<p>My question is, why don't schools have separate job descriptions here. Guidance Counselors whose primary job is as disciplinarian could be called Deans or what have you and then actually college counselors would be there to assist the kids in college choices. Not saying you have to increase staff per say, but just allocate talents so that each side of the equation is more than just a face in the crowd. Of course, with parents and other poster on CC, it seems one can get a lot more personal advice here than in their own school.</p>
<p>I think the entire point of the study conducted is that this system of private enterprise continues to widen the socioeconomic gap between the have’s and the Have-nots before one even gets to college, let alone once there. It absolutely shouldnt be the case that now only the “have’s” are getting the advice to make good educational decisions to say nothing of how they are going to manage paying for it once they are there.</p>
<p>Our public HS has guidance counselors (who deal with students’ schedules and discipline issues (I think)), and, separately, two college counselors (who deal with everything college-related). It works very well.</p>
<p>At my high school guidance counselors were just people who filled out some template recommendation letter for colleges, dealt with failing students (not disciplinary issues, just poor academic performance), and entered course choices into a computer, and with schedule changing. They didn’t attempt to talk to students, and if you forced yourself into a meeting, you’d get no useful information. </p>
<p>Everyone should just come here. CC is far more informative than</p>
<p>D was very lucky that her guidance counselor was half-time a counselor, and half-time in charge of the college advising center. I don’t think we could have found a paid college counselor that did as good a job. She was a superstar.</p>
<p>One thing our school did was have a couple of counselors out of the larger group handle all of the students who were taking at least 3 AP/IB courses, and these counselors seemed to have a pretty decent understanding of admissions issues at the kinds of colleges that the strong AP/IB kids had interests in, though except for D’s counselor, the other AP/IB counselors also had a chunk of the general student population assigned. </p>
<p>But, with the number of students each guidance counselor was expected to support (325?350?) there was a pretty significant limitation on how much support they could provide. </p>
<p>D’s counselor ran the college center with the help of a lot of pretty well trained volunteers, who were very good about keeping information up-to-date, helping students and parents use resource materials, and setting up for college rep visits and the associated class-excuse paperwork. </p>
<p>I think that our school did a pretty good job with academically achieving kids heading for selective schools, and an okay job with B+ students headed to public or less selective schools. I’m not sure that they were prepared to be a lot of help for students who didn’t fit either mold, or for kids who needed specialized programs like direct entry nursing schools, culinary schools, or the like.</p>
<p>One big difference between our school and some of what folks have posted is that in our district Guidance Counselors do not handle discipline. That’s one of the AP and Principal’s responsibility. The counselor may work with the student to help build a plan for preventing future problems, working out what to do given what’s gone one, but the counselor isn’t meeting out any of the discipline or consequences. Counselors feel pretty strongly about that, but perhaps that is a local thing.</p>
<p>My son never had a college planning meeting with his GC. Never. Course selection/schedule planning? Sure. But no college counseling. On the college side, all she ever did was sign Secondary School Reports and send transcripts. </p>
<p>Public HS (in and out of national rankings), 300 kids per GC.</p>
<p>Reading that story, it sounds like the Gates Foundation paid a bunch of money (but not too much) for a study that confirmed that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. When, exactly, have guidance counselors given the vast majority of teens meaningful advice about college and careers? The only thing that’s new here is the expectation that maybe they SHOULD have something to offer, and not just to the thin slices of a school’s population who are academic strivers or hard cases who are still salvageable.</p>
<p>Relaxmon, we’re very close to each other, geographically! I’m sure that some of my sons’ friends used private counselors, but if they did, no one discussed it. So as far as I know, it was not all that common.</p>
<p>Funny, it is literally everyone I know, whether their kids go to public or private… but must say most are pretty quiet about it unless you inquire very specifically. My family does run with a pretty driven crowd overall, so may be an exaggerated impression. But I guarantee you there are many more than you think.</p>
<p>I have to say that at our large public school with all types of kids–college bound, CC bound, workplace bound, and nearly dropouts–I am very impressed how well GCs actually do manage to support all the different needs. Their patience, their efforts to stay up on the latest college trends, the paperwork, all while dealing with neurotic parents, uncaring parents, abusive parents…and paid a lot less than most of the neurotic parents…we have about 10 counselors dealing with 200 students each with widly varying interests/aptitudes/language skills/life skills and they seem to do OK meeting most kids’ needs, great with some and fall short with others. I just try to say thank y ou to our counselors and administrators as often as I can…I have a PhD but I could not, would not in a boat or with a goat do that job day in and day out…</p>
<p>Beats me. I didn’t get anything useful, at a “good”, upper middle class suburban high school, and my kids aren’t getting much useful either. </p>
<p>Went to the junior planning night at our school last night - they had a general session and a session for those looking at selective colleges (a U of C admissions person was there, but speaking generally about selective college admissions). The info given was SO basic, and it’s absolutely ridiculous that they waited til spring of junior year to give the parents the basics on how to start investigating. When my kids graduate, I’m writing a scathing letter about it. How dare they even pretend they are giving meaningful advice. I guarantee none of the GC’s could name all 8 Ivies if their lives depended on it, and what they know about selective schools is going to be based on general “Well, I hear it’s really good” and whatever they can google in two minutes. No thanks. Not interested. I walked out (not on the U of C person, but on the general session). And then they scratch their heads and wonder why all the kids go to Northern Illinois, Eastern Illinois, Southern Illinois. Well, duh, you’ve not given them any reason to believe they can afford better schools, you don’t promote it in the culture, and you give advice so late in the game that it doesn’t help these kids who are competing against the more with-it high schools in the area. And I did directly ask the U of C person – why do selective schools ask for GC letters when you <em>know</em> that the private schools and top-tier publics will have GC’s who know the students and can say something in depth, whereas most public schools will have GC’s who will look at the transcript and say, “Mary is a hard-working student who is interested in science and will be an asset to your school”? Why perpetuate the game?</p>
<p>My kids’ GC’s are nice people. And hardworking people. But they are handling the truants and the discipline problems and the kids with special needs and figuring out how to get scholarships for kids who have moderate grades and moderate desires. How can they possibly be of any help to kids looking at better schools? I’d be shocked if they knew anything about most of the schools my kids are looking at.</p>
<p>Conversation behind me revolved around a family who had property in Michigan wanting to send kid to Grand Valley State or Western Michigan because after the first year, they get in-state tuition. It was all I could do to turn around and say, “Why would you spend your money that way? Send your kid to comm college for 2 years, bank the money, and get them into Michigan - where you’ll at least have a degree that means something outside a 20 mile radius of the school.”</p>
<p>My only hope is that the U of C person is right when she said if they’re unfamiliar with your school, they’ll dig a little deeper, and at least it’s not New Trier where your kid is competing against 50 others :-)</p>
<p>It was my own (exceedingly poor) experience with GCs that lead me to CC in the first place. As my own kids progressed through HS I wanted to be sure they were getting reasonable guidance … not great, not fantastic … just reasonable. I was surprised how different GCs saw their job responsibilities. For those of you whose students are getting good advising, count your blessings. (And keep reading CC, just to be on the safe side.)</p>
<p>I’m a senior. I’ve met my guidance counselor ONCE, and that was at the beginning of senior to discuss colleges…he asked if I was planning on attending…he literally knew nothing about me or my goals</p>
<p>I’m a sophomore, and luckily have one of the best guidance counselors in my (small, 120-130 kids per grade) school. Our guidance counselor seem pretty good, but don’t seem to encourage good students to do even better. Like not encouraging honors/IB classes, suggesting not to start studying for the SAT early, etc . . .</p>
<p>I am already a little worried about our student’s GC…nice enough yes
but I have spent too much time on CC and know a little…</p>
<p>At this school–the GC meets with the kids starting in Feb Jr yr–and the parents don’t enter the picture til the fall…
the kids have a questionaire to complete (I think its due soon) and the parents have one due in May…</p>
<p>I compared two other schools–one local and one in Atl and both of those privates GCs do alot more, and the wbe sites even have Naviance info etc available…lists of scholarships etc etc…links and lots of help</p>
<p>Our student went to a seminar given by the GCs here that basically said --“there are lots of scholarships out there–do your research and find them on the internet…”
uh yeah…so why did they have the meeting…?</p>