<p>What are the counselors at your school like? Mine are pretty bad. They never actually say anything useful. They start talking about college stuff way too late. Like the week before the PSAT's was when they talked about it and told us to study for them. LOL. That's a little too late. Most of the stuff I've learned about preparing for college, I've learned from the internet.</p>
<p>Do you go to a public school?</p>
<p>At my school, all the counselors are extremely focused on getting everyone through the college application process. </p>
<p>In fact, seniors do not have first semester finals because in recent years, people have complained to admin that seniors need more time to focus on getting out those college apps…lol</p>
<p>For a public school, mine are pretty good… if you approach them. They typically won’t approach you and talk to you about your college/testing situation, but if you take the time to go into their office (which is practically hiding in the back of the secondary office), they can offer some pretty good advice/help.</p>
<p>@heartist I go to a publc school.
@CantConcentrate I’ve tried approaching mine but it did not work out well. I got some advice that did not work out well.</p>
<p>I didn’t even know that the PSATs were important, they literally told us nothing but “it’s good practice for taking the SATs later!” I only found out afterward about National Merit and whatnot with regard to that. If I had actually have known, I would have gotten more than 4 hours of sleep the night before… and maybe actually tried to study a little bit.</p>
<p>You have to approach them pretty much if you want help with college stuff, but we have one senior class counselor, and he gets swamped with people around the application season. So it takes forever to get a slot to get in and talk to him. He was decently helpful with me, but I had to figure most of it out on my own. </p>
<p>I go to a private Catholic high school, though, so I don’t know if that makes any difference.</p>
<p>My counselors are pretty good too… if you approach them - i had the same exp with the PSAT… I went to class one morning not even knowing I was taking the PSAT… 3 hours of sleep the night before, I was dead that day… Pretty upset about it, but I plan to retake it and get the merit :/</p>
<p>Mine are very good. My counselor in particular is amazing. He knows every college inside and out and is on the college board. I guess they’re pretty good for a public school.</p>
<p>I had to teach mine how to use part of the common app.</p>
<p>Mine tells me a college in our city doesn’t have a pre-med program when it has the biggest one in our area. Needless to say, I don’t trust her advice.</p>
<p>I go to a public school, but a very, very good one in a competitive state. Counselors here are well meaning but not particularly helpful, in general. There are a few stellar ones and a few lousy ones. Mine’s alright; wrote a good letter of rec, but talks endlessly over the simplest things so I tend to avoid her if I don’t want to be trapped 45 minutes over a yes/no question.</p>
<p>I love my academic counselor. She really sets one up for a decent schedule.</p>
<p>My college counselor was uhm, sort of a procrastinator… (when sending her recommendations, transcripts, etc).</p>
<p>I only have one counselor at my school. It’s a small school, and he’s very good. He will approach students who have achieved high scores on standardized tests and give them extra information on honors and ivy league universities. It’s a public school, too! But very rare. I enjoy him. Too bad I’ll be leaving him in just four months. :(</p>
<p>The counselors at my school don’t do anything besides change schedules. I did all of my college research by myself, I’m first generation so my parents didn’t really know what to do. But I seriously never see my counselor. My advanced/gifted program facilitator, she filled out the counselor portion of my commonapp. Neither her nor my actual normal guidance counselor ever encouraged me to apply to places that weren’t in state.</p>
<p>My counselor is pretty good. She sets up college visits and fairs, gives lots of handouts that give good info about the FASFA, college apps, SAT, ACT, etc. She forces you to go to a meeting with her so you can talk about your college/career plans. However, her one downfall (which is a pretty major one) is that she can never get anything done on time. </p>
<p>Also the one thing she didn’t mention (although she talked quite extensively about college and applications) is when to start the application. I realize that it would have been a good idea to start in the summer now.</p>
<p>Eh. I haven’t really seen him much since freshman year… He’s a nice guy, but I often feel like I’m bothering him (might be in my head, but probably not).</p>
<p>There are a lot of kids in my school who apply to top colleges, so our counselors are theoretically very involved, but I haven’t found that they’re all that helpful. Mine told me that it was awful to retake the SATs (aka, to take it for the second time), and with a few exceptions, they don’t seem to have a good idea of where a student has a good chance. But I’m only a junior, so maybe they’ll be more helpful later in the process? I have my doubts, though.</p>
<p>I’m a junior, so I haven’t really worked with my counselor in regards to college admissions. That said, we have to talk to them each year about our schedules. My counselor has given my sister and me some terrible advice. I am honestly a little frightened that about the letter of recommendation that she will have to write next year…</p>
<p>I like my counselor. Really helpful, but you have to make an effort to contact them first. Once you do, they love to work with you.</p>
<p>@ turntabler That is pretty bad.
@starchywinky That sounds like something my counselors would say. </p>
<p>A lot of you guys seem to have great counselors. Do you have a lot of people applying to top college and that’s why they are good with the college process or are they just awesome counselors? 
At my school, rarely any people get into Ivy Leagues or MIT. The last person to get into an Ivy League was 3 years ago. That could be why my counselors don’t give good college admissions advice because they are not used to people appyling to top schools.</p>
<p>My school is pretty small, so we don’t have a lot of AP classes, hence inability for anyone to get into an Ivy league school. We’ve had one person apply to MIT, but he got rejected and wound up going to CMU instead. I don’t know if the other person applied to any Ivies, but she got into Duke.</p>