No, it opened her eyes to what is important. Good luck to you.
And doors to an elite medical school and career. Good luck to you!!
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âI am absolutely certain that the CGS at your kidâs school knew the kids who were in the top 3% pretty well. A kid who is focused on getting into an Ivy or a similar college will be meeting with their GC pretty often.â
I wonât comment further regarding the particular situation with the McKinney counselor, as it seems he may have been unusually knowledgeable or interested in admissions. But in general, I think @RosePetal35 was spot on with the original comment. My daughter finished 8th of 568 at a big public HS, and I donât think her counselor could pick her out of a lineup. Meetings with the assigned GC, to the extent you can even schedule them due to IT issues, are a waste of time. They are equipped to help with filling out the FAFSA and can remind you of relevant deadlines for the local colleges, but anything else is met with blank stares. And I canât blame them - when much of your day is spent dealing with kids facing poverty, domestic abuse, food insecurity, etc., my kidâs questions about Yale and Brown are not exactly a priority.
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Even at high performing public HS in the bay area, the ratio of GCs to students is around 1 to 500, maybe even 1 to 750/1000, from talking with GCs, they meet once in jr year for college planning and once, maybe twice in the fall of senior year. That is not often by any stretch of the definition, and btw these GCs do not tell the kids to take classes that would be too hard to manage.
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Hmm, why go to elite colleges when the public options are fine? 
My kids wouldâve gone to public universities due to value but they werenât elite HS students.
I attended a college few on CC talk about and a top MBA program. Most on CC seem to concur that a top graduate school, especially for business and law, is a worthwhile investment. I concur. I assume that it was geography and wealth driven but the top two enrolling undergrads were Cornell and Michigan. However, roughly 125 undergrad institutions were represented out of 650 entering students. Looking back, I didnât have to do any essays for undergrad but for grad school, I mentioned that I had been a preacher at my church for a few years. I never wouldâve thought that being a small town preacher and working 25-30 hours a week at McDonalds would have been a big deal. Iâm not saying I wouldâve gotten into an elite undergrad but those experiences wouldnât have hurt. My dad had a talk with me that an elite private undergrad would cost too much. I suppose Kaitlynâs parents didnât have to have that talk with her.
Trust me on this, I may be more a public college person, I went to private college undergrad and public university for grad, and the public college experience was better, and I could see how the undergrad experience was better as well even though I went for grad. My point was more on Davidson fellows being as arbitrary a definition of extraordinary as anything else.
Where you when I was getting criticized (to put it mildly) for suggesting Berkeley over Williams? 
However, I would guess that most of those who successfully climbed over the barriers of starting in a disadvantaged situation would not choose to raise their kids in a similar disadvantaged situation. Probably because, while needing to climb over more barriers makes some stronger in the end, the barriers block many more from escaping the disadvantaged situation, while making some of those who do escape weaker due to using up so much of their effort that they have little left for anything more.
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Success is a complex multivariate equation, that is different for everyone. But the most important commonly shared variables, and by a very, very large amount, are temperament and rationality. That is what I learned from my early life, and this is what I teach my kids.
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So, I have found this discussion of GC calling the AO interesting because it seems to be common practice in private schools and boarding schools, and I guess what is considered elite public schools. (I also think it probably starts long before the waitlist process and probably is another leg up some students have.) But for most public schools I donât even know how the student would request it when it is nearly impossible to meet with either the guidance counselor or the college advisor. My DD school has one college advisor for over 720 seniors (granted not all will apply to college) and maybe 8 guidance counselors for 3000-3200 students. It is in a suburb of a big city and is considered an excellent school district and school.
Earlier I clicked on the Cornell Waitlist thread - I donât know why I did, because I have no reason to look at it, but I saw this posted - what part of Cornell is doing (engineering) - they flat out say, send nothing, do not call, do not send more LoRs or LOCIs. This is sort of what some people have been suggesting on this thread - seems fair, lets it rest in the hands and merits of the waitlisted applicant. If they go to the waitlist, they will send you a topic and you will have to write a paragraph and I assume it will be a very quick turnaround too.
I am writing in recognition of the fact that you have been offered a spot on the Cornell Engineering wait list. If you remain interested in Cornell Engineering , your first instinct may be to write us an email or request additional letters of recommendation. Please know, however, that we require just three simple tasks for wait-listed applicants :
Officially accept your wait list offer by April 10. Log in and indicate your wish to remain on the wait list.
Ask your guidance counselor whether your mid-term grades have been sent. If not, request they be sent to Cornell. Only applicants with mid-year grade reports will be considered for offers of admission from the wait list.
If we go to the wait list, we will ask all applicants remaining on the list to write a brief paragraph on a topic of our choice. More information will be sent to you directly via email if we go to the wait list.
Pretty simple, right? We understand that the wait list seems daunting, but we truly want you to focus on finishing your senior year. Thusly, we will NOT consider :
Letters of continued interest
Updates on activities, awards, etc.
Additional recommendation letters
Campus visits
Lobbying efforts by yourself or advocates via email or phoneOver the years we have found that interest letters and extra recommendations do not substantively add useful information to an application at this phase of the review process. We want to give everyone remaining on the wait list the opportunity to vouch for themselves in a fair and equitable processâa short paragraph will accomplish that. Should spots become available, we will provide you a link where you can write a brief topical paragraph.
We hope that you will follow and respect this request. In mid-April, we will send you an update on the status of the wait list. Thank you for your interest in Cornell Engineering and your patience throughout this process.
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I am going to echo this sentiment. Daughter is finishing 7th out of over 720 at a big public high school, but one in the suburbs without the issues your school is facing. (I am sure there is some, but it would be a small percentage). And still, my daughter had very little help with her college process. I think everybody had the opportunity to sign up for a 15-minute (non-mandatory) session with the College Advisor which we thought would be a one on one turned out to be a group session. She may have met a couple times with her GC or it may have all been by email. Not sure either could pick her out of line-up either.
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Having a dedicated college advisor seems to be a step up from many high schools where the college advising is expected to be done by the regular counselors.
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It is these situations that have made private college counseling an industry. Itâs one of the reasons I donât immediately tell families who come here asking if they need a private CC that they can get everything they need from the very knowledgeable members on this site.
My kid went to a BS (where, btw, the counselors would not make phone calls to advocate) where his assigned CC (not his regular advisor for the 4 years) had about 35 students. I continue to advise parents at our school that private counseling is unnecessary. But I would also say that I cannot imagine how DS (or my marriage) would have fared without the phenomenal advice and support of that CC. For two well-educated parents, we were woefully out of touch!
Our LPS, one with a good reputation, does a lousy job on college counseling.
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Iâm in an interesting situation now. Itâs a tradition in our public school that graduating seniors and their parents give a presentation to the school. But of course, we can only mouth platitudes and not be truly helpful.
Our counselor is stretched thin (does guidance as well). The one thing that would have been helpful to convey that nobody is allowed to say in a school today is that everyone is competing against others in their demographic and financial pool.
I knew this and so do most college educated parents. However, our cc pussyfooted around this and gave DD22 the idea that she was âin rangeâ for the top US BBA program because a fellow student had been accepted 2019. Very different demographic pool, my kids born on 3rd base. DD22 really clung to that, and I couldnât shake her of that idea. Slowly beginning to get it now. We tristate ORM college-educated families are competing with each other for the same sorts of schools, have the resources to do endless ECs. You get the picture.
I was resolute in not seriously going to look at CC threads until apps were in. Trust me, going to approach things differently with DD25. We are lucky in that her academics are very strong, donât have to worry about that. But I am having her try out a wide variety of ECs to see if anything sticks now to tell a story 2 years hence. Because our pool is tough!
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I should add that in addition to the GCs, our HS also has a âCollege/Career Advisorâ who is theoretically available to assist with college admissions prep. I reached out to her during D22âs junior year, noting that Naviance indicates 5-6 students every year go to selective schools and asking if there were any resources/groups/forums/other parents/anything that could assist with the process. She referred me to a blogpost on Collegevine about Ivy League admissions and suggested that I reach out to AOs myself and attend each schoolâs presentations for more information. That was the extent of it.
For those of you who want to know who gets into multiple T10 schools, hereâs a story about a student who did just that. Itâs not like other students could follow her lead and have the same results. Sheâs an outlier in terms of accomplishments.
Sheâs not your âaverage-excellentâ student.
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Iâve learned much from CC and reading between the lines. I think this teen is outstanding BUT also had a lot of (paid) opportunities that led to more opportunities.
Freshman Stanford (presumably paid) summer science camp â research with Stanford radiology professor â regeneron â Diana/Coke scholar awards
ORM, child of doctor/s - this pool is a TOUGH pool to swim in.
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it did sound like she had to get accepted to that Stanford summer program, though, in another story I read.
I googled around quickly. The Stanford summer ones are competitive, but not THE most competitive :). The curious thing is that the article says âfreshmanâ but Iâm only seeing programs for sophomores and up.
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well, it was three years ago so who knows.
Starting a successful non-profit does seem to be a huge boost. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. It will be interesting to see where she chooses.
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Iâm in Manhattan, the land of a million and one non-profits started by teens. The thing seems to be build a club across schools. Thereâs quite a good online news website. https://www.theirisnyc.com/
There was another one started to give kids free music lessons.
https://www.doremiproject.org/Thereâs this Stanford summer camp for grades 8-11. https://summerinstitutes.spcs.stanford.edu/
Iâm seeing podcasts by teens, etc. All good and entrepreneurial. All moribund once the founder/s go off to college. Except that Iris news site.
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