<p>Many of the families Ive advised over the years have been unwilling to admit to their childs school guidance counselor that they are also working with a private consultant. Most fear that the school counselor would be resentful that the family wasnt satisfied with the school services and might thus give their student the short shrift. Sadly, this can, indeed be true. (I even recall one prep school student who claimed that his college advisor warned all the seniors that anyone caught working with an independent counselor would not receive help at school.)</p>
<p>But in those cases where I have been able to collaborate with the school counselor, everyone seems to benefit especially the students and their parents. School counselors overburdened with unwieldy counseling loads can even be grateful that someone else is there to pick up the slack, especially when the student has special needs (or the parents are especially high-maintenance :eek:).</p>
<p>So Id be interested in hearing from those of you who worked with private counselors to learn how you handled this potentially delicate balance. Did your school counselor know about any outside help you received? If so, how did the counselor react?</p>
<p>Did the advice that came from the private counselor sometimes (or often) conflict with the advice that came from school? If so, how did you deal with the discrepancies?</p>
<p>Will follow this with interest as I learned after the fact of some families who used private counselors. We did not. Unless you count me and all the help cc provided. Personally, I don’t think it’s anyone’s business and can see why some people play it close to the vest.</p>
<p>I recall making a point of letting the school counselors know that we were NOT working with a private counselor (which many people do without disclosing in our HS), and would be relying on them, so they wouldn’t assume otherwise and pay less attention to my kids.</p>
<p>There was no “help” to be gotten from our school guidance counselor in the first place – she was a nice, friendly, but way overstretched person, with no particular knowledge of either my children or the schools that they were interested in. Her job was to write an appropriately bubbly recommendation and to facilitate transcripts and other relevant paperwork going from point A to point B. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t know her if I ran into her on the street. So I would no more think to let her know upfront we used a consultant than I would to let her know that I was painting my living room yellow. And frankly, I wouldn’t see why it’s her business anyway. It’s my money, my children, and their college search. She doesn’t / didn’t have ownership of any part of it.</p>
<p>Any suggestions they would have made in terms of places to look – I would have thought of, and more. No, seriously. She wasn’t going to uncover some hidden gem I wouldn’t have already heard about, both from real life and through CC. </p>
<p>To be fair, their focus is really getting scholarships. And why shouldn’t it be? Frankly, I’d rather she spend her time getting some kid the scholarship to Western Michigan U, without which he’ll never attend college in the first place, than discuss the finer points of LAC’s with my kids and me when we have ample other resources to do so and she won’t have much to add to the discussion anyway.</p>
<p>Upper middle class suburban public school, btw.</p>
<p>We were open about using a private counselor which is very common in our suburb. The school (a small private school) counselor not only knew about it but got on the phone with the private counselor a few times to discuss various issues, as the school counselor was not very experienced. There were definitely instances of receiving conflicting advice (which sometimes conflicted with our, parents’, views) and frankly the private counselor ended up being mostly an extremely expensive securitiy blanket - someone I could reach any time with a random college admissions question, who would give their views on the essays, the college list, etc. In the end we disregarded a lot of advice we received from both sides and went our own way (yes, we are high maintenance parents…) but both counselors were useful to some extent.</p>
<p>Sally - I think this is going to vary considerably depending on the type of hs the student attends. If they attend a large public hs - I see no need to inform the GC. The GC will send out transcripts - and that’s about it. The advising is minimal if any - maybe one meeting. At my son’s hs - 650 kids per graduating class - the role they played in the process was minuscule.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if your child attends a small private hs - then I think it is courteous to let the GC know if you are using an outside advisor - just so that efforts can be coordinated. Sometimes families are so caught up in using their outside person that they forget that they still have to work with the hs to have a counselor evaluation and transcripts sent out.</p>
<p>I still don’t get what a school guidance counselor brings to the table, unless it’s a small private school and she meets individually and serves as a de facto private counselor. I can think of nothing on which I would have sought my kids’ guidance counselor’s opinion. Honestly, where do most GC’s come from? Are they from elite school backgrounds and plugged into that network? If not, I don’t see what they add to kids who are shooting for those kinds of schools. “Gee, Stanford’s awfully hard to get into, so you’ll want a back-up.” Gee thanks.</p>
<p>I have no clue why colleges still ask for “recommendations” (“best you’ve ever known,” “in top 10%,” etc.) from guidance counselors. Outside of small private schools, most counselors work in huge high schools with 200 kids to “counsel” and write recs for. Don’t colleges understand this? Beyond sending out transcripts, the counselors are wholly and completely and utterly useless. A guidance counselor in our high school visited Harvard and Wellesley last year for the FIRST TIME in her !5 year career as a counselor, and our high school is the top-ranked school in the State and among Newsweek’s top 20!! We even SENT a kid to Harvard last year!!</p>
<p>The only kids in our school who get good counselor recs are those who have sucked up to the counseler (“volunteer to file papers” anyone?), came by continuouly just to “check in” and otherwise be a total doormat. The counselors just eat this up!! When I visited Davidson once I said that our counselors have 200 kids to write for and obviously don’t know but a few, so why do colleges still insist on this stupid counselor form in all of its particulars (“what three words come to mind about this person . . .”). I asked Davidson, don’t they know this and how stupid and flakey and biased it all is? Davidson said they did know this. So, if they know it, why not stop asking for it (other than for transcripts only). I am not hurling on Davidson here, I am just pointing out yet again another useless activity engaged in by virtually ALL college app offices that make no sense. The only thing that makes less sense, this year, is Stanford’s weird admit pool: definitely making their 2015 class highly experimental with a barbell-like concentration of “meh” minorities and athletes on the one side and jerks on the other.</p>
<p>They probably want the recs more to weed out the really rotten apples than as a deciding factor to complement the stats. I mean, I suppose it is the place where the GC can say things that might alert them to some “other” problems. JMO.</p>
<p>We did let the school know we were working with a private counselor, but they were pretty happy about this. My daughter’s situation is just so strange: perfect SAT’s, dyslexic who couldn’t read til her teens, writes with technology, but rocket science research credits, very odd transcript, etc…</p>
<p>She really doesn’t show up on the naviance. So, it was exceedingly helpful for all concerned to have someone who had some sort of wider experience with various schools… I found the GC more than willing to basically do whatever the private counselor said. </p>
<p>Just as an aside, I would really recommend anyone dealing with a difficult to “read” academic storyline find someone with strong experience and definitely get private assistance. YMMV</p>
<p>We have not employed an outside private counselor and we won’t. Me (mom) did all the research on colleges for a year and a half. Did all the signups for tours, booked hotels, researched until I was blue in the face. Went to visit @10-12 schools or so before S made a decision to apply ED and was accepted. Also believe in applying to match schools, not reach, so that he isn’t overwhelmed with the amount of work expected of him.</p>
<p>Counselors were helpful to a degree. Once I did all the research, they helped with excellent recs based on a three page typed summary I wrote for them about my child’s interests and accomplishments…smaller class size of only 250 kids. Helped to send out all recs and transcripts. Interesting, though, our counselor did recommend the college to my son as a freshman that he is ultimately going to…but at the time he was interested in a different major that this univ. did not have undergrad. He fell in love with this school upon visit, and never looked back! Decided on different majors and will double major come the fall.</p>
<p>I just recently heard that a girlfriend of mine hired an outside private counselor. I have no idea if she shared that with her guidance counselor or not, we are in different school districts. However, going the private counselor route was never an option in this household.</p>
<p>I guess if it means the same as imo, then I’ll just keep using that phrase! I’ve seen it before but had no idea they both virtually mean the same thing. Thanks!</p>
<p>pizzagirl and others - in the world of small private high schools there is often a distinct and separate college counseling office. This office is staffed by people who have worked in college admissions on the college side - so they are intimately familiar with how colleges process and review applications. These counselors also belong to professional organizations like NACAC and cultivate relationships with college admissions officials. Frequently, people who work in this field go back and forth between the high school side and the college side as they work their was up the career ladder. If you attend a small private school with this type of arrangement - you basically have the equivalent of a private college counselor who is able to work one on one with 30 - 50 students and their families. </p>
<p>But if you don’t have this luxury - then it is either do the work and research yourself or hire an outside counselor.</p>
<p>Jerks? You mean to say, you’ve studied the applications of Stanford students admitted early to the Class of 2015 and can say with authority that a substantial portion fit the carefully crafted, highly scientific “jerk” profile?</p>
<p>A group of students at my school who were the only 10-15 NOT interested in big public schools use a private counselor. I know they didn’t tell our GC though. In fact, they didn’t tell ANYBODY. Not other students, other parents; no one! I only know because a girl in this group knew that I was also not interest in these schools and quietly approached me one day in the hall, offering to give me their counselor’s number. Seriously, it was like she was trying to sell me drugs, she was so secretive and nervous about it lol. They said they just didn’t want to hurt our GC’s feelings because she really is amazing!</p>
<p>Speaking of which, I go to a small, private HS and I don’t know what I’d do without her. She is friends (professionally, of course) with so many of the counselors at the schools my classmates apply to (mostly TX publics and other big schools like OU, Kansas State, OkSU). When I started applying for college, none of her other students had ever applied to any of them, so she didn’t know anybody, but she said don’t sweat, she’d get to know them. I sat in her office while she smooth-talked one particular recruitment person who was being really difficult with me (not answering emails or replying to calls when I had questions about Letters of Rec, and this was like in September!). “I’m here with a student who has questions, oh, and we’re hosting a college fair next week for all the DFW private schools, I could get a booth for you or hand out brochures if you want to send them?” The recruitment guy replied to all my e-mails within the hour lol.</p>
<p>We will not be using a private counselor, in part because we have friends who have used them and in each case it was a disaster, but mostly because with the schools junior D is interested in (large publics), we simply don’t need one.</p>
<p>The people I know who used a private counselor did NOT tell the GC. There are some GC’s at D’s HS (a suburban public with classes of 500 or so) who get prickly about it, although I don’t think D’s GC does. I’ve never met with her GC, and she’s only met with him once a year in a large group and once a year for the 5 minutes it took him to enter her classes for the following year into the computer. D is shy and it’s not in her nature to seek out her GC, so I’m sure he’ll never know her. I believe the GCs write recommendations based on info the parents give them.</p>
<p>My conclusions are drawn from the commentary on the (quite extensive) Stanford SCEA thread. This is about as scientific as it gets for an arms-length view of this data subset.</p>
<p>I just want to speak up for public high school guidance counselors.</p>
<p>At our daughters’ high school, the GCs are definitely a value-add. Each student’s GC recommendation is put together based on the input of four or five teachers. So it is balanced and useful even if the GC did not know the student well.</p>
<p>We didn’t really need the GC’s advice in regard to schools, but I thought her suggestions were perfectly reasonable, and they were of course made based on knowing students from our town and their experience with various institutions.</p>
<p>Actually I think our GC’s face an uphill battle. It’s quite possible that they have more knowledge of schools outside our immediate area than I’m giving them credit for. But there is a culture around here, which is that you can get a perfectly fine education at U of I, and a decent enough one at the directional state schools (and hey, both of those things are true!) at a pretty good price, so this whole OMG-I’ve-gotta-get-to-a-top-school phenomenon just isn’t there. Which is not to say that there aren’t kids who get into top schools – but it’s more their individual family-driven than it is school-culture driven.</p>
<p>Plus, a lot of parents say that their pocketbook ends at the in-state cost of U of I, which precludes most privates. (And yes. We all know that if you get into Harvard, it could wind up being cheaper than U of I, blah blah blah. But that ain’t happening for most people.) And with the economy, a lot of people have been saying to their kids - go to the local comm college (which is apparently pretty decent) for 2 years, then transfer to U of I or maybe go to Wisconsin or Michigan. </p>
<p>Even though it would have benefited <em>me</em> if my kids’ GC’s had been all “let’s go talk about elite schools,” they would come across as rather tone-deaf to their constituencies if they didn’t have a primary focus on scholarships and state schools.</p>
<p>I’m with fendrock. We live in a community where only 18% of the adult population has a college degree. Ifi there are private counselors here, I’m clueless about them.</p>
<p>Our four GCs have 400 students each. For the past four years, we have also had a College Counselor (former admissions officer at the local directional school). Most of her time is spent helping first-generation college student kids weave through the college application process and teaching a class in scholarship applications. That is as it should be. How else are we going to get that percentage up?</p>
<p>When our fourth-generation-in-college son became a NM Semifinalist and decided to apply to Tier 1 schools, we asked for a meeting with our GC, the college guidance counselor and the principal. Because we have been involved, helpful, volunteering parents, this was not a problem. They all were glad to help and do whatever we needed to give our son the best shot. Our principal wrote the GC recomendation for our son’s MIT application. (It made me cry.)</p>
<p>If you have a special child in a large school (1,600 for us), you’d hope the counselors and principals would know you and your child. Our administrators make a point of getting to know the “good” kids as well as the ones they see frequently for disciplinary reasons.</p>
<p>As in most things in life, it’s about relationships. People don’t become guidance counselors because they shy away from developing relationships. Quite the opposite. So if you start out as the parent of a freshman and develop that relationship, you should be in good shape by the time the application process begins.</p>
Personally, I don’t think it’s anyone’s business and can see why some people play it close to the vest.</p>
So, it was exceedingly helpful for all concerned to have someone who had some sort of wider experience with various schools… I found the GC more than willing to basically do whatever the private counselor said. </p>