We are lucky to have a pubic school GC who is very good. Not all families at our school are so lucky, but service overall is good. Counselors are assigned by last name. We have ~2000 students and 6 counselors. So, each counselor has about 350 students of whom 80-90 are seniors.
Our GCs say they would like to meet with the kid and parents together once per year for planning purposes. Because the school has ~40% low-income and 60%+ go to 2-year colleges or straight to the job market, few take advantage of this offer. Many students also are aiming for only CSUs and UCs, which don’t require recommendations. So, that lowers their college-related workload a bit. They still have to deal with scheduling issues, kids not passing, kids with social issues, kids not getting food at home, and worse. So, I’m not saying their workload is light.
Anyway, we have met in Jan-Feb with our GC the past 3 years to plan classes for his remaining years, plan testing, and talk about his ECs and plans. She is on top of things enough to have suggested taking SAT IIs freshman year after he took Precalc and AP Physics B. She knows DS17 well and got him into a nomination-only program for just a few kids locally that lets them take classes at our local UC. (Lots of kids take CC classes.) she responds to email within 24 hours and even responded over the summer when I CCed her on a message to the counselor working during the summer.
She liked his college list on Naviance, but didn’t have additional suggestions. We have told her we won’t need financial aid, so I have no knowledge of how she helps families who need to develop a list with financial or merit aid considerations. I expect she is well-informed about that also. I’m happy to have her doing the GC end of his applications.
I think she probably knows almost all her kids if they have come to her office. She’s one of those people who can remember a lot of names.
That all said, we do have an hourly CC with whom I’ve discussed his summer choices and college list in more detail. She’s made suggestions on his summer program essays and will do the same for college essays (providing they are drafted early…). I don’t think our GC would be offended at all that we have someone to advise on essays. The GC has never offered to look at essays, and that isn’t a part of their job at a large public school.