As a public service to my fellow parents and students, I thought I’d start this thread because it’s been a while since we posted on this topic.
Questions:
What is the average number of students per college advisor at your student’s prep school?
Has COVID impacted college advising at your student’s prep school?
Did you consider college advising or ask about college advising when deciding upon prep schools?
Please share!
12-15, but I think my DD22’s counselor has a reduced schedule and therefore a smaller cohort.
Well, the big college fairs were cancelled, but a couple of the schools banded together to host virtual fairs that got some pretty strong college participation. Counselor meetings went virtual as most of the college advisors opted for WAH. But the biggest impact was to essay prep.
There used to be time toward the end of junior year when a session on writing personal statements could be accommodated in English classes. That was lost due to the synch/asynchronous schedule and the trade-offs required in the lesson plans. Still, the college office did a pretty good job this summer encouraging students to share a draft with their counselors before fall term.
Yes — it’s a college preparatory school, so we looked the advising system and other related factors such as matriculation lists. The school also talked about college advising quite a bit at events like revisit day.
With the caveat that I am trying to be hands off on the college app process (I trust kiddo and his counselor that they’ve got this), here’s my stab at your questions:
There are 4 full time people in the office and 70-75 students per grade. I am not exactly sure how they divide up the duties, but one person does all of the testing scheduling, and one is the head, so I think two are devoted to one-on-one counseling. Things don’t start ramping up for juniors until after seniors have their apps in. So figure 35 students per counselor. But there is more of a team approach than that sounds like.
The basics are the same. There is a college app class the juniors start after winter break, group taught by the counseling office. There is a pretty rigid timeline and check-ins for progress. The differences are that the counselors aren’t traveling to colleges and there aren’t college reps coming to Cate. Everything is virtual. There is usually a spring break East Coast college tour, but that didn’t happen. They have set aside time in the fall for students to do their own trips and have one set up for the California schools. I have regular meetings with the counselor, and they are nicely collaborative, comparing notes in tone. I think a significant part of the counselor’s job is parent management.
Yeah, college counseling was something I thought about, but it seemed to me from matriculation lists that all these schools do just fine. I would have maybe paid more specific attention if sports recruiting were a concern for us. What I have learned so far is that the process is far more nuanced than one can learn from matriculation lists. And it is a “you get out of it what you put in” endeavor.
We did not choose the school for college advising, pretty sure the NYC private schools have a better set up and better outcomes. But still the beef is mostly with the fact that they really do not want to talk to you till mid junior year which is much too late to alter the college destiny in any meaningful way. And the college list for my BS kid is very similar to my city private kid, save for the fact that BS kid would ideally play his sport in college if the stars align. Alas, finding a school that is academic and athletic match is likely going to be a challenge, so very possible that is will not happen anyway.
I’ve come to realize that this isn’t really rocket science (even if your kid is a fledgling rocket scientist), and there are only so many relevant colleges. Recruiting makes it more complicated, as does chasing merit money - but that isn’t the forte of boarding school college counselors anyway.
I am ok with the official college convos happening starting junior year, because every year there have been ongoing conversations with teachers and advisors about educational goals, compatible ECs, etc, which basically equates to the same thing as college counseling. Plus, the list kiddo would have made soph year is very different than the one he has now. I get why the school would want to wait to both get more data points and to allow the kids to figure themselves out a bit first.
I think it all depends on how you define college advising. On this board people say that it is finding the best fit for your child, but I think ‘fit’ is relative, elusive, and for most kids there are a lot of colleges that could give them a great experience. In real world, college advising in private schools is all about helping to get your kid into the school they selected, often parents’ alma mater, or whatever other place they are hang up on for various reasons. If the counselors are lucky, there are 3-5 acceptable options the kids/families would be happy with.
Sounds about right.
I’ve not found it to be the case for choosing colleges and starting on applications and essays. But it is the case for standardized testing. A well-advised plan is to start test prep in the summer after 10th grade, building toward finishing the SAT and/or ACT just before the PSAT. That plan works particularly well for strong math students, who get too far away from SAT/ACT math by junior and senior year. And in the days of the subject tests, parents needed to be on top of getting those taken care of right after the relevant classes.
As for the original questions…
So much information is available online & in widely available books and other publications that I wonder if college advising is as necessary as many think that it is.
Agree to a certain extent, yet we can attest to having received some unique and value-added insights from our kids’ advisors - perhaps owing to relationships and dialogues some CAs/departments have with some schools.
Oh, yes. Most definitely!
I agree, to a point. It is great to have someone ride herd over the process, especially someone integrated into the school. It is nice to hear someone say “kiddo reminds me of the kids who have gone to ________ University”. And hearing someone affirming what we think are matches and reaches is good validation, especially someone who knows the kids behind the dots on the school’s Naviance scatterplots.
The standardized testing timing - it is nice to get a sense of how good of a test taker your kid is in 10th (via psat), but now that the subject tests are a thing of the past, there is a lot less to worry about. I was fretting about the timing last year, but there is plenty of time. I am now glad that kiddo didn’t have to do test prep until the second half of junior year, banged out the exam right after (took it twice about 6 weeks apart), and now he is done. The whole process just took a few months and didn’t ruin any summers.
I have very limited expectations about college advising….and I told our CA the following:
Don’t recommend colleges - some of us actually more about them than YOU do…UNLESS you actually have relationship with college admissions people at target schools. PLEASE don’t give the same list to every girl/boy you think wants to stay in a certain region - the kids compare lists and know what your are doing.
Please update data for Naviance and update the matriculation lists.
Your main job is to write an excellent recommendation and promote our student (who BTW deserves it with their GPA/Test Scores/Athletics/Honors/EC’s/Awards, etc. I know this will be hard for you because you have 36 other students to worry about. Sorry, you are saddled with too many students - but hey, not our fault that 2 people left for other schools. That is why I am asking you to do the minimum, but the most important thing - Keep on the “tail” of the teachers to get the rec’s submitted and please make sure official transcripts are sent.
Please remind/motivate/inspire the teachers to complete and submit the requested recommendations that were submitted 6 months ago. Your help will be greatly appreciated.
Please hire more dedicated counselors - not folks who have no experience in CA, or have limited experience and mainly want to just coach or teach their main subject. Please pay for experienced folks. When we signed onto your school, there were fewer students per counselor. What happened?
The public school we just left, has 1 guidance counselor, who has to deal with every thing under the sun (from discipline issues, schedules, coordination of ACT and SAT testing, IEPS, GIEP’s etc) in addition to college advising, for 250 students. We think a 35:1 ratio is fantastic 
. Advantage to kiddo being a repeat Junior is that she has already taken the PSAT, SAT and ACT. She will retake, did not prep and doesn’t plan to when retaking either. I do hope she connects with her advisor and has good questions to ask.
Surprised to read about difficulty getting time with college counselors at some elite prep boarding schools. Our experience, now a bit dated, was that a student got too much time with college guidance counselors.Ours repeatedly had to cancel scheduled sessions because we did it ourselves. Nevertheless, no one was unable to get access to his or her college counselor at any time.
I don’t know what is normal across schools, but this is how it is going for us, which has been fine:
Things really started after winter break junior year.
Kiddo had weekly classes and one-on-ones. There is a rigid timeline with deliverables. Requests for LOR (end of spring) draft common app essay (end of summer), that kind of thing. There were virtual events with colleges. For the parents there are presentations on the process, financial aid, etc, and a couple of one on one parent meetings.
Now, with senior year there are weekly one on one student-CC meetings to stay on top of deadlines, and I think writing workshops. Plus more virtual college events.
They have repeated the mantra of the kids have to be the ones managing deadlines, etc. Recruiting makes that separation harder.
I can’t imagine wanting to cancel appointments with the CC. While I could schedule all the appointments my heart desires, I am good with the few that I have had (I know the list, the timeline, the considerations in coming up with the list, their impressions of strengths and weaknesses, etc), plus the occasional emails. My kid is the one who needs the appointments, not me, and they are sufficiently on top of it with him.
Here’s my question: is anyone reading their kid’s essays, and if so, giving feedback? I am staying away from that third rail unless asked.
I may have mentioned this above - or on another thread.
There seems to be a shortage of CA’s at some schools - that is what I am hearing from other BS and local private school parents. Maybe it’s pay related? Workload?
On the college side, there have been a few colleges that are currently without regional reps for New England and/or the boarding schools in the Northeast. At a couple of the colleges we visited over the summer there were seasoned admissions folks who explained that it’s been difficult since COVID hiring reps for certain regions. They were kind and said something like “I know your kiddo’s school very well - here is my card, call me if you have questions or want to chat”.
BTW @CateCAParent describes much more meeting time with CA than our kid received/receives. WOW! I hear from kiddo’s dentist more often 
Our experience is quite good! Just the right level of engagement, with info sessions all three years leading up to now to help families anticipate the process and ask questions.
Counselors were assigned ahead of PSAT testing in 10th grade, and they provide feedback on course selections for junior and senior year. There are cohort meetings with counselors, drop-in hours, and one-on-ones. Parents can get a meeting when we want or need one.
DD22 received good nudges from the office on balancing the college list, and there are opportunities for personal statements to be read by the office. There was input on organizing the activities list, too. The advising team meets as a group every summer to chance rising seniors for the schools on their lists, and that calibration goes right into Scoir, where the scattergram is also kept current.
The office has a dedicated testing coordinator.
This fall and winter, as in the past, they will host sessions with refreshments so seniors can come in and open emails and click links to ensure colleges that use digital analytics to track demonstrated interest see the activity…I could go on…
@CateCAParent - agree with you 100% about the essays….I don’t want to head into that mine field. I do like what the King’s school (in Jordan) does for their students. They bring the Seniors back to school a week early, before the start of the Fall term. The students are there to finish writing their college essays and to have their English teachers help with edits. The goal is to get the essays completed before school starts.
I actually don’t know the head count/counselor at Mercersburg, but I think it’s small. The most notable thing about college counseling at Mburg is that they are assigned a counselor as entering FRESHMAN. While CC obviously don’t suggest lists or things like that until junior year, my kid’s counselor went to sport meets, observed him around campus, got to know him at drama productions, ate lunch together, etc. The intent is for the CC to get a really good idea of who the kid is before entering the fray I guess and to be able to write a sincere counselor recommendation letter. I think it’s worked well. I pretty much was able to call/email, and even text, my kid’s counselor since I had so many questions in the beginning. I was very anxious about the SAT Subject tests way back in 9th grade (they don’t even fly under the radar at this point). He told me that they aren’t as important and I shouldn’t worry too much and through the conversation, he realized I was coming from a NYC private school setting, so geared the conversation to that.
While no CC/Office is perfect, I have to say at Mburg, our counselor have been so available and quick to respond to any questions and I would consider the counselor a kind of friend and someone to keep in touch with after graduation. The CC Office wasn’t the driving force in selecting a BS, but it showed us how committed they are to getting it right, and Ivy/NESCAC accept stats be damned. They also offer the kids standardized test tutoring as needed, which also showed me that they know what they are doing and trying to support families as best as they can and make it equitable.