<p>After reading books, reviewing the internet, and having access to pages like this, do you believe that college counselors are still needed?</p>
<p>I am asking for results from those who have seen their child matriculate for about 2 years or more. Are they happier by going to a reach school that the counselor may have provided or pushed? Was it worth the money? Was the service necessary -- akin to a music teacher, athletic coach, or other tutorial-type aide in your child's high school education process?</p>
<p>The GC at our son’s hs was very helpful because he had college information which we could not have gotten from books. The hs regularly had college recruiters come in for a day to answer student questions and I am sure he put in good words where appropriate for students attending these sessions. Ya cant get that from books or the internet. In our particular case he was the primary reason our ds was awarded a $60,000 merit scholarship, the Rensselaer Medal.</p>
<p>I think OP is asking about contracted counselors (for a cost). I saw no reason to do it. We were happy with our own research (and both DDs love their schools).</p>
<p>We did not use any counselors other then high school GC.
All 3 kids went to their top choice “reach schools” (kind of schools that are reach for everybody). Two have successfully graduated, and are working and/or in grad school in their respective chosen fields, the third one is still in college.</p>
<p>The diverse response of the last two (klh720 and nngmm) really makes me wonder: Was it the counselor or the kid? In short, if the kid is a diamond, does it depend on the counselor?</p>
<p>I need a counselor to send out transcripts. Both of my counselors have been helpful, though not as knowledgeable as me. They knew nothing of the Automatic 0 or QuestBridge, too huge factors for me.</p>
<p>It depends on the counselor. I’ve known many who did not get much. Yet everyone I know who has used certain ones would tell you it was worth it.</p>
<p>We had 3 kids with similar high school stats. We did not use a counselor for the first 2, we felt safe in the hands of their top prep school counselors who were considered great. Neither of these 2 got into their top choice. We used a counselor for the third and he did get into his top choice. We saw mistakes we had made with the first 2 when we worked with the counselor in spite of reading all the books. It’s one thing to understand that a great essay is crucial and another to know what a great essay to best represent your kid is and actually get him to produce it!</p>
<p>Our kids were applying from an extremely competitive pool where they were competing with lots of legacies, top URMs and development kids, and coming from a much overrepresented area and type of school. With the same stats applying from a public school in Nebraska, the counselor probably wouldn’t have been needed.</p>
<p>The GCs at our school sent out the transcripts, references, school profile and counselor recommendations (when required). They weren’t a lot of help to either of my kids…one a music major (we found that the GCs at schools are not particularly well versed in helping arts majors with college choices), and the other wanted to go to school VERY out of region (we found that the GCs didn’t really know much about schools on the other side of the country).</p>
<p>We did need them for the services from the school. </p>
<p>We did not pay for a private college counselor…and know only a few folks who did. Most did so because they wanted that private counselor to prod their kid along into completing the essays and applications.</p>
<p>We did not use a paid counselor and DS 1 did fine. We are in the process with DS2 and I do wish he had a staff counselor who could go to bat for him (large public school. The counseling staff is swamped). I have read several books by counseling sorts and have picked up good tips. </p>
<p>hmom5, what were the mistakes you made? (If you don’t mind saying). </p>
<p>A lot can depend on the relationship between parents and offspring. Some families have hair triggers and a simple question can be the start of WWIII. In that case, an outsider might manage the process better. The student might accept advice from an outside expert that would not be accepted from a parental unit. </p>
<p>Our team is too broke for expert help. We are muddling through. DS1 is at Dartmouth and is happy, happy, happy (third year). What was interesting was that he was turned down by a couple of schools that I later realized would not have been a good fit. It really boosted my confidence in the admissions officers.</p>
<p>I applied in 2002, and did not have any assistance from counselors, whether paid or school-provided, other than the required recommendation letter and sending of transcripts/school profile from the GC. Neither did my sister, who applied more recently. We both did fine.</p>
<p>I would expect that counselors are most helpful for first-gen students, who have never been able to turn to their parents for college advice, and poor students, who might not have a computer at home with which to read info on the Internet, or be able to afford the relevant books (of course, there is always the library, but the process will last longer than a check-out period for a book). Unfortunately, I suspect that those students are less likely to get counselor help.</p>
<p>Our mistakes were in ‘positioning’, not helping our kids stand out from a very crowded pool where many kids looked just like them on paper.</p>
<p>The kids’ mistake was what they wrote about in the ‘essays’ and the ‘voice’ they wrote them in. They were too serious, their subjects did not show their personalities or info about them that was not apparent from their resumes. They didn’t realize the mission was a simple one–to make adcom like them and see them on their campus.</p>
<p>I was really surprise at how my DS2 was redirected in the essay effort. I would never have thought to choose the subject or the tone. And I was a regional rep back in the day! But what we learned was that times have changed, the adcom are reading 20K plus applications about ‘my success at MUN’ and ‘what I learned being student council president’ and even ‘how I placed at Intel’. The very different essays become memorable. </p>
<p>That concept and subject development was by far the greatest value of the services we paid for. Once that’s done, smart kids can run with it. The list development, nudge to get applications out, etc., I would not pay for again.</p>
<p>There is a fine line between “tweaking” the essay that a student wrote, and getting so much help on the essay that it no longer represents the student’s work. Back when I was applying, students could get proof-reading help from parents or GC’s, but someone else suggesting a topic or the voice for the essay was considered too much help.</p>
<p>I guess the rules are different now. I’ll keep that in mind with my kids’ essays.</p>
<p>I don’t think it was ever “too much help” for a knowledgeable person to sit down with a kid, review his interests and activities, and suggest what they think he may want to emphasize to colleges. Or to suggest a less formal style of writing.</p>
<p>No different than the threads here telling Asian applicants not to write about math and science. Only in this case from more credible sources. Sometimes we just don’t see what a stereotype we are and what we need to dispell. That was certainly true in our case.</p>
<p>As far as college counseling goes, no. Both of my kids’ counselors were pretty knowledgeable, but they did recognize that my kids didn’t need any assistance. Eased up their workload a bit.</p>
<p>D’s counselor was not informed as well as I. And it is understandable, he had many more kids to do research for. I believe, conselor is needed for application / recommendation, not for making list / advice on school matches, and so forth. It is family responsibility, and you better be informed. I found info. by accidents that was not anywhere on specific websites / books,… Just Googled a lot and digged up and verified and sent emails to admissions and so forth. D. (college junior) is very happy with her choice of program that even local parents (from the city where her college is located) were not aware of. Go figure!</p>
<p>One big problem with hired counselors is that, unless you have recommendations, you don’t know how goood they are until it is too late. If you are in an area where counselors aren’t commonly used, it can be hard to get advice on who is good.</p>
<p>Agree, there are a lot of jokers out there. My sister sent her DD to talk to one in their area and he turned out to be a former high school counselor who had been laid off and knew nothing. </p>
<p>It’s not hard to get the names of good counselors who work remotely. I’m noticing some keep a low profile though, with some of the good ones not marketing themselves with websites. Although I now get frequent emails from a big name we used briefly 2 years ago when she could only fit us in for a limited program for my youngest who’s now a sophomore. Business must no longer be robust, we could barely get her attention then-- but no surprise there at her prices.</p>
<p>For some, this is worth paying a few hundred (or even more). Many times what comes out of a paid consultant’s mouth is heeded by the kid who derided the same words from Mom and Dad’s mouths. We didn’t use a paid consultant (and our public HS counselor had never even heard of any of the schools on D2s list), but then none of her preferred schools were big reaches. If you can afford it, and if your kid wants to go to a school where few from your area apply, it might help (assuming the paid counselor knows about that school…) Big assumption, and I’m not sure how you would screen for that…</p>