<p>Many of you gave good advice and/or sympathy when I posted at the beginning of the school year. My daughter is a junior and her GC had quit just before school started this September. He was replaced in October with a woman who of course had to go right to work on college applications for kids she had never even met. Well, the good news is that this GC called my daughter in for a meeting today. She said she had looked through the records of all the juniors assigned to her (about 100) and that my daughter is probably her best student. She said she is going to start now getting to now her and making a plan of attack for next year. She said she wants to be able to write a letter about a "dear, admired friend" next year instead of just repeating stats. Now who knows how all of this will pan out, or if she even lasts till next year. But it sure was nice to hear that this woman is enthused about the job. She even is setting up a time for my husband and me to meet with her. What a change from the others in that office. I'm feeling very hopeful that we'll at least be able to get paper work out on time next year. Something that our HS always has trouble with.</p>
<p>Good news, one! We got two new guidance counselors when my daughter was finishing up her junior year and it was like a breath of fresh air. It really does make a difference. We still have one who is just plain lousy but hopefully my kids will never have him.</p>
<p>1ofeach: Sounds great. A GC load of 100 students is not bad at all for a public high school. Ask your D to do a resume ("brag sheet" as our GC calls it) listing all ECs and summer programs your D has done and bring it to the conference. This will give the GC a good place to start further discussions with your D so that when the time comes to write the GC rec, she will have some personal anecdotes to share beyond the cold stats.</p>
<p>Yes, the brag sheet. Another thing I learned about here at CC. Will try to make the GC's job as easy as possible (and teachers doing recommendations too!) Our guidance office has 3 GC's for a school of 1200. The alphabet is split in three, so each GC has 100 freshmen, 100 sophmores, 100 juniors and 100 seniors. Is this how most schools are set up? I can see how you wouldn't want 1 person doing all the seniors, but a bigger staff would be such a luxury. Then there could be some specialization - discipline problems, alternative education, 2 year schools etc. This is one area where I get so jealous of the private schools. Some of them have such wonderful college application help. But I'll be thankful for this one step. Some new blood in an office that really needed a massive transfusion.</p>
<p>1ofeach:</p>
<p>I did not realize the GC had 100 of each class. That's a lot more. Ours have approximately 250 students each; they follow the same students through 4 years, help with course selection and scheduling as well as with college apps. In the past, they were very mixed in quality. Ours is actually quite good and proactive.</p>
<p>Our 4 GC's have 500 students each, about 100 seniors, down to 150 freshmen. They do keep the same one all 4 years, but . . . my college freshman's counselor had a baby in the middle of his junior year and wasn't replaced for a year. Another counselor he knew moved at the end of junior year, and that left no one who knew him. The new one senior year did a good job of getting to know him (he scheduled meetings and took her a resume, etc.), so it worked out in the end, but it was scary for a while. </p>
<p>We don't have "college" counselors, just the 4 GC's who do everything from dealing with LD's, discipline, drop-outs, and everything else. We have kids applying to Ivy's as well as community colleges. They just don't have time to develop relationships with college adcoms. When we do have one who is really top-notch they seem to get lured away by the private schools. That's one reason I became so involved in CC and the college app process - no one else was going to do it.</p>
<p>ours have about 400 students each. But as it is an inner city public school the services the counselors provide run the gamut. The parent group has begun additional support for students who want help with collect selection and application. Several of the seniors I have been helping are new to the school. I like the counselors and I know they work hard, but I also feel they are biased toward the students who will be attending Ivy league schools, over students who have to be encouraged to attend a community college. The counselors do sound like they have relationships with adcoms, it helps that we are in a city with several great high schools. This school is probably the public school that has the most admitted to extra competitive schools however, even though the suburban schools were rated tops in how many take AP tests in Newsweek.</p>