<p>how many of you (those who graduated from, or are in college, or will be starting in the 05/06 year) had a private college counselor or tutor during high school? </p>
<p>if you did, do you think it really helped you, or that you could have gotten into the same colleges without private help?</p>
<p>I'm going into my 4th & final year of college next year. I never had a private counselor or tutor.. and I don't think I know anybody that did. I don't think that having a tutor would have done anything for me at all.</p>
<p>why would you want to go to a college that you could only get into with a tutor helping you every step of the way? you aren't going to bring the tutor with you to college, are you? my philosophy is if the college doesn't want you for who you are, like the real you, not the you that has a private tutor and that takes extracurriculars and other things just to pad their resume, then you don't want to be at that college.</p>
<p>I never did and never felt like I needed one. But A LOT of my classmates had tutors for SATs, and some classes. I think it helped them, but the amount of help they received was probably not worth the money, and they became slightly dependent on their tutors.</p>
<p>i never had one of those private tutors, but i was just wondering about those who did. personally, i dont really like the idea of someone helping you do all your college stuff. it almost becomes a crutch, like you cant ever handle work as well without your tutor's help</p>
<p>"college counselor". haha. i think people are too obsessed about college admissions and view it as this extremely difficult task. i mean, yeah it's tough writing your essays and taking your sats and stuff, but seriously...a tutor just for applying to college?</p>
<p>i applied to all my schools on my own with no help (well excluding rec's of course) and wrote all my essays without asking anyone for their opinion. i scheduled, payed for, and took all my sats on my own. i also was to lazy to actually "study" for the sat's, though i actually didn't think they'd help either. and applying to all my scholarships was like applying to 30 more colleges. haha.</p>
<p>but i would have never thought of getting a tutor or anything. i mean, what can a tutor teach you about applying to college? you know you need the grades and ec's, and i'm sure you know how to fill out your name and SSN, so what else is there to tutor on? just your essays, which should come from YOU, and not from some tutor.</p>
<p>btw, i dont mean "you" as in gemstar66, i meant "you" in general.</p>
<p>i didn't have one, but some of my friends did. they aren't like a coach that will guarantee you a spot in a university that you couldn't get into otherwise...my friends used them because we don't have guidance counselors at our school and their is one woman responsible for college/career/scholarship and she's really no help at all. They used the private counselor to help them pick schools and evaluate whether they were reach/match etc (for all the people criticizing counselors, this sounds an awful lot like the chances thread on cc to me) and then the counselors also helped them stay on track by having write their essays early and going over them and their applications to make them look better, not padding resumes or lying or anything like that. its probably similar to what some of the people on cc are looking for...an objective judge of their essay who knows what different colleges look for, someone who'll help you sort out what kind of school you'd like to go to and what are the chances you'll be accepted, etc.</p>
<p>i had a little bit of help from a friend's mom, who is interested in college counseling, but it wasn't professional or paid or anything. her daughters are at Harvard and Yale and it was helpful because no one at my school really has any support or information for private schools outside of our area.</p>
<p>i just wanted to clear up some misconceptions or show a different side. I don't know how useful the private counselors were for my friends in the end, but i think it was helpful for them and it was certainly comforting to their parents to know that there was someone who knew what they were doing and was keeping their kid on track--if it's only the parent, then fights are going to break out and it can bee much more stressful--this was particularly important since we didn't get any help from our school (seriously, they encourage community college constantly, even in ap classes, and then mention cal-state and the uc's, which are of course very good, but anything at all outside of that you're completely on your own. the same friend who helped me found out from admissions people at yale or columbia or somewhere that the school report form was so bad it actually weakened her daughter's chances of getting in...)</p>