From 2005: Your Guidance Counselor may be steering you wrong

<p>I originally posted this story in April of 2005 about our experiences with our <em>challenging</em> son and our even more challenging high school guidance counselor. Our son is now finishing out his junior year at NYU with a double major in Philosophy and Math (he was called a "slacker" in HS) I'm back here at CC because I'm now helping out a neice in a similar situation </p>

<p>anyhow,I thought a repost of our story may be of value or encouragement to some.....</p>

<p>repost:</p>

<p>I know much of the attention on these boards are about straight A students getting into IVY's and other well known colleges. But we discovered success is obtainable for the under achievers regardless of what you may be told by your GC</p>

<p>Guidance told my kid during his Sophomore year that he would never get into a 4 year college with an 83 average and that he should plan on attending a Tech school or a Community college. My son's reaction was then why bother with high school if he can't go to college? he wanted to drop out and play bass in a metal band. My wife being the brains of the family had him meet with admissions at a local 4 year college who informed him that an 83 would indeed get him into a 4 year college. They gave him a tour and let him attend a music composition class, he was hooked!. The college also informed him of a program where a HS student can take an intro course in certain subjects and receive graduation credit for it.</p>

<p>After fighting tooth and nail with the GC who said that college programs were for the "<em>serious students</em> on a college track" . My wife harassed the school administrators till they agreed to allow him to take a philosophy intro course as an elective during his junior year. He aced the course and got an A on both his midterm and final along with a glowing letter of recommendation from the professor. ( my wife cries every time she reads it). GC's reaction was to ignore that success and instead taunt him on his weakness in Gym ( I swear I am not making this crap up) and hand him more brochures for community colleges.</p>

<p>During spring vacation that year we made the rounds of all of the colleges
he was interested in. while at one he saw a brochure for Harvard's summer school program.
We figured no way he would get in. He wrote the required essay and then ran into a brick wall because GC refused to recommend him( HVD requires an administrative and teacher rec), we did an end run around the GC and got the assistant principle to write the required administrative recommendation. To our surprise he got in and got A's in both courses , best of all he came home in August as an adult. Best money we ever spent .</p>

<p>September comes and he is riding high. Teachers who were throwing him out of their classes two years ago are now stopping him in the hallway and offering to help him with college recommendations and advice on his essays. His confidence and GPA begins to rise.
He scores a 1200 on the SAT and does well on the SATII. Perhaps not the greatest scores to work with but we were finding some darn good colleges within his reach.</p>

<p>How about the GC? he sees the list of colleges my son is applying to and tells him no way will he get into any of them, that he is setting an unobtainable goal and should only apply to Community Colleges. The GC was not totally wrong. Our kid applied to 19 colleges and our son knew as well as we that he stood almost no chance of getting into 15 of them. Fortunately by this time our son had figured out that the GC was full of it and was just avoiding meeting with the GC</p>

<p>In mid March we had been on pins and needles since Feb 1. March 15 we get an acceptance letter from UC-Boulder. A collective sigh of relief followed a week later by acceptances from U-Vermont,and Bennington College. Friday April 1 rolls in and as we expected the thin letters start showing up, he opened 6 or 7 rejection letters that day. That was a tough weekend he knew it was coming but he was still devastated. Fortunately his friends were around that weekend and kept him distracted. Monday came and 5 more rejections and one acceptance.</p>

<p>After that tough weekend he pulled himself together and contacted the 5 colleges he received offers from, He arranged visits and interviews with professors and ultimately found a college that exceeded his expectations. it even is a so-called top 50 liberal arts college.</p>

<p>I don't know if the GC is incompetent,ill-informed, playing politics or just doesn't like kids with blue hair. But the point is that this is too important of a process to rely on what one person tells you . Do your own research The Princeton Review was fairly accurate for us ( except for some of the student descriptions) .</p>

<p>While we went to some extraordinary lengths with the Harvard summer school thing and the class at the local college, he would have likely gotten into 3 of the five that he was admitted to without the extra effort.</p>

<p>Finally If your kid isn't doing well or wants to quit take him/her to a college and have them talk to admissions and do a tour.maybe sit in on a class. It might convince them that suffering through High School is worth it after all</p>

<p>Best wishes and good luck
Bill</p>

<ul>
<li>stands up and cheers! *</li>
</ul>

<p>Excellent post. Thanks for sharing with those of us who were not around CC back in 2005.</p>

<p>Always wondered what happened to my guidance counselor. I see he moved to North Carolina like so many others from Upstate NY. How old is he now? 95? 100?</p>

<p>Great story! GC should be fired. Doesn't SHE look good if more kids get into better colleges?</p>

<p>Here's one that our GC said at Junior Parents' night. She was talking about the different graduation plans available in the state of Texas (minimum, recommended, etc.) She said that if a student only does the minimum (only 2 years of math, etc.) the student is not ALLOWED to go to a 4 year college and can ONLY go to community college. </p>

<p>This might possibly be the case with the 4 year Texas state schools-who knows? But I'm prety darned sure that every 4 year institution in the nation does not have these rules. (I managed to to quite well in a 4 year college with my mere 2 years of math!)</p>

<p>I continue to wonder why counselors like these choose to work with students. I had always figured that they were there to empower their students and help them become the best people they could be, but I keep hearing stories and having my own experiences which say otherwise.</p>

<p>My brother was a casualty of the system. They actively encouraged his failure: "Gym doesn't matter anyway, who cares if he fails it?" "I know he got a D in both math and English and an F in the required arts class, but we're going to promote him to 10th grade so he can keep up with his peers," etc. </p>

<p>My boyfriend's younger sister, a high school junior, is being discouraged by the counselor. The comments are pretty similar to what the OP reported. "You can only get into a community college with those grades," and "You don't have a chance at the UC's." Note that she is in the top 15% of her class, was recently accepted to Girls State, president of a high-profile club, averages 1900 on her SATs, etc. She is motivated and works hard, and she still has to deal with things like this.</p>

<p>I just don't understand, but I am glad to see that it isn't the death knell that a stubborn GC could be in this crazy competitive admissions. </p>

<p>Kudos to your son, BMoyilan!</p>

<p>No one should be allowed to be a college guidance counselor with the OP's GC's attitude. Unfortunately, a lot of kids with those kinds of GCs don't have parents who are educated and determined enough to push for the four year anyway.</p>

<p>Our local school budget tends to get passed (good for GC's salary) if the schools appear to be successful, and four year college attendance rates for graduates are a good measure of "success". So our guidance counselors definitely want all kids to apply to four years.</p>

<p>i definitely agree, this is awful and should be prevented!</p>

<p>on the opposite end of the spectrum, MY college counselor encouraged me to apply to several very prestigious schools where i do not believe i will be accepted, and where i have absolutely no desire to go as they are not a good fit for me, claiming i would "definitely, definitely get in" because she had a good feeling about it. i heard back from the first one last week, and sure enough, i did not get in, and i wasted the effort just to get the blow of a rejection letter.</p>

<p>What I don't understand is, if he's averaging "only" an 83 and the GC is recommending him for community college, what kind of encouragement would kids averaging C's and D's get from him? A B- average isn't that bad!</p>

<p>Just for the record the GC was a he. </p>

<p>With 3 years of hindsight I came to realize that my son's high school had the money for a new football field but only enough money to have 3 guidance counselors for a high school of nearly 600 students. It doesn't excuse the GC's attitude but having nearly 200 students to provide services to doesn't leave much time for a GC to take a personal interest in a nonconforming student. </p>

<p>With that in mind I'm taking a less adversarial approach with my niece's GC and trying to appear more assistive and supportive. </p>

<p>Missypie: Most public schools are programmed to feed students to the state university system which in many states admits almost entirely on merit to their 4 year universities.<br>
For some students the private colleges IMO offer a bit more flexibility in how they determine the qualities of an applicant.</p>

<p>Great post- bringing hope to parents of quirky (and other non-conformist) kids.</p>

<p>"A B- average isn't that bad!"</p>

<p>icypineapple37: You were being sarcastic, right?</p>

<p>Icypine: Fact is pretty much everyone below a 88 average was encouraged to go to community college. That was likely more a system wide policy than just the action of this one GC. As I recall from the college intent list. most of his peers ended up in one of two local community colleges. Unfortunately within 2 years most them ended up changing oil in my car , cooking my food or cutting my grass :( </p>

<p>Most of the 4 year college bound went to one of the SUNY (State University of New York) colleges</p>

<p>Including my kid only less than a dozen ( out of 250 plus graduates)went on to private colleges or out-of-state universities. Two of them were friends of his that my wife helped to apply elsewhere.</p>

<p>Oh... oh...</p>

<p>3 GCs for 600 HS students?</p>

<p>... wow.</p>

<p>The high school in my post -- which was also my high school -- has 1500 students and 3 guidance counselors. I can give my GCs a little slack for the immense workload (but job stress and minimizing a workload still isn't a great reason to ruin students' futures), but the counselors in the OP's school system just sound cruel and seem to be actively working against the students.</p>

<p>Great Post..and good for your wife for not buckling and having the inspiration to take him bodily to a college composition class, get him into philosophy where she had an instinct he could fly...where he could SEE that he belonged for himself..hey..some of us are visual and have to see a college to visualize a future. So glad your son is fulfilled and in a great place
PS your braininess is showing in terms of who you picked as a spouse</p>

<p>Faline2..who also has a son who graduated HS in 05</p>

<p>You're not alone. My son's guidance counselor told him not to APPLY to one college because "he would never get accepted". He did, and with a great music performance award...and he graduated last May completing his degree in four years. DD's GC told her that her school was a "reach" for her. It wasn't. Plus he also confessed that he knew nothing about it because he was on the opposite coast. She is a soph in college. In both cases, my kids were a bit discouraged but WE encouraged them to apply anyway. In DS's case, he had both the stats and the music audition to gain admission. We have no idea why the GC discouraged him. In DD's case, we had no idea why the GC offered opinions about a school he knew nothing about (by his own admission).</p>

<p>I feel lucky that my kids had a great counselor. She is a fan of New England, and I feel that she tries to steer her students in that direction.
Some of their friend's however had the gc's that had the same attitude described here.
One friend , who was an awesome student with lots of EC's, NHS, and so one didn't get into any of her schools , with the exception of her safety. It was sad to see all of her friends going off to where they wanted to be and her going to the one school she had no interest in. The good news is, she transered to another school after her freshman yr.</p>

<p>In our experience, guidance counselors have been most useful for students who are straight forward in their application identity-stats, test scores, ecs, all in sync and on a level for a particular type of school. When there are areas of strength and weakness, there is a tendency to aim toward the weaker side of the transcript when posing college options. Experience has shown us (and many we know) that there are lots of well regarded schools that will look at the "whole" picture, value hard work and passions, and admit students for reasons beyond the numbers. There just isn't the time to be up to speed on every school and what the tone of the admissions dept. is. Some of this is only revealed through close observation of the admission process. This is something that students and parents get more of a feel for as they visit, correspond with admission reps., etc. This anecdotal info. is often beyond the experiences of the guidance counselor, but other parents may have good info. to share. Our GC expertise also varies with geography and familiarity with the schools in question. While there are realistic admission constraints and some schools admit a very small percentage of applicants no matter what their stats are, as others have said, it is well worth it to not assume the worst case scenario for your child. Cover your bases with sure bet admissions, but dig a little bit to get a feel for schools that appeal to your student before you rule them out.</p>

<p>Maybe a minority opinion here..... don't blame the GC, blame society (or the voters or the teacher's union or NCLB or whatever.) In our urban school system, the GC's barely have time to provide any college counseling whatsoever. They appear in court after being subpeoned as witnesses when one kid shoots another one after a basketball game. They meet with social workers to decide what happens to the infant born to the HS sophomore raped by mom's boyfriend. They work to get kids accepted into residential drug programs which will allow the kid to complete a GED instead of sitting around all day playing computer games between therapy sessions. They provide referrals to kids diagnosed with eating disorders; I could go on and on.... and I don't live in Bed-Stuy or the South side of Chicago.</p>

<p>We are now witnessing the result of a 20 year period of social pathology and the breakdown of cultural norms, and we're expecting the teachers and GC's to also figure out who should go to Wesleyan and who should go to Wellesley???</p>

<p>Of course the GC's are overburdened and undersupported. But the unions make it worse making it impossible to fire the truly incompetent; the Ed Lobbyists and politicians make it worse by insisting on NCLB instead of meaningful education reform; the special Ed crowd makes it worse by suing any district which isn't spending a disproportionate amount of its budget devoted to a small minority of students while ignoring (or shafting) the majority, etc.</p>

<p>Why blame the GC? more than enough culprits here.</p>

<p>Blossom, while some districts do have different burdens for their GCs, this was clearly not the case with Bill's situation. The GC was trying to sabotoge Bill's son. Even after the son had earned As in a college course, As in a Harvard summer program, and had huge grade, attitude, and maturity improvements, the GC was setting up roadblocks. It makes me angry when I hear about people like this holding so much power over a kid's future.</p>

<p>We have 3 guidance counselors for about 1400 kids at our suburban high school. (They don't have the types of problems blossom describes.) Their often repeated slogan is "There is a college for every child. Our regular classes are college prep, you don't have to take any honors classes to get into college." So they are good at getting kids into the state U's and small local colleges, but short on help and information about better colleges outside of our region. They seem to discourage kids from challenging themselves, which can be frustrating. When colleges come to town, most don't visit our high school.</p>