enough was not on the profile.

14

Then you just have to wait for Naviance access to find out…

15

College counselors at DD’s BS (Cate) have been absolutely fantastic - very accessible and helpful. DD is a rising Senior, but started as a new BS junior last year. I was a bit worried about how switching schools might impact her for college admission. They have been very accommodating with all the questions I had prior to starting BS and throughout the year. Although we exchanged emails and met for a short conference during the Fall family weekend, DD didn’t start meeting with her counselor regularly until just after winter break. Sounds like that time frame is common. I don’t intend to use a private consultant as I am confident in the BS counseling staff and the college research we have done ourselves.

16

Our kids school does start the program Freshman year, but its mostly fluff.

I’m torn about this… I’m so glad that my oldest had 2 carefree and college drama/stress free years before junior year’s testing madness and college visiting craziness hit. What I would have liked is more direct advice during the course selection period before freshman year and sophmore year to explain the effect of course selections on future courses, GPA, college apps. There are a few choices we really regret Freshman year, that we will change for child #2. Also, they should explain to parents expectations for AP courses… they are pushing less and less AP courses (which is just fine) but they could give more context as to why so that students and parents of the really AP crazed kids can understand.

Again, can’ t stress the importance that kids really enjoy the experience we are paying for - that is ** high school **. Starting the college process too early alot of times means being disingenuous in club selections and volunteering - doing it for the app instead of because that is what the kid wants to do.

17

Unfortunately second child had a new college counselor that didn’t know the ropes, and “seemed” at least to us to be more focused on URM’s, and helping them to get into ivies. We met with college counselor early senior year and his only advice was “more safeties.” He wasn’t that helpful. We followed his advice and added all the additional UC schools as backup/safeties to high reaches such as ivies, UCB and UCLA, high LACS. But our private college counselor was more interested in MY student and helping us achieve her goals. We just couldn’t take a gamble that said college counselor at elite BS would get us where we wanted to go, and we’re glad we did invest a little more money after investing quite a bit in an elite top 10 BS education.

18

@sgopal2, did you just make this call? or did this happen during the school year?

Our CC was amazing, but we had no contact until after she had been assigned (spring of junior year), we had submitted our parent questionnaire, and she had met with DS. Her suggestions of schools to consider were spot on, her strategy excellent, and she was such a good sounding board for DS that we, as parents, had very little involvement with the process at all (which was what DS wanted.) She was always available, including over Christmas break, which as it turns out, was important because that was when ED results required some that some adjustments to plan be made. And this is why I asked if you contacted them this summer – the CCs have to be “on” throughout the school year – including breaks – and while the rising seniors may reach them during the summer via e-mail or phone – I would understand someone who was miffed by a call (which requires an immediate answer) from a parent of a child who will not be applying for over a year. (Okay, I’ve probably also just revealed why I could not work at a BS – way too cranky.)

Our school does general sessions on the college process/landscape during parents weekend (and also does them for the PA via webcast); this was when I first learned of and saw the profile, btw. The students have input from the counseling office as they do their schedules (with their academic advisors) each year starting freshman year. They have a college fair for sophomores and juniors in the spring, but it isn’t until after all the RD deadlines for seniors have passed that they start working with the juniors one on one. We requested a face to face meeting in May (when the main concerns were WL kids, so not so busy), and found it very helpful.

I know people who did not click with their CC and switched; I know parents who felt that the school was not aggressive enough in "marketing’ their kids; and I know parents who felt that the school wasn’t sufficiently committed to “prestige” schools. Most of them felt that when the process was done and over, though, they were happy with the outcome. (n other words, the peak complaint season coincided with the peak uncertainty and stress season. While a few kids transfer after freshman year, it is very few, so my guess is that they’re making good matches. (I know of another school when 20% of the kids transferred after freshman year, suggesting that while they might have been doing a good job of getting them into colleges, they may not have been picking the right ones for those kids.)

I can understand your dread of this process – personally, I found it awful – but what I’d suggest, rather than worrying about having an adversarial relationship with college counseling, is asking – when school is in session – how the process works, what the timing is, and what is expected of the parents. Most BS have great teams and processes in place, and being BS, they don’t involve parents a lot, so it’s also possible that a fair amount is going on that you’re not aware of (but your child is). If you don’t like what you hear or need to hear more, perhaps you could suggest that the CC team do a session during visiting weekend (or a webcast). The process at our school is better than it was a few years ago, and it was constructive conversations with parents that made it so.

And if I could add one more thing – every HOS I’ve met has commented on how the CC team at their school takes a lot of abuse from parents (not their words, mine – again, they’re more diplomatic than I am).-- both directly and through the HOS I think it’s pretty easy to see how that happens given how stressful the application process is. When you’re happy with a program that the counseling office offers (for you or your child) or a CC’s work, let the person and the HOS them know. It will be appreciated!

19

Personally, I’m opposed to the notion that high school is all about packaging the kids to get into college. At my kids’ boarding school, the college counseling starts in the winter of their junior year, which is just fine with me. I really don’t think that 9th and 10th graders should be choosing their classes based on what will supposedly look best to colleges. Sure, there’s thought that needs to go into choosing the course load, but it should be about what will challenge the kids and meet their interests. So it may well be that a kid should take math course A rather than math course B as a 9th grader, because it will set him or her up to get to some advanced math class by 11th or 12th grade. But I think that choice should be made because the kid’s really into math and wants to really push him or herself, not because it might look good to a college. The message from our school has always been take the most challenging courses that YOU are capable of, find your passions, be involved in activities, and everything will work out in the end. I firmly believe in that philosophy.

20

@preppedparent What kind of tasks/advice did the private counselor provide that you found most helpful in assisting you and your child with the college process? What services were provided that weren’t provided by the school’s assigned counselor? Was your decision to seek a private counselor based on your daughter being assigned someone new to the role or do you think you would have gone that route anyway? Do you think the results your daughter achieved surpassed those of her peers with similar profiles?