After serving as a private counselor to my two nieces in their college search, I think it is to the students’ benefit to have someone mentor/shepherd them through the college admission process. Why? The process is complex to navigate. There are really many excellent colleges (beyond the Ivies) that are worth considering. There’s financial aid which kids don’t really fully understand. It requires detective work to find colleges that are generous with merit scholarships and grants - because most middle-class families need it! High school students coming from large, public high schools do not have enough resources in their school that provide them with personalized guidance about the college selection process. If you have a student, start the search process at least during their summer of Junior Year with their test taking and common app essays. It has been very helpful to my niece who is now starting with her Senior Year in high school with a lot less stress because she was able to submit her college applications and finished her essay before the start of her senior year. Now, she can focus on her studies and those pesky AP’s! I suggest finding a close family friend or relative who is passionate about education and who knows the nuances of the college admission process. How did you navigate this experience with your kids?
I spent a good 30-40 hours of my time researching and spending an hour here and there on weekends talking to my niece about her interests and the types of schools she feels like a good fit (we focused less on ranking). We also attended a college fair. We initially came up with a list of 12 colleges (3-4 in the top 100 in U.S. News) and some high-ranked LACs. From an initial list of 12 schools, we have been able to narrow it down to 6! Two safeties and 4 matches (low and high matches or low reaches). Out of the 6, her top choice LAC she applied to as ED, and two as EA’s, then 3 as Regular Decision schools. It is a long-winded process, but worth it!
Probably most lower SES students who are academically capable of going to college need it even more, but are less likely to have access to those who can meaningfully help with the process of selecting and applying to colleges, financial aid, and scholarships.
Totally agree that the students who need the most help usually have the fewest resources available to them. :(.
We were lucky to have great college counseling at my daughter’s school but I started researching schools her sophomore year. I also do alumni meetings for my university so had a good sense of what my daughter needed to be competitive. I also had a friend who mentored me as her kids were a few years older but were also engineering majors. She gave me some great advice that was engineering specific, and also from the employer side as that’s her field as well. Having someone just go through the process was priceless.
I also believed that it was necessary for dd to see a variety of schools - public, private, LAC, big, small, rural, and city. We took our vacation time in between sophomore and junior year to do visits. DD picked which schools to visit first and realized early on what she liked so the rest of my list got pitched and she added her own which we visited.
I know a lot of people say that’s too early to start but for my daughter, knowing what her top schools wanted helped her tweak her schedule junior year, go for a competitive engineering summer program at her top choice, and go after some awards more aggressively. If she had waited until after junior year, she wouldn’t have had time to make sure her application aligned well enough.
She reviewed the list with her GC to make sure she had enough safeties and matches and then started working on the common app. Main essay done spring of Junior year and LORs requested. Her common app was done and sent to all her schools that made her cut by mid August. She spent the Fall working on honors college applications and focusing on her courses and ECs.
DD says the best advice she got was to start early both with looking at schools but also with the applications. All told she had 19 essays to write for 8 schools and they needed time and attention. Many friends thought the common app was it, and then were shocked to find the college specific essays and honors college supplements.
I think many HS students (and their families) do need some level of advice with the college admission process. It doesn’t necessarily need to come from an expensive private counsellor. However, it seems that at many high schools, the GC isn’t quite up to the task. This forum can be a good resource.
For perspective, it may help to understand that most students attend public colleges or universities within about 100 miles from home. Selecting from those schools isn’t necessarily a long, difficult process. It gets harder once you start shopping among more selective, more expensive, more distant alternatives.
To any parent/high school student it is worth attending the Colleges That Change Lives Fair! I took my niece to one of their tours in Illinois (I asked if this was announced at their public high school and she said they didn’t know about it!). If you have a pre-med or Liberal Arts student, it is worth investigating these LACs. It helped me narrow down my niece’s choices after she talked to a few admission reps. There were more than 40 LACs across the country represented.
https://ctcl.org/
We are here to help, too.
I think it is variable: ironically the kids probably most in need of strategic help are middle class somewhat average white/asian kids. If you are really a top student with either/and academic or athletic talent you are probably fine. Average kid who needs money is the tough spot.
Lower income (Pell Grant qualified) students typically need help more than “middle class” (as the term is used on these forums) students.
But then an academically “average” student may be more willing to go to an in state public university or start at community college, unlike many students on these forums for whom such a college is “beneath” them.
I agree @Center - the kids that need help are those who are not necessarily at the top of their class, however - I did have a niece who was at the top 3% of her high school class (graduated summa cum laude) who needed help, to my surprise.She also comes from a middle class family that’s not too rich to pay full tuition nor too poor to obtain significant financial aid. She solely relied on merit awards and luckily we were able to pull it off. My second niece is in the top 10% of her class, does varsity sport, very high GPA but so-so test score. I spent more time assisting the latter. We’re good now - and it helped that we started early. Spending time to research and talking to her a few times this summer before her Senior year helped a lot. She will only do tours after she receives the acceptance letters (in the meantime she’s going to YouTube to view virtual tours of the colleges on her list and to get an initial feel of the campuses).
@boydikoy. I agree that informal college counseling can be hugely helpful. It was for me (on this site) to help to guide my oldest daughter to a school where she would be happy and that we could afford.
I am currently helping my Pell-eligible niece with the college application process. The sobering takeaway point for me was that most of her public in-state options gap significantly with respect to financial need. Even with the Federal student loan, a residential college experience is unlikely to be affordable for this diligent young woman.
She is sensible enough to realize that there is no shame in community college and/or commuting, even if that’s not her first choice.
Yes @mamaedefamilia - there is no shame to choosing a community college! Another takeaway is the annual cost of Room and Board that’s substantially adding up to the costs. Can you imagine an out of state kid paying $10-15K a year for room and board, plus other expenses! When we looked for top schools, we shied away from the West and East coasts. There are many underrated colleges in the Midwest, Southeast, and the Southwest that are $2-5K a year less expensive (from a room and board and living expenses perspective). This is about $20K savings over 4 years…If only one takes the time to research!
To those who have a long list of colleges to apply and keep track of, I created a spreadsheet with application fees, deadlines, application type (ED, ED1, ED2, EA, EA1, Regular Decision, etc). After my niece chose her top 1 and top2 colleges, I was able to create two groups. First group is with the top 1 school to which we were applying ED (Early Decision). We noted that the application deadline is Nov 15, and the decision notification will be sent Dec 15. Her top 2 college (fortunately) has an ED 2 application due on Jan 15. This gave us time at the end of December/1st week of January to apply to her ED2 school in case she doesn’t get accepted by her top 1 school. I really think this strategy improves her chances of getting into either the top 1 or top 2 school of her choice. If she does get accepted into her Top 1 school (and we’ll know the results in mid-December), then there is no need to submit the second group of schools that has her #2 school on that list. It also saves us a little bit of money in the process. Hope this helps.
How was your experience helping your nieces? Was it pretty smooth (did they take your advice?) or was there some resistance. I agree that it can be helpful to have someone in your corner during the admission process, but I also think it’s the child’s responsibility to do their own research. It’s their life and their decision!
Luckily, I have a great relationship with my nieces and they know I am passionate about education, 
But I would still make them decide where they want to go eventually. They trust me so much so that I’ve been referred to one of her friends for college selection advice (for free, of course). I think the secret is to make them have the ultimate decision. My role is really just to give them options that meet most (if not all) their requirements/needs, coupled with some strategy, then they make the final decision as to which colleges to put on top of their lists. These students don’t really have the time to research schools because of their overloaded HS coursework (APs, extra curriculars, writing essays, etc) - so my role is to step into the research part for them and filter the vast information that is on the internet! Another reason I am their private counselor is that these students would rather talk to me than to their parents because it’s always better for the student to talk to an objective third party regarding their college applications than their parents who might mostly base their decision on the financials and put less emphasis on value and overall fit.
Pros and Cons of Strategizing for College by Forbes Magazine:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willarddix/2016/06/28/pros-and-cons-of-strategizing-for-college/#469edca33fdd
Many of the “cons” listed in the page linked in reply #15 look like stereotypical tiger parent behaviors.
I would say the kids who need it the most are those who with low income and not top but still decent academic capabilities, who are likely to be accepted by a good state college with full tuition and living aid, yet so often end up not even considering to apply to them due to lack of information, choose a nearby community college, take jobs to support family living, not finish the long physics and math prereq chain to transfer because of lack of time to study, lack of information, difficulty of registering popular courses, and so many other reasons, and ultimately not finishing college.
Just talked to a parent yesterday - high income family making six figures a year. Found out they need help for their college-bound kid. Goes to show that also high income families need some help for one or a combination of these reasons: high income but still need merit aid, and parents who are too busy that they barely have time to do the research, visit campuses and have thorough discussions with their college-bound kid. Their kid is a high-performing studient, very good (but not excellent) test scores, but with not enough EC’s to set him apart from other applicants. I have my work cut out for me and my challenge is to help their kid get to a selective school that’s a perfect fit for an above-average applicant!
I met with a college counselor a few times and it didn’t end up being that helpful to us. I have put in a lot of time on this web site and many others and have learned a lot. My son is on a gap year and will attend a LAC in Maine next fall. Still have two more kids to help through this process. I think a parent with an interest in the subject can figure it out. My son attends a large public school so guidance is good but they are very busy with so many students. I have also found it really helpful to message people with questions on specific schools. Most people on CC are so helpful.