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.