<p>Did your high school counselors suck? Or was he/she helpful? Do you feel comfortable going to your college counselor? How could they improve their services do you think? Are there inequalities in college counselors at schools in different types of communities across the US? And do college counselors underestimate or overestimate your potential, would you say? Did you use a private college counseling service and if so, did they help you more than your high school counselor?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>My first counselor was awesome. He was the most helpful person ever. Then he retired after my sophomore year. My second counselor was fresh out of college and completely useless. She was an idiot. I had her my junior and senior years. I feel like she probably wrote a half ass college recommendation letter. And yes.. I did make an effort to go in a lot and get to know her.</p></li>
<li><p>I never went to my college counselor. She was also a complete idiot. She told a friend of mine who had a 2.0 average that he should apply to MIT. Here's the kicker: He absolutely hates math and science. He's going to attend an art school this fall. </p></li>
<li><p>They could give better advice and be more knowledgable about different colleges. My counselors were experts when it came to University of Illinois... guess what? I didn't want to go there! They tried to convince me that it would be a great fit. Except for the whole "I don't want to go to school in Illinois" thing.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't know.</p></li>
<li><p>The college counselor that my school used to have retired, but he was always right on when predicting where you would be accepted and rejected. It was actually kinda freaky. He was brutally honest, but he was always right. He made some people cry because he was so honest, but he knew what the hell he was talking about. The college counselor that my school currently has shouldn't even be allowed to estimate anyone's potential. See the story above.</p></li>
<li><p>I didn't use a private college counseling service, but I did keep in touch with my school's previous college counselor. I didn't like what he had to say about where I'd be rejected, but he was 100% correct in his predictions. He helped me a lot with deciding what I wanted in a school.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My hs counselor is amasing. I go to this small private school (80 something kids in my year), but starting in 9th grade they try to prepare you for college. They have you take all these personality things, PLAN, help you narrow down lists... By the end of Junior year we were required to have contacted at least 2 teachers about recs (and given them any materials they needed), make a list of all our EC's/awards/etc (and keep it updated), and written at least one application essay (mostly for practice, but for some of us, it was genuinely good and now we're done with at least one essay). We were required to have a meeting among our counselor, ourselves, and our parent(s) to help narrow down choices, discuss our gpa, etc. It really, truly helped me prepare for college. In terms of getting everything I need to apply done. The only thing left is the actual applications, and those'll be up in a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>And my counselor is always easy to reach. She's not always in her office, but just leave her a note and she'll get back to you later that day or the next school day.</p>
<p>thanks guys. bumppppp</p>
<p>bump again- see quesitons above!</p>
<p>My college counseling experience is very similar to panda_chibi's. Meetings with parents, brag sheet, practice admission essays, etc. Another great thing about my school is that all of the couselors also are teachers, coaches, or involved with the school in some other way (but they only teach 2 or 3 periods a day), and the school assigns you with a couselor that you already know. For example, my counselor was my English teacher this year. This is really good for two reasons: the couselor recommendation will be much more personal, and my couselor is very easy to approach and talk to if I have any questions about college stuff.</p>
<p>We have three counselors for 900-1000 students at my high school. They are not specifically college counselors--they're just guidance and personal counselors, I guess. Plus we have one substance abuse counselor and an underpaid career counselor--she's techinally only an aide, not a counselor, but she's in charge of the Career Center, scholarship information, college fairs, career fairs, the big senior-year project that we have to do, etc. </p>
<p>I didn't see my counselor very many times. His attitude with me was, "Well, you know more about this than I do, but I believe in you and I'll support you every step of the way." He gave me the heads-up on some scholarships he thought I should apply to. He undoubtedly gave me a stellar recommendation, and he smiled and signed anything I brought to him that needed his signature. Once we had a useless meeting during which he went through his college guide book and tried to help me find safety schools, but all the schools he could think of were ones that I had already rejected for reasons that were hard to convey because his just-the-facts college book didn't touch on the atmosphere, social life, surroundings, priorities, reputation, or character of the colleges it discussed. </p>
<p>But then, my counselor was always easy to approach. I talked to him once or twice about my junior-year stress, and he shared anecdotes about students he had worked with in other schools who dealt with their stress in much less effective ways than I did. Usually I only went to talk to him on college or scholarship business, or about changing my schedule or getting an omitted AP designation on one of my AP classes. He was a good advocate for me; the way I did high school, I was always fighting the system so that I would be allowed to do independent study and take tough classes and such. He helped me out with everything in that regard.</p>
<p>About inequalities...: Of course there are inequalities. Just look at my school's counseling situation compared to that of panda_chibi's school. Wealthy schools in wealthy areas can afford to support their students more than poorer schools in poorer areas. My school isn't even in a poor area; in fact, my town is full of affluent people, many of whom have children in the public school system (no private schools exist in the area), and yet we still only have 3 counselors for 900+ students. Those counselors don't know much about how to help kids get into top colleges; they're not college counselors. Only about 40% of my school's students go on to a 4-year institution at all: is this an argument that college-specific counselors aren't needed, or are needed? Mine didn't know what to tell me about applying to Stanford or anywhere else I was going to apply. His experience didn't extend much farther than the public universities of Washington and (to a lesser degree) Oregon states, plus a smattering of Northwest LACs. He had no idea how I should go about taking a gap year between high school and college, either. I had to pretty much fend for myself and read a lot of books to get my information--and use my intuition. </p>
<p>But hey, it worked out in the end.</p>
<p>And no, I didn't pay a college counselor. It think it's rather obcene that anybody shells out cash like that for something that I did with a few second-hand books and my own brains.</p>
<p>bumpppppppp</p>
<p>They're nice enough. They know a lot if you ask them about CSUs or UCs. But if you ask for any other schools like Stanford or the Ivy League, they go, "Huh? Wouldn't you want to go to Berkeley instead? It's cheaper."</p>
<p>They suck. And they know nothing about schools outside of Tennessee.</p>
<p>I have yet to have much direct contact, though.</p>