<p>To me the reason to hire a private counselor (or educational consultant) is if your kid has some transcript "issues" and you are not at a private school which can deal with these. My son had a former classmate who bounced out of a private Texas prep school, bounced out of a couple of boarding schools and wound up graduating from a private "alternative" school in Texas. He was bright, but there had been some drug problems and severe family dysfunction. The educational consultant was pretty plugged into one top 30 LAC in the mid-south and also was able to talk to the admissions folks at a southern university and explain the situation. The kid chose Tulane, wound up at the LAC when Katrina hit, got kicked out of the LAC that October and is about to graduate from Tulane.</p>
<p>Northeast mom, I know several kids similar to your son's friend and I wouldn't be so sure that mom and dad's money can buy his way into a place where he wouldn't have gotten in anyway. Colleges like Lehigh, Bucknell, Dickinson, Conn College, Hamilton, which used to be nice safe havens for B students who had parents with money, are now quite competitive. The schools work actively on geographic and ethnic diversity, and the days where a so-so kid from a private school in the Boston or NY metro area who could pay full freight would leapfrog over a signficantly more talented candidate are in the past.</p>
<p>Funny, I was thinking that Lehigh or Bucknell would be the type of school that he would get into as an ED applicant/no FA application. It will be interesting, and when the time comes, I will be watching. It will be a few years.</p>
<p>wowo, this crayzmo</p>
<p>If I could contact every parent of a high school freshmen, I would tell them this one dirty inside secret regarding college admission:</p>
<p>Outside of the the ivys and maybe another dozen schools, the vast , vast majority of colleges use UNWEIGHTED GPA for both admission and for scholarships. They don't really take hardness of the courses into account!! Say that five times.</p>
<p>My son took almost no honors courses. He graduated with a very high GPA and qualified for all kinds of scholarships from our local state university, and got into their honors programs. My daughter, who had about a .25 difference in GPA took all honors and APs. She got deferred from our local state universities and didn't get nearly as many scholarship offers. Both had similar SATs and ECs. </p>
<p>I have seen this too many times to count where schools use unweighted GPAs without taking into account the toughness of the courses. I even addressed this to some admission officers who private noted that "they can't evaluate the toughness of honors courses. Thus, they don't have a way to weight them properly. Moreover, with the large number of applicants, using unweighted GPAs is the best , most efficient way and provides a good standard of comparison."</p>
<p>Bottom line: if you have a kid that can get "A's" in honors courses, go for it. If they can only get "B's" or "B+'s" in honors courses but can get "A's" in regular courses, take the regular courses! It really does make that much of a difference.Don't believe the hype that high schools and guidance counselors are spreading about the need to take honors courses and how colleges look that these with greater emphasis. This is a fraud use to boost the high school's ratings.</p>
<p>taxguy, for some schools I absolutely agree with you. To top it off, there are some schools (think your son's public was one btw) who use a chart. The chart has SAT/ACT scores and gpa. The gpa could be from a horrible hs that gives out As like candy, or from a top high school within the state. It does not matter. The gpa is all equal on that chart. So, a kid applying to a 40k private school with a 1400 (m/v only) and a 3.2 might not get a scholarship, but the student with 1050 and a 4.3 from a high school with an easy grading system (perhaps 30% go onto 4 year colleges) might get 12k per year.</p>
<p>Other schools do care and reward honors and AP classes. Some schools do not tell you who gets the money. It might be the kiddo with an uneven SAT score. For example, English might be a 720 and math just falls in the midrange at 550. That student might get the 15k in merit aid at a 2nd tier school. It might also be the male student at a heavily female private school who offers geographic and ethnic diversity with some leadership skills, with gpa and and scores that might be in the lower 25%.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Bottom line: if you have a kid that can get "A's" in honors courses, go for it. If they can only get "B's" or "B+'s" in honors courses but can get "A's" in regular courses, take the regular courses! It really does make that much of a difference.Don't believe the hype that high schools and guidance counselors are spreading about the need to take honors courses and how colleges look that these with greater emphasis. This is a fraud use to boost the high school's ratings.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unless, of course, your kid actually does want to go to one of the schools that actually does care about the rigor of the curriculum. (Of course, even there, the candidate only needs a curriculum that is "rigorous enough.")</p>
<p>Or cares more about learning than chasing a GPA.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Or cares more about learning than chasing a GPA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Precisely!</p>
<p>I am in this boat with my D. She has test anxiety (and every other kind of anxiety) issues, but refuses to take regular college prep classes just to boost her GPA. We are perfectly happy with her B+ in almost all honors and APs</p>
<p>
[quote]
Or cares more about learning than chasing a GPA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, very true.</p>
<p>(It's interesting to me, though, that most people will agree that there is more learning going on in the honors/AP classes, but refuse to admit that the same thing holds true once the same students enter college...)</p>
<p>My first two sons were Ivy League athletes. My third son is also an athlete but is not being actively recruited. He is ranked 10/1150 in his class and has a 34 ACT. There are literally 10,000 other applicants with these statistics applying to Ivy League schools. The counselor will give him an edge with admissions and an edge is all he needs. It really isn't that crazy. I am spending the amount that I spent for a counselor on my third son that I had spent on my other two sons for sport recruitment camps (camps where coaches come to recruit players) This program seems very reasonable and I think that it is very worth the money. I would hate for my third son to miss out on what my other two sons have gotten. Ivy league schools offer a wealth of resources and a network that simply cannot compare to other schools. it is a very tight nit organization and he wants to be a part of what his brothers got to do. </p>
<p>I signed him up at a college counseling service today for the summer session. I hope everything works out!</p>
<p>Lax, I agree that your DS is the perfect candidate for a little private counselor positioning. At the schools that take fewer than 15% and the majority of applicants are qualified, applying savvy nuances may well push him in.</p>
<p>I think there are many schools with networks comparable to those of the Ivy schools. I also think there are many other schools that offer a similar educational experience. My older child wouldn't have gone to an Ivy for anything, and my younger child attends one. It offers a lot, but it is not academic paradise by any means. He's happy and doing well, but I think there were a number of other schools that would have been just as good for him.</p>
<p>S made a point of noting in an additional info section which courses he took were post-AP, etc. Heck, his transcript doesn't even say Bio or Chem! BC Calc is not listed as BC Calc! They have other names related to the program. If the adcomm reads the school report for the program and puts two and two together, he/she might reason it through. but with a 15-minute preliminary application review, I wouldn't count on it. The school gives plenty of info, but doesn't make it for folks to discern the challenge level.</p>
<p>S found this out at an interview for a major award where he was asked about courses he had taken and they commented "Oh, you haven't taken Bio or Chem." He had to point it out.</p>
<p>On applications, he was sure to note what classes were AP- and post-AP level in an additional information section.</p>
<p>S1 just wanted to be challenged. The grades were irrevelant (but he did best in the hardest courses).</p>
<p>I would really appreciate greater clarification of this issue. Most of the top tier schools tell you that they're looking for students who have taken the most challenging curriculum offered by their high school. We've understood that to mean that if your high school offers a broad range of honors and AP classes, and ours does, no student is getting in to those schools if they haven't taken more than a few honors and AP classes. On the other hand, these same top schools tell you that you also have to do well in those challenging classes. There are always kids who can do that. </p>
<p>It is the kid who wants to take and belongs in the highest level class, but will likely be a B+ or A- student who has the dilemma. What should he do? Our D is like that, and she's chosen to learn more even if it means a lower GPA. Would this then be the type of student who could be helped by professional packaging? Someone who could shed light for the ADcoms on how demanding the AP's are at our school, etc. </p>
<p>S took more AP's than anyone in his school had ever taken. It hurt him for scholarships based on unweighted GPA's, though, since he got a number of A-'s and had to compete against kids who got solid A's in only the honors level. There was no comparison between the classes in terms of the demand and difficulty. But his GPA did not seem to hurt too much for admissions.</p>
<p>I believe we will need the private GC in a few years just to find the right fit for my son and take the parent/child tug of war out of the equation. Despite the wealth of knowledge that I am acquiring here on CC, my son will not "hear" what I have to say about fit and match colleges for him. He will listen and heed if "the pro" tells him that he really has little chance of admission here or there and may need help finding his "voice" in his essays (since written expression is NOT his forte). I am only thinking about it this early because he has NO hooks or passions yet. On paper he dosen't stand out in any way (other than GPA). He will not listen to my recommendations and I can see the writing on the wall already this far in advance when it comes to elite college admissions.</p>
<p>GFG- and what if the counselor tells you your daughter would have been better off taking lower level courses and getting straight A-s? Not like you get a do-over on Freshman and sophomore years at this point!</p>
<p>You've written before about the intense pressure your daughter has felt in your HS and community, with grinding competition and prestige consciousness. What message do you send her now by getting her "packaged"... that her own package is inadequate? That you will be profoundly disappointed in her if she ends up at Vasser and not Amherst, or JHU and not Columbia?</p>
<p>In my mind, the kids in these pressure cooker schools are the ones who benefit the least from the packaging... how many slick applications will the adcoms at XXX college get from your HS, and how can your daughter's slick application from the same consultant who just packaged 40 other kids stand out in any meaningful or honest way?</p>
<p>Have her write an essay on how she likes to bake on rainy afternoons or learned how to knit from her grandmother and let the chips fall where they may. Tough enough being a kid these days without being made to feel that you're too stupid to fill out your own applications and put together your own college list.</p>
<p>For all the talk about the importance of the essay(s), I am confused by the huge number of "chance" me threads and yet little concrete advice on the illusive essay. If it is so vital to selective school admissions, one might think that with so much other advice and insight on CC this would be a major theme. Saying the rural HS English teacher hasn't a clue about what Harvard or Stanford are looking for in an essay doesn't really help unless it is also revealed what they are looking for.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is the kid who wants to take and belongs in the highest level class, but will likely be a B+ or A- student who has the dilemma. What should he do? Our D is like that, and she's chosen to learn more even if it means a lower GPA. Would this then be the type of student who could be helped by professional packaging? Someone who could shed light for the ADcoms on how demanding the AP's are at our school, etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>GFG -- It is not the job of an independent consultant to explain the curriculum at your school. He/she has no first-hand knowledge of what goes on in the classrooms. Shedding light on the curriculum is the sole province of the high school guidance counselor.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I'll buy that the "vast majority" of schools don't take the difficulty of HS courses into account, but the exceptions are far more numerous than "taxguy" supposes, and they include pretty much all the elite private universities, most highly selective LACs, and some of the most selective public universities. Want proof? In an exemplary display of transparency, the University of Michigan posts on its website the actual rating sheet it uses to evaluate applicants:</p>
<p>along with its "grading" system:</p>
<p>Office</a> of Undergraduate Admissions: Application Review</p>
<p>and a more detailed explanation of what reviewers are supposed to look for in each category:</p>
<p>Office</a> of Undergraduate Admissions: Application Review</p>
<p>It's clear from these materials that as far as the University of Michigan is concerned, undergraduate admissions is not a matter of applying a simple matrix of SAT/ACT scores and unweighted GPA. The strength of the high school matters; but so does the strength of the individual curriculum taken by the individual student and other evidence of the applicant's motivation, character, academic passion, and special circumstances. A student from a strong high school who consistently avoids taking the hardest courses will stick out like a sore thumb, and is less likely to receive an "outstanding" or "excellent" rating in the all-important "Secondary School Academic Performance" rating category, even with a high GPA, than the student who excelled in the strongest courses available to her. There's also the potential for such a strategy to adversely affect teacher and counselor recommendations, a separate evaluation category on the Michigan rating sheet; and to count as a negative in the broad "evaluative measures" category which includes things like "depth in one or more areas of academic interests," "evidence of academic passion," and "intellectual curiosity." Finally, evidence of this strategy almost cries out for the evaluator to ding the student one last time in the catch-all "overall comments/recommendations/reservations" section of the rating sheet.</p>
<p>In short, applying all these consideration to the final recommendations, it's hard to see how a conscientious evaluator could make a recommendation higher than "Admit with Reservations." That's not to say the applicant would necessarily be rejected. But at the University of Michigan, at least, boosting your GPA by taking easier classes would appear to be a highly risky strategy come admissions time. And I'd venture to guess the same applies at most of the roughly 50 or so elite public and private universities and LACs that are more selective than Michigan in admissions.</p>