<p>Okay I need to vent so I figured I would do it here rather than direct it at my son's high school counselor. Plus maybe I am being a bit sensitive and was wondering what you all thought about what happened today. Brief background: We first met with son's hs college counselor back in March and didn't get a good feeling. He would say he didn't want to go to certain type of schools (small LAC or schools in LA) and her list for him would be filled with them. Every school in top tier he mentioned she would say "you never would get in" eventhough his grades and scores at least fell within the bottom 50% of those whom the school admits. We of course are realistic but do see hope especially since DS got into LEAD and did very well at it this past summer. Son was feeling very discouraged and so were we so we hired a great private college counselor since we didn't really see his school counselor as being in his court. I have looked at where she places people and see a pattern. She is great at working with students over 4.0 which are about 12-14 kids at son's school but then she places a lot students about 25% of the class at places like Northern Arizona University, SDSU and Cal State San Jose. It appears to us that that the kids between 3.3 and 3.8 are encouraged to apply to "easy" places. </p>
<p>Son has been working very hard with private college counselor and has a good list, 5 reaches, 5 evens and 5 safeties. Son has continued to win some nice awards like National Hispanic Scholar/AP Scholar/National Honor Society plus he has gotten a ton of Latino recruitment info/letters/emails etc. like many of you on this board. Son has gotten about 11 diversity fly in offers and is going on one at Ohio State. We really did not want to tell school counselor about private counselor but one day she forced the issue and seemed perturbed with us. I have tried to get back on her good side and have shared a ton of info with her such as listings of scholarships for Latinos etc. </p>
<p>Today I was in her office with another mom friend. This other mom has a great son (also a National Hispanic Scholar but only 1/4 hispanic) kid has a 4.3 gpa and is the science whiz at school. I helped this student with getting a fly in to an ivy league school. We were both talking to the counselor about our son's flyins and the paperwork they had to do and this counselor was just gushing about the other kid. When I told her about all the Latino recruitment my son was getting and how we were excited about it (for example my son would get a request to personally meet with a college rep that this other kid would not get), this hs counselor made a face and said "I wouldn't get too excited about Latino recruitment. I get mad at Latino recruiters because they send stuff to students that have no chance of getting into their school. For example Brown sends latino recruitment info to students who have a 2.5." </p>
<p>I interpreted her comment to me that my son has no chance. Am I being too senstive? Should I say anything to her? I want to keep stay on her good side but I tell you between her giving out incorrect info and being so discouraging she is really getting under my skin. I haven't said anything to my son. Back in March she told my son he had no chance of getting into LEAD and he did. It reminds me so much of my own personal history when my counselor said I should go to trade school and give up my dream of being a lawyer (I went to a top ten school). I do think that my history may be influencing how I think. Our private counselor said that she has worked with URMs and she has never seen a Latino before get so much recruitment info. She believes my son's various awards, activities and community service make him an interesting and strong candidate. He has a 3.8 and 1980 on the SAT. He has received about $6000 in scholarships this past year to attend two leadership programs based on competions. He works, plays sports and is an key club officer. </p>
<p>What do you all think? I know Latino isn't a sure fire way to an ivy league school but it may give a slight edge. Afterall is Latino recruitment only lip service?</p>
<p>Thank you all for listening and letting me vent.
itsv</p>
<p>Are you being a little sensitive? Probably. Is that GC an idiot? Most definitely. So I don’t blame you. I can’t imagine my ds’s GC being so negative. I can understand not wanting to get on her bad side; do you have another child coming through the HS? I would wait until the college app season is over and then talk to the principal. Who is she to squash other kids’ dreams? This in particular ticked me off: “I get mad at Latino recruiters because they send stuff to students that have no chance of getting into their school. For example Brown sends latino recruitment info to students who have a 2.5.” That’s not her call to act as a gatekeeper/roadblock to this information.</p>
<p>You don’t say, thank you for your comments.</p>
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<li><p>Luckily my ds’s school is all boys and my dd will be going to a different school. The other mother which i spoke about, she and I have a plan to go into the school president when application season is over to talk to the president about this counselor. The counselor hold a lot of power, she write the recommendations etc so I don’t want to get on her bad side. The junior counselor knows my son very well, has taught him, etc. so we are trying to “manipulate” the process by giving him my son’s recommendations to fill out. Keep your fingers crossed that it works.</p></li>
<li><p>Son’s counselor has been about 20% encouraging and 80% discouraging. When he got into LEAD (she told us about the program after the deadline had passed and son begged to turn in application late), she said “that’s nice.” but then two weeks ago she was encouraging saying, “I didn’t know he got into LEAD, his application will be flagged and treated differently with special attention because of his LEAD status.” When I told her about him getting into Ohio State’s “Scarlett and Great” diversity weekend, she sent me an email saying “many students from our school are participating in diversity fly-ins.” My friend said to ask her what other schools since she said one of them might one my DS is interested in, so I did. The counselor’s “many students” were a total of 3 (where I was responsible for 2 of the 3), one to Grinelle (where I helped the student and gave him my son’s diveristy invite since my ds wasn’t interested), one to Cornell (again I gave the kid the invite and helped) and the 3rd to Chicago (I had nothing to do with it). </p></li>
<li><p>I do have to be careful because when I said my son had gotten a nice letter from the Latino recruiter at his #1 dream school, she mentioned the person by name so that tells me she has a relationship with the guy. Any advice anyone can give me would be very much appreciated. I don’t want my son’s chances to be hurt by this counselor’s attitude. I have decided that I am not going to send another email or contact her with any questions (I had really been watching myself with her and limiting my and my son’s contact with her.)</p></li>
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<p>I have to run but will write more about some “racist comments” I received from a fellow parent at our school. What is especially troubling is that my son’s school is inner city with 27% latino student population.</p>
<p>We’re all sensitive about our kids, but most of us are realistic too. If indeed your son had a 2.5, then that comment might have been called for to reign you in, but he doesn’t and it should be obvious to her from your son’s other accomplishments that he bright, hard working and is likely sought after by colleges. I don’t see any indication from your posts here that you assume your son will sail through because he’s Latino, so I doubt you’re that way with the HS GC either. She should be providing you information with all of the proper caveats, but also with some encouragement that as long as he has a well balanced list of schools he likes, he’ll be in great shape.</p>
<p>You are not alone, I have been skirting around our HS college counselor since D1 and continue to do so now that D2 is a jr. She has some very strongly held biases, many misconceptions and is actually unprofessional at times as she is not cautious with the private information that she is privy to. My first introduction to her was at the college information night for D1, she started out by telling parents not to worry about what schools their sr kids were applying to, that as long as they liked the schools, the financial part would work out later. This to a room full of typical suburban families who will likely qualify for little or no need based aid but with very few who could foot a 200k bill for college. When I cornered her later and asked if she kept records on the stats of previous students and their results to different colleges (like Naviance), she said, “oh no, that information is all in my head”. She told D1 to her face that she shouldn’t have applied to an OOS public because it would be extremely expensive since they wouldn’t give her much FA. That was true, but they did offer her a full ride merit scholarship ;). </p>
<p>I have a friend who’s kids are at a top private in the Bay Area (we’re talking 25k/yr/kid) and who’s GCs who are ex-Ivy adcoms, and she calls me for information! </p>
<p>No, I don’t think Latino recruitment is lip service at all. As a matter of fact, I think it’s a crime that more kids don’t know about the opportunities and take advantage of them. </p>
<p>Thank you too for your comment. I am still walking around mad but have kept it all from my son since I don’t want him to know about the comment and become discouraged. He is working very hard this semester to get at least a 4.0 to boost his overall gpa and I know if he hears what the gc said, he will throw in the towel. Interestingly, they just released the names of the AP scholars from his class and out of about 185 students, 24 are AP scholars. Of those 24 at least half are Latino. I feel like calling their parents and offering to help them. Like you I have supplied this GC with the listing of Hispanic Scholarships from the Hispanic Caucus and Congresswomen Lucille Roybal’s office. She wants my database of scholarships for NHRP but I told her I was still working on it and would give it to her when I finished.</p>
<p>Interestingly, when I talked to a couple of moms of the supersmart kids (all non-Latinos) they tell me this counselor has encouraged their sons to apply at certain places because they can get full-ride merit scholarships. Not once had she told my son anything of the sort eventhough many colleges give NHRP’s students full or almost full rides. To me her encouragement should be across the board.</p>
<p>I spoke the mom who was with me yesterday and she agreed the comments were inappropriate. I felt that not only were they directed at my son but what about Latino recruiters in general, according to this GC, they are stupid and dumb not knowing who should get recruited to their respective colleges.</p>
<p>Thank you also entomom for saying I have sounded realistic. After our “bad” meeting with the GC, my son and I looked at his dream schools and saw that for the range of students accepted with his numbers fell within the bottom half of students accepted. So for example if a place like Yale accepts 10% (of total student population accepted) of kids with my son’s numbers, can’t my son try to be within that 10% rather than not applying at all. </p>
<p>My son and I have tried to avoid the GC but sometimes it can’t be helped. After this last visit, I am really going to make sure he has as little contact as possible. </p>
<p>With respect to other racist comments, a mom at my son’s hs who I considered a good friend is on a mission to make sure her son is valedictorian. Last month she says to me that it is “unfair I play the Latino card because my son isn’t really Latino” and that if my son “gets into a place her son doesn’t get into there is going to be hell to pay.” I was stunned by her comments. In this day and age it’s terrible to know people think this way when you look at the overall numbers for Latinos in college. Enough, I’m starting to get more made again.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your support and just keep on encouraging your child and other Latinos to reach for the stars as my mom told me.
Itsv</p>
<p>I am the 1st graduating class from my hs. Most of our teachers and GC are new. I have no confidence in our GC. Most of the tips & advices I get are from College Confidential; especially Entomom & Itsv, I wouldn’t have gotten my Hispanic Scholar without your postings on this tread and the fine list on “Colleges offering scholarships to National Hispanic Scholars” that benefited many Hispanic students. I think you all know more of the college admin stuff than my GC in school. Sometimes we need to be our own captains to our own ships. Thank you.</p>
<p>Dh’s family – not Hispanic – has said things to me as well about all the preferential treatment ds is getting because we’ve always marked him down as Hispanic. (Dh didn’t like his ethnicity lumped in with Anglo, so he suggested we go with Hispanic). It made me so angry. Ds is quite distinguished in his own right, earning Commended and AP Scholar w/Distinction and is an Eagle Scout, four-year varsity athlete, blah blah blah. It doesn’t hurt that he’s half-Hispanic, but he’s a great candidate aside from his ethnicity. My MIL even said that he shouldn’t take advantage of schools’ awards to Natl Hisp Scholars. And wth not??? I’ve already warned dh that if anyone in his family pulls this crap when he gets an acceptances I’m not responsble for my actions.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay, I love your comment about not being responsible for your actions. Hang in there!! I’ll defend you if the police are called :).</p>
<p>My DH is Angelo too and at our wedding over 20 years ago I do think the mariarchi (sp?)band did push my MIL over the edge but these days she is great and very proud of her grandson.</p>
<p>Your son sounds like a great kid too and you should be very proud. Why deny his heritage when he is in fact Hispanics. I have been looking at the numbers and it is clear that Hispanics are not graduating in big numbers much less going to college. Here is an example, to get to be national merit semi-finalist in CA you have to have about a 218 yet NHRP is only 183 in CA. When you get the letter from college board, it says that 200K hispanic juniors took the test and that 5000 students qualified for NHRP status. Isn’t that only 2.5% which is a very small number with the qualifying threshold only 183.</p>
<p>itsv, if I were in your situation, I would also have been ticked off by this counselor.</p>
<p>Something to keep in mind is that some of these comments might simply be a way for her to defend herself against the reality that she is being out-performed by your private counselor. Additionally, she may have actually seen many Latino students with mediocre stats who became too optimistic when bombarded by all the promotional material. Which leads me to wonder if many colleges tend to send the same material to the 2.5 Latino students as they send to the 4.0 ones?</p>
<p>In any case, this GC sounds incompetent, especially in her communication skills, and Im glad you will be speaking to the principal AFTER your S enrolls in college. Her actions make me think she might carry a little resentment about the Latino recruitment thing and/or she suffers from the soft bigotry of low expectations.</p>
<p>Another parent with a half-Hispanic kid here, and my Anglo SIL made a comment once about our taking advantage of our heritage in this process. This was in the context of our highly divergent political views shes ultra liberal and Im ultra conservative. Well, I wasnt really able to sufficiently explain to her that while Im opposed to most AA and quotas, Ill be darned if I wont take advantage of any diversity opportunity that might help my S in the college admissions process. Similar to the way she takes advantage of tax deductions and other money-saving tax strategies while bemoaning the fact that these hurt the little guy.</p>
<p>SMS92, thank you very much for your kind words. It made my day to hear that you have benefited from some of my postings since that is my goal. However I must confess that I am only entomom’s backup singer for she is the true star of this section of cc. Entomom devotes lots of time and energy to this Hispanic section to make sure the students are well-informed and for that I am very thankful.</p>
<p>PAYFOR: We never wanted to tell ds’s school gc about our private counselor but she forced the issue. The hs gc runs “application workshops” for the students during the summer and charges about $250 for the week of “help.” My Ds had originally signed up for it (but not paid) before we had our March meeting with the gc and our eventual hiring of our private counselor. She kept on sending me emails and calling us about why he was not in the workshop. I made excuses and then she would call and say they had created a new section for the end of summer. Since she would not leave us alone, I had to tell her about the private counselor. She was definitely perturb in her voice and I made excuses about my son’s organizational skills. Trust me we try to have as little interaction as possible with her. </p>
<p>With respect to whether the latino recruiters send the same materials to the 4.0 student as a 2.5 student, I don’t know the answer. Maybe when I am back in Ohio and getting to know the office of multicultural affairs, I can ask them if the setting is right. I haven’t asked other students but do have a couple of interesting stories. The other student I referred to in my op is a great student but his mom has told me that he has not received the same Latino recruitment as my son. For example, the hs gc told this boy that he could get a full ride at a certain LAC on the east coast. The latino recruiter from that school sent my son an email saying that she was requesting a one-on-one informational meeting with him (not an interview but a chance to tell him about the school and why they want him). My ds reserved an appointment. This other boy was never contacted by the Latino recruiter from that school. Other latino students who I am helping at my son’s school also have told me they are not getting the same materials. When my son gets diversith weekend invite that he is not interested in, I pass it on to these Latino students. They have told me they are not getting those invites. Again my son is a NHRP scholar and those students are not. Now part of the reason may also be that my son did LEAD and the LEAD director did tell me that schools will ask LEAD for the students’ info. Another reason may be that my son contacted schools on his list asking for viewbooks back in May so he may be on their radar. If any parent asks this question and gets a response from a school, if they could post it that would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Sorry about SIL. when I would get those comments in law school (i was constantly told I didn’t belong there and that I took someone “more qualified” spot) I would ask them to give me the name of an Latino partner in a big firm. The answer was always zero. It is not really an “advantage” but more of a school’s effort to have a varied population and reach a certain group that right now is not enrolling in colleges in big numbers. Having different types of students in a school benefits all the students.</p>
<p>Finally this morning when I went to a local deli, the young many behind the counter is a graduate of my son’s hs. I asked him what he thought of the hs gc. He said that she was terrible with him and that one day he told her to “f… off.” I was shocked because this
young man has always been respectful with me. I asked why, he said…“I told her that I was tired of her being so discouraging and that all she cares about is the 4.0 students.” When I shared my experience with this student, he told me he too is Latino and that he felt like she wanted him to go to an "easy " college rather than try to get into a better place. He of course was sent to the principal of the school who told him that many students had said the same thing about this gc.</p>
<p>thanks again, itsv</p>
<p>P. S. I love our private counselor and if anyone wants to hear about our experience, pm me. She doesn’t sugarcoat things but is realistic. She is very encouraging but does set my son straight about a lot of things.</p>
<p>Oh yes…the comments about the unfair advantage for having the “hispanic” box checked off. I have had coworkers say horrible, sneering things like “he should get in easily with the hispanic designation”…etc. What are you worrying about…a “hispanic” (always said with those little quotes with fingers) is a shoe in at XYZ university! The quotes are because I am so anglo looking it is hard for them to fathom how my kid can be hispanic…</p>
<p>I do think that the hispanic designation combined with some high grades and scores does get a kid a special “look” particularly for schools that want to have a student body more representative of their state or the US. However, I am also absolutely sure that since my son has benefitted from college educated parents, a great public school education, and is not applying for FA that he will have to show in his ECs and essays that he is bringing something special to the school not just filling a statistical box. He may get a second look, there may be some understanding of why his English grades are his lowest (spanish speaking home), but in the end, he is going to be seen (rightly so) as a child of privilege-- who has not faced any particularly high barriers to doing well academically so his credentials will have to be in line with his whole background. So…what is my kid’s hook–it isn’t the brown skin and black eyes (although the girls seem to like them). Rather, he will offer the college a love of art, creativity and a knack for bringing together diverse people…he moves easily between hispanic and anglo community with a fluency in both language and bi-cultural knowledge that makes him successful in his art and theatre pursuits. If he wasn’t hispanic he couldn’t do this, but if he wasn’t anglo too he couldn’t do it either. If a college wants these skills (like an Oboe player) and gives him a admissions boost for this…he should not apologize for it. Schools aren’t stupid…hispanic designation does not translate directly into “diversity” it is the experience and skills that a kid has gained from behind that cultural identity check-box that will determine whether he deserves an admission boost.</p>
<p>Well said samclare. Being hispanic is not just a name, it is the way you grew up, where you’re from, and the way your family acts. It entails a different type of upbringing and a different mindset. It’s not just diversity in the color of skin, but a different way of looking at things. As a 2014 applicant for colleges, I know that I will get an advantage or a “second look” as you said, but it will be my academic credentials that get me into a school and nothing else.</p>