<p>Great comments sybbie and others. HS GCs also have to take care of career planning for the students not planning on college. Don’t forget that those students deserve equal opportunities to meet their needs. GCs will typically have a masters degree and yet need to relate to those who are lucky to get a HS diploma, those going into some after HS job training plus those going to any level of college. They need to be a jack of all trades, not a master of college prep. PARENTS are the ones who have the job of exposing their children to opportunities above and beyond the ordinary, average experiences in their area. East coast colleges and west coast colleges won’t be on the radar of our area GCs as the vast majority won’t care about them and they can’t be up on all of the equal opportunities there (eg knowing all of the Ivies when years go by for even gifted students to care about them). Likewise I’ll bet the East coast GCs won’t be that knowledgeable about West coast or Midwest options comparable to their top tier schools. btw- the CDS probably isn’t used at son’s school, Naviance certainly wasn’t and I’d never heard of CDS except on CC- with a gifted kid.</p>
<p>@Wis,</p>
<p>Then schools, that really want to make their districts “college going” districts, should enlist a team of college counselors. Whose sole purpose is to advise students(especially first gen students) in all things college admissions. I myself have taken on the role of quasi GC as my daughters GC has had NO role in where she is today. I understand that she is too busy with the problem kids. My only issue is on a very rare occasion, when dd needs something, DON’T put her on the back burner/act as if she is a pain in the azz.</p>
<p>Oh, come on. We all know that the average public HS GC is also taking care of kids with truancy issues or the kid whose parent just died and so on and so forth. It is not dissing GC’s as people to suggest that in the limited pool of time they then do have for college advising, they are likely going to focus on where the bulk of their students are going – in-state flagships or directionals – and on how to help the students pay for said college education. Therefore, that makes them pretty much useless to a student looking for elite colleges, particularly colleges that aren’t local or aren’t well known (such as elite LAC’s). That doesn’t mean that we’re saying that they’re bad people, sybbie. </p>
<p>And you know something? That’s fine, really. Because what’s a better use of my kids’ HS GC’s time? A) Helping the kid who is in a troubled situation at home get the appropriate help; B) Helping the poor kid figure out some way to cobble something together so he can attend directional-state-u, which will be the ticket for his family; or C) helping my precious pumpkin discuss the finer points of the LAC rated #6 vs the LAC rated #11.</p>
<p>We KNOW these folks are generally only familiar with colleges in their backyards. We KNOW the school district isn’t going to pay for a jaunt to Bowdoin or Colgate or Harvey Mudd or Grinnell or wherever when such schools are only of interest to a small % of the class.</p>
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<p>Right. Which is what makes them essentially useless for kids who are interested in or open to leaving their own backyards. I don’t know why sybbie takes such offense to that. It would be silly for them to become experts on schools that are relevant to only a handful of students.</p>