your child’s list of colleges? D presented her guidance counselor with her list, and the guidance counselor told her that the 2 we think are reaches are reaches and the others we thought were matches/reaches were matches and some of what we thought were matches/ safeties were safeties. It seemed GC was being kind, but D told me yesterday that she shot down a friend of her’s list, telling this girl that most of her schools were reaches. Just wondering what your experiences were with guidance couselors and if they were on target or not. Thanks again
Amazingly accurate.
@gardenstategal Well, that’s good to know.
Absolutely yes. My two kids had two different guidance counselors at the HS and we felt they were both spot on (at most a tad conservative) with their assessments.
In coming up with our preliminary list we were honest about assessing where our kids stood and we did a a lot of research into schools we thought were appropriate matches academically and otherwise. (From your thoughtful posts, I’m guessing you did the same thing.) For both of our kids the guidance counselor basically concurred with our list and suggested a few additions if we wanted to expand the search. Both kids also had friends whose lists were shot down by the guidance counselor as not including a realistic selection of match and safety schools.
We didn’t receive much input from the GC. Possibly because he is new(er) to the school and being a magnet school, has some unusual acceptance patterns.
Similar to the previous couple of posters, we had researched and put together our list. GC looked briefly at the list and agreed with our reach/match/safety labels, suggested one other college and that was it. The list turned out to be accurate or possibly a little conservative since he got into the reaches FWIW…
What input? I don’t think the GC even knew the schools my kids ended up attending even existed, and one was less than 2 hours from the school.
Our GCs did not comment on either kids list. I was hoping to get some feedback on what my current senior was doing, but he says she didn’t say a word when he told her his list of schools.
Great GC, eternally grateful. Since D1 was certain of her major, she suggested colleges strong in that, a few we thought weren’t right, except for that major. But she pressed us to visit 3, all of which D1 liked. In particular, she insisted, nagged we get to one, which quickly be became #1. D1 was a happy camper there. Perfect.
But I had a chance to sit in a focus group on college counseling a year later. Surprised that the other parents complained. I suspect that, other than prestige or sports possibilities, these parents hadn’t researched the way we had.
GC has a 700/1 student ratio. Was never consulted for input. (The "Guidance Counselors on cc – you parents – were extremely valuable, however.)
I’m not aware of any students at our school getting input on the college selection process from any of the GCs. D19 told me her GC’s response to her list of schools was, “Wow, I’m impressed! Let me know how it goes.” This counselor is still better than the one we were assigned last year (who was awful!), and she gets two thumbs up for submitting all of the required counselor forms on time.
Our GC’s give the kids about 15-20 recommendations of places that they think will be an assortment of safety, match, reach They pre-populate Naviance with these recommendations.
For my two kids I’d say they were correct in assessing the schools that would be decent matches on paper but not in real life theory, as neither of my kids applied to too many of their recommendations. For example, my kids list included a bunch of northeast Catholic schools and they had zero interest in those at all.
In all frankness, we never had much confidence in my son’s high school administrators as well as most of their teachers, so we tried to stay away from interacting with any of them unless it was absolutely necessary. In fact, one necessary time when we had to consult with the GC, I caught her with an audible sigh of relief as we were leaving her office door. We never went back to see her after that.
When time came for college applications, I helped my son put together a packet, which consisted of: a) brief cover letter, b) list of colleges he’s applying with the deadline in bold, and c) his resume. This packet was distributed to the GC and two of his teachers. The GC never consulted with my son regarding the list of colleges he’s applying to. We have no idea still to this day whether she’s written any letter on his behalf to any of the colleges. The very last time we saw the GC was during the graduating senior luncheon where, upon running into her, she said, “congratulations.”
Based on the admissions results, my son’s list of reaches, matches and safeties turned out quite accurate.
My kid had a guidance counselor?
My D’s GC suggested the school where she and my next son wound up attending. I had never heard of it.
S17’s GC gave us a list and then when my son’s ACT composite went up by 3 points, he gave us a completely new list. Unfortunately, both lists were based on S17 wanting to be a psych major and then he changed to a BFA theater tech major. At that point, I did my own research because I didn’t want to bother his GC again.
This was our experience! Our counselor left soon after school started and was not replaced until 2nd semester. We knew we were on our own and did our best.
This makes me chuckle. I will start by saying…I couldn’t stand DS’s GC. I’m sure she celebrated when he graduated.
I liked DDs GC.
DS’s GC told him NOT to waste his time applying to the college from which he got his bachelors degree. She was way off the mark, and frankly should have kept her mouth shut. Her advice came at the beginning of October of senior year…so even IF it had been accurate, it would have been too late as he had already submitted all of his applications by the time the GC saw him to “discuss college”. I’ll add, my kid was a music performance major so the GC was totally clueless about the entire college search and selection process. Frankly, her uninformed opinions were useless.
I will add, DS took a copy of his acceptance along with his very generous merit award (music performance) to this GC and smiled as he handed it to her and said “I thought you might be interested in this.”
Second kid…was applying to colleges 3000 miles from home…or 1200 miles from home. Her GC (a different one, thank goodness) was only informed about colleges within about a 300 mile radius of where we live…and I will add, I think that is totally normal. DD told him she was applying to Santa Clara, and he said that she didn’t have a good chance of being accepted (god knows what this was based on)…and that only one other kid from our HS ever went to college in CA. That was odd, because we knew three other kids who attended and graduated from CA colleges…and the Val from DDs class also was applying to CA schools.
Whatever. The kid applied EA, got accepted before Christmas and that was that.
So…in our case…accurate. No. Absolutely not, and if the kids had listened to these GCs, neither would have graduated from their undergrad school.
Spot on.
Thank you for all your responses. I found them so interesting and sad in the cases where there was no guidance offered. Your kids are lucky, but can you imagine what it was like for those who didn’t have parents who knew how to research this college stuff. My D goes to a big public school so there is zero hand holding, but they at least get some help. However, the GC never made any suggestions for good fits. That would have been nice.
My D2’s GC raises her eyebrows at some of her choices (maybe too reachy given GPA), but to be fair, all (nearly perfect) test scores weren’t in when we had that conversation. I don’t think the GC fully appreciated D’s ECs, too. But since D has clear matches & safeties, we left the list alone. D got in everyplace she applied.
Then GC again raised eyebrows at the school D decided to attend. Our small independent private HS had never had a kid attend there. I interpreted her look as, “Well, this kid will be transferring in a year.” Which did NOT happen. D worked crazy hard, but loved her school and graduated in 4 years. I liked her GC — but am glad we had confidence to chart our own path (with help from CC!)
I’ll add…with my music kid, we didn’t expect a speck of guidance from the GC, and looked to his music teachers for guidance. They were fabulous. And they were spot on.
For our DD, I put out a query here…and got some excellent suggestions. We had never heard of Santa Clara prior to a response I got here…and it hit all of her check points.