<p>My D already got a full tuition merit scholarship from Alabama, but a few weeks ago her GC laughed when she said she was applying in-state to UVA (even though Parchment has her chances at about 80%). He then called James Madison a reach despite her SAT/ACT putting her at least in the top 10% at JMU (and straight A's).</p>
<p>He suggested a local U with an average SAT for CR+M+W that is not much different than her CR+M alone. </p>
<p>I shudder to think how many other kids he has almost screwed up with his advice. </p>
<p>GCs run the gamut. At a private high school, your kid will have knowledgeable and personalized guidance every step of the way. At a large public high school, your kid will be lucky if the GC knows their name.</p>
<p>My D’s experience was the latter. I don’t blame the GC. Due to budget cuts, there were exactly 1.5 GCs with a caseload of 1800 students. It would have been ridiculous to expect that they could have given my D anything but the most cursory advice. I did not expect them to know anything about my D, other than her official record, nor did I expect them to spend a lot of time investigating the obscure out of state LACs she was interested in. Like your D, she did her own research and relied on that.</p>
<p>The ones I’ve encountered have been on the wrong side of that gamut. My youngest kid attended a private school where virtually all graduates went to college. The GC ( a recent Ivy graduate) was not very helpful. You’ll find people more passionate and knowledgable about colleges here on College Confidential. </p>
<p>Maybe within another 10 or 20 years the GC role will be fully automated so the schools can put their salaries to better use. </p>
<p>DDs first high school GC was absolutely horrible. We had several run in’s where I had to push for what DD needed. A few lies & condescending interactions later, I had a sit down with the principal & requested a switch. The switch was granted. Which NEVER happens in our school district. Had it not, I was prepared to go to the superintendent of schools. </p>
<p>CC helped to turn me into the best GC my child could have ever had.</p>
<p>D’s first GC spent the entire time with us babbling on about someone who just loves attending a college D had no interest in. She didn’t have a clue who D was (hint: in the top 1% of the class) but assumed from her EC’s that D wanted to be a dance major (um…no). Totally worthless. We next went to speak to the college adviser who was very nice,somewhat helpful and actually asked D what schools she was interested in. Then she blew it by laughing and telling D that everyone wants to go there, no one ever gets in. (D applied anyway and got in).
In all fairness, the next year there were some staff changes and D got a new GC who was wonderful and actually took an interest in her.
S attended a different HS and loved his GC.</p>
<p>This is my experience with the college search and I must say I’m pretty disappointed with the supposed counselors out there. D’s GC has pointed her to schools that are reachy and expensive and made some comments about the safety schools on her list being beneath her. There are only 100 kids in her class so the GC should know her better too. This is the first time I feel I’ve become the “squeeky wheel” in order to get things completed the way I think they should be. I’m especially upset that she refuses to make a call to a specific university to give an unofficial class rank that would most likely get D a full scholarship. The school doesn’t rank and I get that but a phone call could go a long way unofficially. Funny thing is, one of my best friends is a high school counselor with a caseload of 200 students. She has been in the job nearly 15 years. When I talk to her about alot of the stuff I’ve researched she goes blank. She debates school selectivity among other things that I am quite sure of. It just solidifies my opinion that high schools should have dedicated college counselors because this is not their main focus at all in my experience.</p>
<p>My school’s guidance department is horrid. I go to a private Catholic school, and my school’s entire guidance department is just terrible. Not that I think that I’m some special little snowflake or something, but I’d hope that my guidance counselor could manage more than 15 minutes the entire year for me. They never told me that I had to ask them to send my first progress report grades (I assumed that they either sent it automatically or would notify me that I needed to tell them which schools to send my first progress report grades to), they don’t really offer any insight into what colleges we should look into, and they just basically push us to only apply to Catholic universities.</p>
<p>My guidance counselor didn’t take all of thirty seconds to check on Naviance to see what my college list was when he called me into his office. He told me outright during the first meeting of my junior year that he “didn’t know where I should apply to” because my average was too low to look at top schools, and too high to consider lower schools. He also told me that despite having excellent test scores (and very good grades and decent ECs) that he thought that I would get rejected from Fordham, SUNY Binghamton, and Northeastern. I don’t think any of these are bad schools, but considering that Fordham has over a 50% acceptance rate at my school (with over 850 applications over the last 4 years) and that my stats are well above the average accepted, and Binghamton/Northeastern have no precedent of rejecting students with my stats, I’d be pretty surprised if I didn’t get into those schools.</p>
<p>My school’s guidance department also didn’t really explain to most students that they should be visiting colleges as soon as possible, then decided to change the entire school’s attendance policy and no longer make it a legal absence if you miss school to visit a college. None of the guidance counselors have degrees in any field required to be a guidance counselor, and they range in qualifications. Some have decent qualifications to be a guidance counselor, others are gym coaches and senile, racist, 80 year-old priests.</p>
<p>Aside from the atrocious counselors themselves, my guidance counselor doesn’t even write my GC letter of recommendation. They basically give all of the senior-only teachers the job of writing the guidance letters for the current juniors once the seniors finish in May. So not only do you have no idea who writes your letter of recommendation, there is more than a 50% chance that they have never met you (or at least have no idea who you are). They can’t speak to your personal situation or what you went through, and you have no way of contacting them to ask them to write about something specific.</p>
<p>There are tons and tons of ridiculous things that go on at my school’s guidance department. I think they just want most of us to get into a good, Catholic university with a decent scholarship while they send the top athletes to all of the name schools. That way it appears like students get into great colleges, but in reality it’s just recruited athletes. This keeps their recruitment high for top students AND top athletes, but in reality most of us just end up getting screwed.</p>
<p>Agree that you will get better counseling generally at a private school (one of the things you are paying for, honestly). Ours was pretty good (private), but she underestimated D2’s chances at her 3 reaches (admitted everyplace, including the one the GC raised her eyebrows at that our school had never had an admission to and that D2 happily attends now). The GC didn’t suggest any changes to D2s list except one possible additional match D2 had visited and didn’t care for. She had what the GC considered to be matches and safeties, so I think the GC felt no need to try to talk D2 out of any that she thought were out of reach.</p>
<p>Looking back, I think the reason the GC underestimated D2 is because she didn’t really know about some of her EC accomplishments and activities out of school. Some of those resonated with admissions at the schools she had picked out (she picked them for a reason – fit!), especially in her essays. GPA-wise, she wasn’t at the top of her class (possibly in the top 10%, but maybe not…school doesn’t rank or weight, can’t tell). Her final test scores weren’t complete yet, either, and they turned out very well. But I think her application was pretty seamless in terms of activities, essays, test scores, and teacher recommendations (since they knew her better), and they really “fit” with every college she applied to.</p>
<p>So… even where the GC is stronger, there is still a risk that they don’t know your kid. Even when they ask questions (and this GC had a questionnaire), sometimes the things that play in admissions at reach schools just don’t really come out or resonate with the GC. Which is why it is a great idea for students and/or parents to spend time on CC cross-checking.</p>
<p>DD never sat down with her GC in regards to compiling a list. I think they knew we had it covered very early on. I think GCs have taken on more of the social work tasks and less college admissions oriented tasks. I’m sure it’s quite difficult to juggle both and do them well.</p>
<p>I’m totally new at this; my oldest is a Junior and we’ve just started looking at schools. I am fortunate enough to teach in a high school with a great College Placement office, even though my kids attend school elsewhere. </p>
<p>I think that, at least for us, the vast majority of the research needs to be done by me. At this point, I’ve narrowed it down to a list of about 15 schools, down from a zillion I’ve flagged on Naviance. We’ve visited one, which my son really loved. (Right now, with the holidays and the end of my marking period both approaching, college visits are off the table until after New Years.)</p>
<p>About a month ago, I emailed his GC with questions about the schools we’re looking at. She got back to me a day or so later, with some suggestions to consider. </p>
<p>I think what makes the difference is that we’re starting relatively early. She has time to make suggestions and to get to know my son (whose grades wouldn’t normally bring him to her attention-- he’s not going to get any merit aid.) But she’s been really great about working with the suggestions I made, and working off them, because she has the time to do so. </p>
<p>I think that even good Guidance Counselors have an issue when kids show up for the first time in October of Senior year, looking for that dream school in a dream location with a dream budget, and the guidance counselor knows nothing about the kid or his aspirations or anything else but his transcript. </p>
<p>Ideally, each counselor would really know each kid, work with him throughout the 4 years of high school and have an action plan at the start of Junior year. But the reality is that it simply doesn’t work that way.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, we’re the ones who have an idea of what things would make a great college experience for our kids. It’s up to us to identify those factors early enough in the game to give the Guidance Counselors the chance to match them to the schools. </p>
<p>My oldest d had a GC I didn’t much like, nor was the GC all that encouraging or involved. But she was competent, and caused no harm, and taught us that my d and I were in a better position to steer the admissions process than she was. Results: excellent. D2 and d3 had another GC, who was terrific: on top of everything, honest yet encouraging. It was nice to have her in our corner, but by that time we realized the advantages of owning the search ourselves. Results: excellent again.</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that the title “guidance counselor” implies that the counselor will guide the process. Expectations are high, yet when you consider the number of kids for which each GC is responsible, how realistic is that? I expect that every GC should be more attuned to instate options than @TV4caster’s GC is, though. Does he or she not have access to Naviance? </p>
<p>I must disagree. College can be a huge pill for many parents to swallow. Especially with a huge population of them having never gone to college themselves. First generation students are at a huge loss. I went to the New Haven Promise(a place based scholarship fund that is funded by Yale) national conference this week and folks from all over the country were in attendance. Some of the recurring themes were educational inequalities & how to Shepard students through the oft times daunting college admissions process. Another was throwing biases out the door and not placing unfair expectations on & respecting those who are ignorant to the process. </p>
<p>I think there is a very big difference between how GCs work in private and public schools. In many private schools, the college counseling office doesn’t do other activities, college counseling is their one focus. They don’t wait for the kids to come them, every kid (and parents) are supposed to meet with the GC in early spring of Junior year. And there is some info and things that happen even before then. Sounds like the OP is dealing with a large public school. I think there are very wide differences in the spectrum of GC to kid ratios, responsibilities GCs have in addition to college counseling, and quality (and currentness) of knowledge.</p>
<p>Funny you should mention Naviance. DDs senior class was the first graduating class to use Naviance. DD & I used it very little because we had done all of the work before hand and found it to be a time glut. I was left wondering if it was a waste of the districts money. I hope that future college applicants will find it more useful than we did. </p>
<p>@intparent - It’s the complete opposite where I live. At my brother’s public high school, the guidance counselors don’t do anything other than counseling and are highly qualified. They are incredibly well paid (well over six figures a year) and are considered some of the most important staff by the school. Not only are they knowledgeable, but they basically cater to everything the students need and try their hardest to get them into top schools. At my school, the guidance counselors couldn’t care less and are mainly teachers who just wanted a little bit of pay increase.</p>
<p>Interesting… when I think about it in our city, I am guessing that a few of the wealthier suburbs probably also have solid GCs with no other responsibilities. But most do not. And I am sure there are some private schools that are not particularly academically focused (can think of a few in my area) where the GC responsibilities may be handled by teachers. </p>
<p>This comment pertains to those of you out there in large public schools! </p>
<p>D’s GC is responsible for an average of 400+ students a year and social work takes up far more of her time than college admissions. D was concerned she didn’t even know her by name last year (as a junior) so made an appointment to sit down with her last spring after an extensive college visiting tour to give her a heads up as to what direction she was heading with the college search. I went with her to that first meeting to show the GC she had parental support and at first the GC looked at me like uh oh… one of those parents. But when my D directed the entire conversation and shared with the GC the kind of out of state schools she was considering and why (how the schools on her list were a fit for her) the GC realized that my D was driving her college search and taking ownership of the process. The GC has been extremely supportive of my D since then. It was really helpful that my D was able to give her GC a well thought out activities resume at that meeting, because the resume introduced her GC to my D’s story beyond her grades and scores.</p>
<p>Bottom line to you juniors and younger students out there in a similar situation- get your ducks in a row early on in the process. If you are attending a large HS where your GC will not know you, take the time early on in the process, like junior fall, to research the schools you are interested in. Visit them if at all possible junior year. Try to have a formal meeting with your GC by the end of junior year once you have a good idea of where your college search is headed with an idea of reaches, matches and safeties. Spend time putting together an activities resume prior to the meeting for your GC (and for the teachers you will ask to write recommendations). Your GC will truly appreciate your initiative and organization. Your efforts will pay off senior year when you can hit the ground running in the fall and not play catch up with your GC when she/he sits down to write your school report recommendation! </p>
<p>Where I live, the school districts pay GCs to handle enrollment and IEPs first. College counseling is way down the list of priorities.</p>
<p>It makes a kind of sense. 1/2 of the students won’t go to any college, and those that do will largely stay in state, because that is their preference and their families’ preference.</p>
<p>To be fair, our GC made sure that DD could take the PSAT/NMSQT (exactly two students in our high school did so that year) and she learned how to work the Common App, but other than that the GC was hopeless. If we as a family had not been proactive, DD would have had very little support.</p>
<p>Another big public school P here. Our counselors are consumed with high stakes testing, schedules, and kids with an assortment of real crises. We do have a bunch of them, and a designated college adviser to boot, but our population is so diverse they don’t know much about advising kids going to top Us. Kids and Ps are largely on their own. The college counselor is very good at advising kids who want to go to CCs or local Us and have financial issues, however. That is our population. </p>
<p>I do give them , or at least our, counselor credit for being willing to work with us. She does prefer to work with kids over parents, which is fine with me. I tell the kids to go ask her for whatever it is they need, and she responds quickly. </p>
<p>Oldest two sons attended large top-50 public in Ohio. Youngest is now a Jr at a Private HS.</p>
<p>A couple quick observations from our experience:</p>
<p>GC priorities at respected Large Public:</p>
<h1>1 - Successfully graduating all 350+ seniors</h1>
<h1>2 - Completing paperwork (transcripts, recs, etc. as requested)</h1>
<h1>3 - Providing college guidance if requested</h1>
<p>My pure guess is the one GC for each class spends < 5% of their time on #3.</p>
<p>My middle son was in a position to apply to selective/highly selective schools. The meeting we had Fall of Sr. year with the GC was really quite humorous. When we went through the list of schools he was considering with the GC, her first comment on several of the schools was “we’ve never had anyone apply there”. I honestly think she had never heard of a couple of the schools. It’s really a shame because there a talented kids in that school who would benefit greatly from considering a broader list of schools that a GC could bring to the table. To be fair, they were always timely with the paperwork. If you are in a large public, and have kid who wants to look past the usual suspects, you are almost completely on your own.</p>
<p>Son at smaller Private:</p>
<p>A lot more activity - meeting Soph year with GC, already two meetings Jr. year. Do a good job covering the basics. But I would say, the focus is still on the basics. Really not much coverage at all of some of things you learn when helping a kid look at the Selective/Highly Selective schools. Even though there is a lot of more activity, I don’t expect the GC to help with the list, etc. They do have a two-day boot camp next Summer for rising Srs to help with essays, recs, etc.</p>