<p>how accurate is it? if the counselor says that you will get rejected, is it guaranteed that you are rejected? if the counselor says that you will expect an acceptance, is it guaranteed that I will get accepted? just wondering...</p>
<p>My son's Stats Eval was right on the money, so I am guessing the counseling would be very good as well. Just remember, though, that college admissions includes factors that no one - not even the adcoms - know until your application comes up for a read. Do you have the geographic diversity - or the musical talent they need? What a professional can do is look at all the factors, and give you a pretty good estimate of what the results are likely to be. You will have more information about where you stand, and that is critically important. </p>
<p>Just remember though, that nothing is certain. We just attended a send-off party for UChicago students this weekend. Another parent and I were discussing a certain highly ranked LAC that had WL'd both our sons. His son attends a prestigious private school in our area where the headmaster is an alum at this very LAC. The headmaster was outraged about the results - had kids WL'd and rejected that he was sure would be accepted. In this type of admissions environment, a good counselor will steer the student at appropriate schools, and achieve good results - but will likely be snookered some of the time. This is why you want a good list of colleges - not just one!</p>
<p>That's very true. People at Duke have compared admissions this week, and many people that got into Duke were rejected from Davidson, Haverford, CMU, etc. It's hard to tell- it's such a random process!</p>
<p>
[quote]
The headmaster was outraged about the results - had kids WL'd and rejected that he was sure would be accepted.
[/quote]
Actually that may have been EXACTLY what the college intended. Maybe they were trying to send him a message. If you read books about college admissions you'll see that sometimes a college thinks a HS isn't holding up its share of the recruiting load -- persuading its top students to apply, selling the school to students the college accepts, sending it kids who aren't quite up to the standards of the ones they used to send, etc. In such a case the college may "send a message" by rejecting/WL the kids from that school. I don't know if that's what happened in this case, of course, but it is at least possible.</p>
<p>Uh oh, I am in trouble. My school has an excellent relationship with colleges- it sends stellar students off to H, Y, P, S, whatever, every year. I thought that it will help me a lot, but, then I guess I am wrong.</p>
<p>Oh, that could be true, mikemac. Kind of tough on the students, though.</p>
<p>wow_98 - it will help you, statistically, and probably by quite a bit. But is just that, IMO - a better chance, not certainty. And admissions - because of demographics - is going so be a little tougher for the class of 2006 than 2005. So - just be a little conservative - maybe add an extra match or likely to your list rather than piling on the reaches.</p>
<p>i think that what a councelor at school tells you is very close to reality. High school councelors see hundreds of cases each year and have good experience on what stats/EC's get who into which colleges. But if there is no harm in trying but the 50 dollar application fee.</p>
<p>
[quote]
i think that what a councelor at school tells you is very close to reality.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is not necessarily true because in the end, parents and students hear only what they want to hear. EX: student goes to GC expecting to get into Harvard, GC tells student that you should also have a match and saftety school, some students walk away thinking , GC says I'm going to be rejected, complains to parents, who then complains to to the administration. </p>
<p>A good counselor is never going to guarantee that a student is a shoo-in at any selelctive school because of the randomness of the process. They also know that the process is very wholistic and there could always be some random subjective attribute that gets a person accepted, denied or WL'd.</p>
<p>to reinforce sybbie's point: our head GC was flat out wrong concerning some of requirements for UC, and we're a Calif public HS. But, I would hope that a private school would have highly knowledgeable GCs. </p>
<p>fwiw: Sometimes they don't know what they don't know.</p>