Great comments/ insight everyone! I’m always thrilled with the wisdom people give. It is so helpful and always appreciated. Thank you!! Xoxoxo
So just found this… might be useful? Food for thought anyway.
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■/the-ivy-coach-blog/college-admissions/boarding-school-college-counselors-play-favorites/
@DrPrimo that article is from 2018…
@DrPrimo , seriously? A blog post from a private college counseling service that wants boarding school parents to hire them? Zero credibility.
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I can’t even finish that article. As someone that is a member of IECA and various ACAC organizations, that college counseling service should be embarrassed by that post. The attitude toward other college counseling professionals is gross and the language/tone of the writing is awful. I would not want to hire anyone that sounded like that.
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Really? That’s me being naive I guess. I’m glad you are setting me straight!
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@RoonilWazlib99 I took one for the team and read it completely. Just wow. I am embarrassed for them too. I have to wonder: did this post possibly lure in business? It’s so bad that it feels borderline predatory; relying on a truly clueless parent to buy into the gaslit-notion that most CCs are not only incompetent, but actively working against your unhooked, unconnected kid (so here is how to even the score – by hiring us!). Ugh. It’s repulsive actually. As I say to my kids, when you are being sold an idea, whether through an advertisement, an IG post, or a poorly-written blogpost, ask yourself: who stands to make money off me feeling fearful or crappy about myself.
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I will read the full article later but i will say from various friends who have gone through the process in BS and in top manhattan privates - it is a bit tricky to simply rely on the CC (some of these schools have well endowed parents $$$ and board seats (on top of legacy or athletic angles) etc and definitely being unhooked excellent student is not going to get you the results you think
Having said that - i am pleasantly surprised with our BSs CC assignment - i dont feel the need to hire anyone external at this point or earlier. This DD24 is intrinsically motivated and driven so i dont need to add any more stress
My DD22 wasnt so driven and her private school CC was atrocious and checked out - i was her CC - haha
I do know kids who start with private CCs in middle school to build the portfolio and summer activities (research for instance) that will all lead to a cohesive complete story - and the kids do their parts by excelling and getting tutored to achieve the A+s needed
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Didn’t hire a CC nor did the families we know. Ultimately, we were pleased with the CC office. However, we were engaged and did research on our own and asked lots of questions and held the office accountable for everything from their input on lists to feedback on essays.
We do know a family with a student at a different “GLADCHEMMS” school who hired a counselor and said it was a waste of money. That family found that the school’s CC office did a good job.
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Isn’t part of what the parents are paying for at an elite boarding school the dedicated college counselors who are much more familiar with highly selective colleges and can nudge the student to apply to those of which would see the student as a good fit from the college’s point of view, which the student may not have otherwise known or heard about in their local public school with a counselor who handles hundreds of students and not just on college issues?
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i don’t understand this example. what did you tell the father?
This isn’t what we originally thought we were paying for – that was a richer academic experience with a much more diverse and engaged community than we had at our LPS. College placement had nothing to do with why we chose BS.
But yes, it was a huge “bonus” to have a CC who could not only spend time with my kid but also with his teachers and friends – one who could say as a result “xyz is probably not your kind of place”, who could help him find alums who would host him for a night to explore the vibe of a school, who could push him for a better common app essay, who could talk to BS coaches about whether he’d fit into certain college programs, etc. She understood which dots in naviance had special hooks and which elements spoke to different AOs, and most of all, how peers from his school had fared recently. This frankly was invaluable. Someone who has seen hundreds of applications from your school is ideally suited to provide you with guidance, better than an independent CC.
Personally, we had no experience with being pushed away from certain schools by the CC. We were encouraged to look at schools the CC thought he’d like and would like him in return. I have heard of CCs, (not at our school btw), suggesting that a student who is considering Princeton, for example, consider Yale because there are 8 other classmates who are Princeton fac-brats and mega-donor legacies. That sounds wise and helpful. I personally don’t believe that they would divert stronger student A to allow wealthy donor’s student B a shot at a top school. That sounds risky and potentially a disaster for both.
I’ll also add that this service varies from school to school. DS had classmates with siblings at other schools, and they can vary in how they provide this service.
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Our kids went to an independent day school. You need to be cognizant of where the CC can help and where they cannot. We had an excellent CC that we absolutely loved. But the CC wasn’t helpful for us making college lists because my kids were STEM kids with strong opinions themselves about the various schools, and the CC wasn’t knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the STEM departments/majors my kids were interested in at the various places. I think they may have been significantly more helpful for humanities or non STEM kids. I suspect the lack of STEM expertise is pretty broad amongst the CC community. But the CC is excellent in everything else – making sure the kid is on schedule, reading the essays for tone and cohesiveness, and giving feedback on how these essays would be read, summarizing reccs that are over and above the max allowed two reccs, getting other feedback from the rest of the school to write their own recc etc. I think my kid walked into the CCs office about 25 times from Feb to November, and must have sent drafts tons of times with quick turnaround between an hour and half a day.
I have a friend whose kid went to a different day school that hired an external CC – they found the whole process lackluster. I think their external CC was incompetent.
Of course you could have cases where the inhouse CC is incompetent (we’ve had several at our school) and the external CC could be better. ymmv.
Certainly varies by school. Ours served STEM kids really well and was dialed into programs at all levels of selectivity. But there were lots of kids every year looking for those schools. It’s always harder if you are one of a few.
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More important than knowing which colleges have what STEM programs (this is trivial for you to figure out yourself) is the skill to craft a narrative and pitch an unhooked STEM kid to a school of your choice.
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In brief, that the academics were more demanding at Hamilton College than at Skidmore and that the daughter should have had much better options based on her qualifications and her interests and goals.
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I thought about this topic more last night. Again, I have not observed families using private counselors at my kids’ schools, but I bet it has become easy for BS families to use a private college counselor in recent years with zoom and with student cell phones becoming ubiquitous.
It might be hard to tease out if there has been an increase because the use of private college counselors may have increased across all types of schools that serve upper middle class families including private and public day schools. That is my guess anyway (though I don’t know for sure). If so, maybe BS parents using private counselors has increased at the same rate as day student counselors. Or maybe more BS parents feel the need to hire private counselors simply because the parents are not local and thus can’t help their child with process themselves. I wonder if the BS parents who use such services try to hire counselors who are local to the school or if they hire people in their own cities and the kids work with them during the summer and school breaks.
Still before zoom (and when families had to pay long-distance phone bills if their children called home from BS), and might have been just logistically harder to have a private counselor help in the ways that they can now. OTOH, I can’t get one of my BS kids to return my calls in a timely way even though it is completely free. I’m lucky if I get monosyllabic responses to my texts from that kid! So just because technology has made contact/communication across distances easier these days than 10 years ago, it doesn’t mean that communication between teens and adults is more frequent 
.
At the 3 schools we are most familiar with, we estimate 50% of the students have an outside college counselor. Some even have 2 - one for essays, another for the rest. Athletes and those on financial aid quite often don’t, but the athletes may have SAT tutors or recruitment consultants.
Of these 50%, the outside college counseling is not really that focused on creating a college list of reaches/matches/safeties - the boarding school counselors do this pretty well. The service is mostly focused on creating the college application thematic narrative, which can begin in freshman or sophomore year, providing essay help, guidance on ECs, and advice on intended college major to maximize acceptance. Some of the outside counselors are modestly priced, and some are extraordinarily expensive.
One thing that you should be aware of is that prep schools might have their own policies about private college consultants.
Read through my kid’s school’s guide for parents of juniors this morning, thinking of this thread. There is a short section on private college consultants. The school is pretty direct that it is expected that the students use the school’s CCs, “trust the process” and that if one insists on hiring a private CC, their role should be limited to helping procrastinators who need excessive help in getting back on task and applications completed on time. Paraphrasing, of course.
My kid doesn’t go to a GLADCHEMMS school, but I would be surprised if those schools didn’t have some policies on the subject.
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Sure, theoretically, the CCs at “elite” boarding schools should be good at their jobs and it is all part of the tuition paid. However, I do not begrudge families that decided they also wanted a private counselor. In the case I mentioned, the family did not want to leave anything on the table when it came to college admissions. It’s their money and process to navigate. The parent in question was not upset at all about the investment, just said it was a waste.