<p>My daughter is a high school junior. They have had a new guidance counselor since Fall 2013.</p>
<p>I want to meet her and requested an 1:1 meeting with her twice. First time was in January. Second time was two weeks ago. Both requests were sent through emails. I also told her that I'd have an international trip from 3/29-4/19. So I said I'd love to have a meeting with her before my trip. Tonight, she dropped a line to me and told me she could meet me tomorrow morning. But I can't since I have an important meeting at work tomorrow.</p>
<p>If you were me, how would you handle this situation?</p>
<p>In addition, if some of you have had meetings with your kids' guidance counselor, would you please share your experiences with us? I have to admit that I am worried about the required recommendation letter from this counselor. She does not know her students well and it seems to me she does not want to know the students.</p>
<p>BTW, my daughter is doing very well at school. Unofficial ranking is at least top 2%. I know, it does not count, 'cause the school only rank top 10%. I know my daughter will have two glowing recommendations from her academic teachers. It's this counselor whom I am worried about. </p>
<p>Our school has GC meet several times from Jan. of soph, year on with student specifically related to college. Then you are asked to schedule at least 4 meetings with GC, parents, and student. At last meeting we were told many parents schedule about 12 of these! Not sure where everyone finds the time.</p>
<p>I volunteered in the counseling office and got to know staff that way.
If you can’t help out during the week, they are often in on weekends, filing, putting together packets, etc.
When you are a known entity it seems to work better when you have questions.</p>
<p>I think it’s definitely reasonable to want to meet with her. Regarding your question regarding how to handle the situation at hand, I would just contact her back via e-mail to find a mutually agreeable day and time after you get back from your trip (or before if she is available.) </p>
<p>If I recall correctly, we had exactly 1 meeting with each of our kids’ guidance counselor. Same counselor, since students were assigned alphabetically. This was not a particularly useful meeting, early in the kids’ senior years. The main thing we were concerned about was whether our son’s getting into an argument with a teacher would be a mark against him in the GC’s report to the colleges. The counselor said no, and in fact he’d known nothing about it!</p>
<p>In any case at that stage neither the kids nor we needed any guidance from the counselor. The kids just needed his good will. We made sure the GC as well as teachers who were writing letters to colleges got a copy of the “cheat sheet” that our kids prepared. The GC’s were pretty clueless. At one general meeting that we attended at the end of their junior years, the GC’s were offering crazy advice like this: “You shouldn’t apply to more than 3 colleges, because if you get into too many schools you’ll end up depriving a classmate from being accepted.” (This is a school in which a considerable number of students were applying to highly competitive colleges, not just to the large state university that’s just a mile away from the high school.)</p>
<p>Our kids never sought guidance from the counselor about the choice of courses or the like. Unless our kids had some sort of social or health or educational issue, we saw no reason to trouble the overworked GC with extra meetings. </p>
<p>Is there a specific reason why you want to talk to the GC? D is at a large high school and she also has a new GC who arrived Fail 2013. Over the summer, I emailed him to request a schedule change and a couple more times thus school year, but I’ve never met him in person. From what I can see, the GC’s may not have time for a meet and greet type meeting. </p>
<p>FWIW, I made sure D made contact with new GC just so he knows who she is. I’m hoping she sets up a meeting with him to go over her college list. Again, the main purpose of the meeting is for him to gain insight into who she is as a student and person. If he has actual suggestions about her list, great! that’s a bonus.</p>
<p>We have had an issue with our GC as well. When she finally gave us a time, my H had a meeting and would be unable to attend. I wrote an email explaining we would need another day/time for the meeting due to a prior commitment. Again she did not respond. The next time I wrote, I cc’d the Assistant Principal. I got a response in 3 minutes. </p>
<p>As others have said, GCs are really busy and this time of year can be difficult for them due to scheduling underclassmen and sending midyear reports. I agree that they don’t need an “extra meeting”, I think there are times when it is necessary to request one. </p>
<p>If you’re worried that the GC doesn’t know your kid - rather than take valuable time meeting with GC yourself just tell your kid to pop in and chat after school and have a question or two to grease the skids. It’s your D that you wanted GC to get to know not you. I know at our school (medium sized public) the quickest way to get something taken care of if for the kid to walk in. If it’s super important I may sent an email with an obvious subject line that says “kid stopping by today (I think) to ask about topic A” That way they are more likely to see it as they wade through emails and have a heads up in case kid is less than articulate or counselor is busy.</p>
<p>My kid goes to a poor town’s public HS and I was originally told by others not to even bother with the GC. However, I did and I am pleasantly surprised. I mostly email her and she always replies promptly. When I needed a meeting there was not an issue to get it. My kid did popped in and out a couple times to say hi and she was friendly and encouraging. Lately I asked her if she can email me a list of colleges and half expected to be told to wait my turn for when the HS officially does that (too late for my opinion). Nevertheless she did email a list promptly and the big surprise of all, that was a darn good list! So no complains here. In the school GCs are assigned alphabetically so maybe we were just lucky. </p>
<p>I attend any information session the FCC office provides, but I never plan/want to meet with my D’s FCC one on one. My D will make appointment and talk to her directly during school hours. Not only they are busy (each one takes care of 100+ kids per grade), it is time to let the kid to take the lead. </p>
<p>Although it may be the norm to meet with parents in some school districts, in others it is quite unusual. Perhaps that is the case with your school? Is there a particular reason you need to meet face to face? If you have not begun with email questions/phone conversations, the GC may find your request, for lack of a better word, annoying. I know that may be difficult for parents whose children attend private, or “highly competitive” schools to grasp, but at many schools it is the reality. At our school GCs are in charge of schedules and college LOR and that is pretty much their scope. Unless a child has a serious academic or behavioral problem, a request for a meeting would come across as unnecessary and demanding.</p>
<p>Except for an extra meeting freshman year for older son we just met the GC (with the high school kid) spring junior year and fall senior year. These were college planning meetings scheduled by the school. If you can’t easily schedule next day meetings send an email saying you need a week’s notice. Our kids handled all the other meetings usually by stopping by the office and hoping to catch the GC or finding out when they’d be available.</p>
<p>I imagine that if your kid is in the top 2% it will come out in the recommendations even if only the top 10% is officially reported.</p>
<p>Wow, I feel for GCs if they have a bunch of parents that want to meet with them. Most GCs are stretched thin, just trying to meet with the kids. If your daughter is doing that well in school, she should be able to advocate for herself. Also keep in mind that GCs are trying to help kids at risk. They are juggling a LOT of balls in the air, often with not much thanks. Sorry I’m grumpy this morning!</p>
<p>To the OP. Are you saying you want to meet ALONE with the GC, without your high school student? Why?</p>
<p>We had huge issues with DS’s GC, but even with that, we never met alone with her. Our issues were presented to the administration.</p>
<p>Also, you say your kiddo is top 2% but that won’t count because the school only ranks top 10%? That makes no sense. If your daughter is IN the top 10% she will be ranked. If you are saying that the school reports rankings in deciles only (top 10%, then 20%, etc) it still will be apparent to the schools where your kid is. Each high school sends each college a high school profile. This includes the RANGE of GPAs for the class. </p>
<p>My kids scheduled appointments now and then to go over various details and I “knew” the kids’ GCs. If you have a specific agenda/questions to discuss, perhaps send the agenda to the GC and reschedule the appointment. It’s possible the GC can answer your questions via e-mail and it might be more efficient. The other option is to have your D schedule the time and take your questions to the meeting, in my kids’ high school they were “excused” from class when they needed to meet with the guidance counselor. I can only remember once where I had a very specific question and I just send an e-mail. </p>
<p>I want to add, if your child is in the top 2%, chances are her GC already knows about her. Faculty tend to know the top 5% and bottom 5% - they often talk among themselves (e.g., gossip) about students who stand out. The GC may not know specifics about your child but she is probably on his radar. In D’s school, the more diligent kids tend to keep “academic resumes”. Whenever, the child obtains an achievement or participates in an activity, she puts it onto the resume. By senior year, the child can then polish the resume and present it to the GC to provide the details he may not know.</p>
<p>OP - The previous comment may be a bit extreme, but I would agree that Public School GCs are stretched very thin and, depending on the types of schools your child is considering, may be of little or no help.</p>
<p>My S who is currently a Freshman at Lehigh attended a well respected public HS with approx. 350 kids in the senior class - one GC for the Senior class. I had learned with my oldest son that we weren’t going to get much assistance from the school on college search. But, the school actually scheduled a meeting for each parent and senior student to meet with the GC during the Fall of senior year. S was already pretty far down the road of applying to EA schools, etc., but we went as requested.</p>
<p>We tried to use the meeting to:</p>
<p>1) Ensure all the proper paperwork was in order for upcoming apps - it was as they were good at processing paperwork</p>
<p>2) See if the GC knew anything about my son as I was interested in how she was going to prepare a rec. - she was nice, but knew close to nothing (even though he was pretty visible academically and athletically in the school) except what teacher’s wrote on their recs. I’m still pretty clueless how she was able to fill out some of the info schools requested for my S’s apps.</p>
<p>3) See if she had anything to add regarding his list of planned apps (Lehigh, Lafayette, UIUC, Wheaton, Villanova, Ohio St, a couple IVY and near IVY reaches). She didn’t. The one thing she said I will never forget - “we’ve never had students apply to some of these schools”. I actually think she had never heard of several of them. It’s a shame because there are a lot of very talented kids in that school that would benefit from being encouraged to look outside of the typical schools they probably know about. I think a lot of kids are unaware of the opportunities that are out there for them. If they become aware, it’s primarily due to the parents or someone else helping the kids become aware.</p>
<p>To be fair to the GC, even though it is a pretty well respected public, I’m sure she spends an enormous amount of time on the large number of kids that the schools is just trying to ensure graduate.</p>
<p>Youngest son is at a private HS and I can tell you the GC support and just overall awareness of the whole college search situation within the school is MUCH different.</p>