<p>I agree with MYOS. It may not take her until freshman year to change her mind. DDs last choice became her top choice after she did the obligatory admitted students event. She is now attending the school that she swore she would never attend. And LOVING IT!! had she not applied, she would have never known. </p>
<p>She plans to apply in September for OU, other kids that applied in her high school this September had their acceptance letters by early November so she’ll have time to apply to UT and TAMU if she needs too. She won’t need to live on campus if she attends UT Austin. </p>
<p>You make good points points but UT doesn’t even offer her major, which of course is subject to change, and TAMU doesn’t offer instrument (minor) really can’t see either of these changing.</p>
<p>I didn’t expect that much from D’s GC. Her first one was horrid but then again she was in an untenable situation. She was split beaten two high schools, serving two totally different student populations. At D’s school (>2000 with five GCs), she was counseling students in a STEM program while she was also counseling at-risk kids at the second high school. D’s sophomore year, the GC became fulltime at d’s high school. But junior year, the woman switched high schools and D got a new GC. This one is very nice, personable, enthusiastic but young. I didn’t expect him to generate college lists for my child. D had, for this high school, pretty obscure colleges. She was the first and only applicant to about four of her six applications. Her interactions with this GC were limited to class schedule changes.</p>
<p>I made sure D handed in her final college list with a request for the GC LOR and transcripts mid September. He got back to her saying he couldn’t meet until late September, early October but he did call her in to go over the LOR, asking her questions as they crafted it together. I don’t know if he was able to do this with later requests. He seemed pretty excited to write this letter, not because he knew D so well, but I got the sense she was the first or second student so he still had enthusiasm and energy.</p>
<p>Note to self: write a thank you note to our guidance office this spring!</p>
<p>Guidance Counselors are assigned alphabetically, and tend to stay put.
The Guidance Office gives presentations on the college application process every spring and fall, open to any student or parent.
There are SAT prep classes offered multiple times every year.
The Guidance Office sends regular emails to all parents of seniors stating things like: “Early action applications to the following colleges (with list of colleges) are due on X date. You must hand in your transcript request, guidance counselor and teacher recommendation requests by X date to give us time to submit these items to these colleges.”
Kids are expected to schedule a meeting with their GC over the summer before their senior year to discuss thieir plans, and are expected to submit a resume prior to that meeting.</p>
<p>Public, medium sized high school in an area where the vast majority of kids go on to college.</p>
<p>D15’s story should be entitled, “A Tale of Three Counselors: Third Time’s the Charm.”</p>
<p>I knew we were in trouble with GC#1 when the sole topic of the Junior Parents College Night was a lecture in filling out the FAFSA, which is a good thing to do but might have been more successful had she waited six months or so when we would all be filling out the FAFSA. Things got worse when it came time for D15’s initial meeting. As background, D15 is first in her class, has very high SATs, very good ECs, and is a NMSF. The college list she prepared for D15 was loaded with small Catholic colleges and OOS publics with SAT/GPAs that were much lower than D15’s. When she asked about any school that had a SAT requirement that was even 25 points above GC#1’s recommendation, she was told, “That school is listed as competitive in the guidebooks. You’ll never get in.” As D15 attends a small private school, GC#1 was the only GC we would get. That led us to hire:</p>
<p>GC#2 - a private college counselor who did a sensational job prepping her for SATs and provided her with some very good ideas for essays, as she was completely stumped on a topic for her CA essay. However, in a well-intentioned effort to keep her grounded regarding her college expectations, he managed to make her feel so discouraged about the whole process that she started to think that she couldn’t be accepted at any school anywhere, even the ones GC#1 had recommended. He also started to do “rewrites” of her essays, which were immediately vetoed by me. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t believe in ghost-written college essays. He also began pushing a particular school on D15 that she simply did not wish to attend. </p>
<p>The Big Break: in September, GC#1 went into labor a month early and went out on immediate maternity leave, not to return until mid-January, when most of the application season would be done. The parents were told that we would have to rely on someone who had worked at the school part-time last year and was known only as The Intern. As it turned out, The Intern actually had a Master’s in counseling and had worked at other private schools. The Intern sat down with D15 and asked her what she really wanted to do and where she wanted to apply. Turns out that D15 had secretly wanted to apply ED to a particular Ivy that she loved. The Intern told her to go for it. At the same time, she made up a list of colleges that D15 actually liked and were within reach. She edited but did not rewrite the essays, leaving that to D15. The Intern has also not let D15 slack off while we’re waiting for the ED results to come out. D15 has been busily writing supplements so that we have everything in order for her other applications. The Intern has been most supportive. I would buy her a Maserati if I could. </p>
<p>Our public school college advisor is wonderful. Maybe it’s because our high school is small, but she is organized, knows every kid, responds to questions, and does whatever she can to advocate for the student in her recommendation. She is not hung up on just the star students (her predecessor was like that). She really cares about the kids. </p>
<p>More than 30 years ago, my GC in a 2000-student high school told me that with my decent but not thrilling SAT scores I should consider secretarial school. I ignored him and went to Bryn Mawr instead.</p>
<p>To my husband & I, our assigned GC is the single-most valued employee of the entire high school.
Midwestern city of 105,000, three high schools, and ours has the most at-risk kids. Total school population is 1100, but graduating classes are definitely under 250 given demographics.
GC’s are assigned alphabetically, and we lucked out. We got to know her when firstborn was leaving 8th grade & trying to make a challenging schedule work. She was then, and continues to be, a tireless advocate not only for our bright kids but I’ve seen her be absolutely wonderful with a teen parent, newborn in tow, at fall registration.
My husband is an academic, so we knew a fair amount about various options. Our second is much more into music. So to make three ensembles work along w/ AP classes for his sophomore year, my husband firsthand observed our GC dash, and I do mean run, 100 yds down a hallway to catch a teacher before he left the building about making a scheduling switch work.
Our school has the GC’s present at every PT conference; we always touch base with her at these as well as the teachers. She continues to ask about how our older child is doing.
When the younger graduates, I will miss her.</p>
<p>We also had a great GC who worked with us on college ideas. In the beginning, after speaking with all students and collecting some feedback from them, she gave each an initial list of schools to look at. In our case, I think our own parallel efforts were key, so she could help us fine tune. She also intervened when D2 had a problem teacher/issue with a mid-tern grade, just when apps were due.</p>
<p>But, two years later, I was part of a focus group where nearly all the other participating parents griped a lot that she didn’t do enough. Maybe we were lucky. But I did notice those parents said their kids were happy where they landed.</p>
<p>At my Ds’ high school, the GCs were overloaded. With D2, we hired a private college counselor the summer before senior year. That made a huge difference. As others have said, CC became indispensable for its advice and ideas.</p>
<p>Not great. I consider this MY job anyway, both as a student (when I was, and spouse and I both have multiple degrees) and for my kids where they want assistance. </p>
<p>I would never leave something so important to someone else without double-checking everything anyway. And if there is a difference of opinion, we are doing it my way.
</p>
<p>@TranquilMind & other posters,</p>
<p>It seems that again, the kids with wonderful GCs and savvy parents get the lions share of attention & resources, go on to bigger & better things post HS graduation. While the kids whose parents have deficits, and GCs who are overworked/have low expectations of their students end up with a healthy portion of nothing. </p>
<p>Honestly, this is hard to generalize about. I’ve seen kids from challenged high schools, where GCs are overloaded and most kids don’t have college plans, who nonetheless do get the hs support they need. And kids from the best hs in the country, who seem to get short shrift. And kids whose empowerment and growth will be facilitated at their own local colleges far more than going off to something fancy. I don’t know what the magic key is. </p>
<p>@lookingforward </p>
<p>Are you saying that first gen kids with terrible GCs & uninformed parents are having better outcomes than kids with savvy/ educated parents & phenomenal GCs? I’m sure the statistics don’t support that. I could be very wrong, but my guess is that I’m not.</p>
<p>Relatively happy – but we did a lot on our own. An in law was in HYP admissions for years and a sibling is in college administration – so we had help. One thing that I would have appreciated knowing about what diversity fly ins – family member mentioned to us and they were a home run. I wish someone from our private schools would have suggested it as well. </p>
<p>I wonder what has the larger impact - savvy/educated parents or phenomenal GCs?</p>
<p>I suspect it’s the former.</p>
<p>We have been pretty disappointed in the GC at our kids’ school. It’s a small private HS and I think that has led people to believe that the GC would be more involved. He does not meet with the students at all unless there is a problem and does not give advice on schools or scholarships. His main function as far as college admissions is to send in the transcripts and coordinate the teacher recommendations. He does the latter ok but sends transcripts on a squeaky wheel basis - only after being reminded (nagged) several times leading up to the deadlines. I did a lot of research on my own and was very proactive with the school, going around or above the GC when needed. </p>
<p>Oh, NHmom, I lost a word- “bright kids.” I’m not generalizing. I meant it’s not possible to just sweep groups of kids and their GCs into some pile, labeling them super or terrible. Mileage varies, even with the same GC. And I suppose I have a different view than many on CC of what the right “outcomes” are. I also think many parents aren’t as savvy as some assume. CC is a small pool, but “educated” and “savvy about college admissions” seem separate, to me. </p>
<p>My daughter goes to a public high school in a non-wealthy suburb, and her GC has been absolutely awesome. The GC is brand new, she looks like a well-dressed 15 year old, but she is on top of everything. If she hasn’t seen your kid in a while, she will grab them in the hallway and pull them into her office. </p>
<p>Nothing but praise and gratitude for our overworked, underpaid, cheerful and helpful GC. Our kids have attended a large urban magnet school with a 50% free and reduced lunch population. Each GC has probably 450 students, and is responsible for course scheduling, college recs, and transcripts. Keeping kids in the classroom to pass the mandatory testing and to complete the graduation requirements is the first priority because there are so many at risk kids. </p>
<p>In this context, I am our families’ unpaid college admissions counselor. I do not expect our GC to make college recommendations for our kids and we have a pretty savvy group of parents who navigate school research for their own high achieving students. At the same time, there is plenty of support for students applying to our public schools and more local choices, and there, the GCs play a more typical role in helping develop a list. </p>
<p>What has been irreplaceable is how our GC has made my kids’ lives easier in the building, helping craft the right schedule, mediating some very uncomfortable conflict with a particular teacher, and helping the kids’ feel at home. </p>