A little background-I have an MA in General-Experimental Psychology but I would have to go back to get an MS in some kind of counseling or education. Does anyone know the options for degrees? I know there are programs for a Master’s of Education in Educational Counseling but there are also counseling degrees through psychology programs. Does anyone know which degree is better in terms of getting hired at a private or public high school? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
Yes, you would have to get a masters in school counseling, which is part of the psychology/applied psychology department.in NYS you need 600 hours of internship as part of your licensing requirement. Check the licensing requirement for your state.
We just had our junior year meeting with our high school guidance counselor. She is great at her job and makes me interested in the field so out of curiosity I asked her this very question. She had an undergrad in psych (and something else) and then got a masters in school counseling. Just yesterday I read an article that most schools are understaffed in school counselors due to funding. However, if the Common Core is dropped, which is taking huge chunks of educational dollars for public schools, I could see areas like this opening up to increase staff. I think it sounds like a great career choice. In NYS the suburban schools pay very well. Good luck!
You don’t have the have an undergrad in psych. It helps otherwise you just have to take additional psych courses; abnormal , personality, etc.
I know that NYC, with the exception of bilingual counseling there has been a freeze on GC hiring for almost the past 10 years (exception was made for people working in a new school). There was a small window in 2015 with the signing of the new contract.
Current chancellor, while not closing any schools in NYC leaving many tenured counselors without permanent assignments.
While surbuban achools pay well, it is hard to get a job on Long Island. For many people working for the NYC DOE they best they can do to get close to long island is get a job I queens (which is now getting harder to get a position.
Thanks everyone for the advice. I do have an undergrad degree in Psychology as well as the MA. Also, I’m in California, not NYC, and I’m not sure of the job market here. What I don’t want to do is put the time and effort and money into getting a degree and then not being able to use it. I’m not bilingual which will for sure hurt me in Los Angeles. I hadn’t even thought of that. I’m also considering nursing which is probably more practical in terms of getting a job, but I am really passionate about getting kids into college.
I would check directly with the school districts in your area. In our very large CA district, the high school staff members who handle college planning, as well as high school course planning/selection, are called Academic Advisors. There are separate employees who are school psychological counselors. The academic advisors are not required to have any specialized education; I’m not sure if they even have to have a bachelor’s degree. Some are former secretaries who were promoted. Their salaries are typically less than teachers.
In California, the required degree credential for most public schools is call the Pupil Personnel Services (PPS),
which is a sub-specialty Master’s in either school counseling or school psychology.
Hey @Emsmom1 . This is also the career that I wanted before I went another route, and I’m passionate about getting kids into college myself.
If this is something you want but are not sure you want to (or can) make a career out of it…try volunteering at a college admissions/access program. There is no shortage of nonprofit organizations that are focused on helping low-income and/or disadvantaged high schoolers gain admission to college, and almost all of them run partially or exclusively on volunteer services. Look up the Posse Foundation, Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, and Minds Matter. (I’ve volunteered for all of them; the latter two are 3-4 year high school programs that recruit community volunteers to work with students to prepare them for college as well as with admissions, and they take place on the weekends so it’s easier for working professionals to volunteer. Posse recruits community volunteers to help with their recruitment and selection process, as well as to tutor students in college skills to get them college-ready before they begin in the fall.)
Your local area might also have similar programs - like tutoring and admissions help at the public library; or a local high school that recruits community volunteers to help in admissions prep (especially any charter high schools that serve underserved students). Look it up through VolunteerMatch and see.
Check out private schools, too; sometimes private (and charter) schools have special college admissions positions that don’t require licensure as a guidance counselor. I was checking out a position at the Harlem Children’s Zone that was like that (It’s [url=<a href=“https://hcz-openhire.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.jobinfo&jobid=24&source=ONLINE&JobOwner=992277&company_id=16287&version=1&byBusinessUnit=NULL&bycountry=0&bystate=0&byRegion=&bylocation=&keywords=&byCat=36312&proximityCountry=&postalCode=&radiusDistance=&isKilometers=&tosearch=yes&city=%5Dhere%5B/url”>https://hcz-openhire.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.jobinfo&jobid=24&source=ONLINE&JobOwner=992277&company_id=16287&version=1&byBusinessUnit=NULL&bycountry=0&bystate=0&byRegion=&bylocation=&keywords=&byCat=36312&proximityCountry=&postalCode=&radiusDistance=&isKilometers=&tosearch=yes&city=]here[/url] if you want to take a look at what it looks like). Of course elite private schools are going to want to see some evidence of experience and success getting kids into top schools, but if you want to work with disadvanataged kids there are a lot more opportunities and for better or worse, these schools and programs know that the best they can often hope for is interested, enthusiastic adults regardless of whether they have lots of experience.
You can do it immediately on this board with no further educationat at all. 
@ChoatieMom Unfortunately you won’t get paid though!
Have you looked at the UCLA or UC Irvine on line programs to become an Independent Educational Consultant? You can get a certification and then can work independently. Also, IECA offers a summer institutes on both the east and west coast. Good luck!
There are also a lot of private high schools that need/hire counselors. Often the pay isn’t as high in a parochial school, but the benefits might be pretty good.
I live in Los Angeles too, and here – at my kids’ school and their friends’ schools anyway – there are counselors and completely separate people called college counselors. The counselors have advanced degrees in psychology, developmental psychology, that sort of subspecialty. I think they don’t want one person to fill both roles because of potential unconscious bias.
Agreed. Those schools that are fortunate enough separate the roles of the school counselors and the college counselors. The education/training necessary for school counseling differs from that for college advising. And both are extremely time consuming. One of the many reasons the independent educational/college consulting industry is burgeoning is because the HS counselors, especially those who are wearing both hats, are frequently too overwhelmed with the number of students they are responsible for to be able to provide the kind of college planning assistance kids need and deserve.
I would also make sure to honor those kids who are not headed to college, but instead are going into the military, a job, or vocational training for a trade.
@compmom , you are absolutely right as that part of the job in high school is College and Postsecondary Planning: it is simply not college counseling /advising because
not every kid is going to college after high school
It is done as a 4 year plan, not simply something that is done in senior year
For students with disabilities, It is coordinating transition activities and plans that support the IEP including making sure that students get extended time for SAT/ACT testing, CDOS (in NYS), services that they are eligible for in your state (ex: ACCES-VR), TRIO, etc. After admissions, it is about assisting the family in Coordinating available services with the college.
And students with disabilities should be encouraged to register with the disabilities services office at their college (though the range of support services varies across schools) as this article shows, only a smal # of students who had and used services in HS did so in college, with only a third of students with disabilities graduating in 8 yrs http://hechingerreport.org/colleges-respond-to-growing-ranks-of-learning-disabled/
I was only responding to the original poster’s (and others’) “passion about getting kids into college,” and gently introducing other aspects of the job : )
That said, even at our small local high school, I have seen a shift in recent years toward the “college for everyone” mantra…
I see that as a problem, while schools, administration and the DOE in general is touting college for all, the reality is that not every one wants to or should go to college immediately following high school.
I have had kids where it took all I had to get them over the line to get a diploma because they were burnt out in high school or going to college was not in their plan immediately after high school. Some did work a few year, went on to college and are doing beautifully. Other went to college knowing it was not a good look for them, but it was the expected next step only to crash and burn
Thanks everyone for your advice! I’m definitely going to look into it further. Yes, I understand college is not for everyone and if I go the working-in-a-school route I will have to learn about options for students who do not want to or are not able to attend a four year college. I’m especially interested in working with students with disabilities (e.g., ADHD as I have a lot of experience in this area), low-income kids and athletes that are good but not great enough to be recruited by the big schools. It’s like piecing together a big puzzle that is so rewarding in the end (well, so far it has been with my nephew- we’ll see whether and where he actually gets accepted!).