Very little help making her list of schools from our large suburban public school GC. Early junior year we met with GC who made sure we knew about Naviance, gave us a list of highly selective colleges and less selective ones and told us to make sure we chose some from the later. She kept guiding DD to big state schools where most of our HS kids end up. Those would not work for DD but thankfully this is not our first rodeo.
I live in a community that ranges from subsidized housing to homes that may be amongst the most expensive in the US (MINE is not one of those!). Our GC’s are full service and are supposed to follow the kids for 4 years. My D’s was pretty useless except that she did suggest the school D and then my next son ultimately attended. S17’s GC was a gem. He got my son on day one and was a terrific advocate for him when the district wanted to declassify him from special ed.
In our school, the kids and parents prepare brag and interest sheets and submit them early in the second semester of junior year. Then you meet with the GC and they give you a list of recommendations and ask you who you are going to ask for LOR’s. Kids are supposed to list 2 - 3 LOR teachers and then pick a couple of others to write a note to the GC for use in their letter. To S17’s GC’s credit, when his ACT composite went up by 3 points, the GC came up with a new list.
I do want to mention for people who are in NYS, that SUNY offers a free service for kids who have finished their junior years. I did it with my D (class of 2009) and with S17. You make an appointment and go in with a copy of the unofficial transcript and your test scores. They have counselors who will talk to you about what you are interested in studying, the size and location you want, the type of EC’s and other things that are important to you. With 64 SUNY’s, it’s hard for a regular person to have a grasp on all of them. Then they will suggest schools and programs that are suitable for you. My D’s counselor mentioned the same first choice school that her GC had, a school she ultimately wound up attending and loving. He told us about direct entry teaching programs, which we were not familiar with, and which, given my D’s hatred of standardized testing, wound up being the perfect option for her and there was one at the first choice school. He gave us a list of reach, match and safety schools. She only applied to one reach and was rejected but she got into all of her matches and safeties. With S17, the counselor was familiar with all of the various theater programs and options and recommended the one he is currently attending. I was only familiar with that school as one for music ed and didn’t realize it had such a good theater program. I recommend this to any NY resident.
Our school is focused on state universities or the local community college. I’m in Texas and there are automatic admission standards for state universities, and I guess it’s a state law that the school has to send a letter to all students in the top 10% to let them know they qualify for automatic admission. They also offer info sessions/workshops on the Apply Texas application and FAFSA. So it’s not like they do nothing to help with college apps, but they don’t do much about college selection. I’ve even asked the counselor about the colleges my son applied to and if he has any experience with or opinions about them, and he really didn’t have much to say, other than he knows kids who go to UT Austin really like it.
I was a high school counselor before I had children, so I am aware that counselors have many responsibilities put on them (class scheduling and testing, to name two big ones) that prevent them from having the time to get to really get to know students and become more familiar with colleges and other post-secondary options. It is a shame, but not the counselors’ fault.
Public school - no help at all as expected. D16 had a very successful application season. She was a very strong applicant but I see tons of those being rejected from everywhere . I was lucky enough to find this forum when she was in a tenth grade and spent a lot of time reading and absorbing the knowledge. It was my first experience but I don’t think even a paid college consultant could do a better job. I absolutely cannot imagine her school counselor helping her to get anywhere but I State university at best.
Our twins’ GC is a negative force and we’ve had to have a few uncomfortable conversations. The GC is very fixated on expensive, low-aid schools we know we can’t afford but she has not stopped mentioning them to D, who now has stars in her eyes for a few of them. They are juniors so no idea how helpful she’ll be with the logistical part of applications.
Our suburban, middle class large public HS GC’s did not proactively help much with the college search itself for our pups, but they were helpful to many families. At the end of 8th grade, they visited the English class (since all kids had to take English) and gave a project to write about basic family details. From this, they were able to identify the families who had already been through a college search process with an older sibling, vs. families of potential first gen college students, etc, to try to get a fair mix of kids among the counselors. They tried to avoid wasting time of the kids who didn’t need help, but also wanted to make sure kids were engaged in the process.
They generally have more experience with kids going to Flagship State or Directional State, but a couple of them were much more familiar with the private colleges/universities.
They were more helpful for our pups when they pursued Independent Study classes, so when it came time to compile their applications they at least had an idea as to who they were.
High performing suburban Boston district. Guidance counselor was useless for S17. She accidentally sent us his recommendation and it was horrible…a cut and paste job filled with errors. Bad enough that we forced the school to put my youngest son under a difference counselor.
D’s school required the same class as @Massmomm #34 [hope I remembered that number correctly], and it was a godsend. Again, a small private school. One of the reasons I offer to read essays here, because so many kids do not get the assistance that we did. That said, counselor did not really do much, because we did not need him to. D has her own ideas of what was important/non-negotiable to her, and the counselor did enough by confirming that every school on her list was a reasonable choice. He did help in choosing a nonbinding early action school that was super acceptable and made it easier to take the pressure of waiting for decisions from the “no guarantees for anyone” schools.
I did not get any help form my guidance counselor. All she did was tell me that I should apply to more safety schools (I was only applying to one because I did not like the others and would not go there if accepted so I thought why waste $100 in application fees). So I did end up applying to more safety schools, but that is it. Like I understand that you should apply to safety schools, but I struggled with mental health problems in hs and I knew that if I attended a school that I did not like, then I would be unhappy and my problems would become worse. I am currently paying 7k a year more at a school that is good for my mental health and I love compared to a paying 7k less for a safety school I did not love and would have struggled at with my mental health problems.
As a first generation college student myself, my high school guidance counselor was worthless. He was overwhelmed in the public high school I attended with a large number of students, so he seemed to focus his attention and time only to the top students that were applying to, and had a reasonable chance of admission, to top-tier colleges.
I did all of my college research myself and in the pre-internet days relied on the College Board’s Book of Majors (which is still in print) and advice and recommendations from a few wonderful teachers who took an interest in me to narrow down the number of colleges under consideration. To them, I’m grateful. Since neither of my parents had ever set foot in a college, they were kind enough to take me to visit my top choice college (which was the only one I applied to, was admitted to, and graduated from).
I don’t regret my college choice, but in hindsight, if I had access to more expertise on college admissions, I would have been more conscientious about improving my SAT scores and perhaps have applied to and been admitted to more and higher ranking colleges.
I wanted to give our D a far better experience and more opportunities than I had in the college admission process, so we sacrificed to enroll her in a small private school. Not only was her high school guidance counselor great, but we got to meet with the counselor as a family, review best practices for the college admission process, and discuss our D’s goals and aspirations, realistic options for our D, and the services available from the guidance counselor to help us. The guidance counselor’s recommendation was probably important in our D getting accepted at her top-choice university as an ED applicant.
Ultimately, the student and family is responsible for college planning. Certainly it is easier if one or both parents have been through it and can provide useful advice from experience. I applaud the guidance counselors who try their best to help students despite tough workloads, but with additional resources such as College Confidential being available, the process should be less daunting, but can still be formidable for families, especially for those with parents who never attended college themselves.