<p>Epiphany, the school students don’t used the CC.<br>
Longhaul, kids tend to apply to very few schools. I don’t know about the paying kids.</p>
<p>ellemenope: thanks for seeing that I was trying to do what the student needed. I wasn’t expecting anything. But the $6.00 box of chocolate and telling my boss that I must have felt guilty was only an insult. If she was mad that she had to pay her next year’s teacher, why blame me for doing what was right?</p>
<p>berryberry1: are you or were you ever a teacher? It’s not a 9-5 job. I’d have to start meeting with students or their parents by 7:30am, meetings after school, leave the school by 6:00pm to see my own kids, prep for the next day, and correct papers for many more hours and still send emails to their parents by 12:00 that night. You do this enough and it’s nice to get a thanks for the effort. I might have the hours of a hedge fund consultant, but we’re sure not paid like one.</p>
<p>rockvillemom: your post #21 is spot on. My apologies for getting into this tangent about tutoring kids you teach. Teaching is about giving the student the tools to learn. But CC consulting is different: it’s about showing the door through which to step. Both are about relationships, but one (tutoring an elementary student in her math) is very broad based, while the other (the GC picking colleges) is very specific. It makes no difference who teaches that elementary student, so long as she learns. But the GC / consultant plays a huge role in her future about where she goes to college.</p>
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<p>Well thats not the way I read her quote
Yes, after that she goes on to add the comment about what the parents supposedly told her boss - but from her initial comment, she was frosted about the $6 box of chocolates. And I learned long ago, there are two sides to every story so who knows what the comment to her boss really was. Perhaps it is word for wrod as stated or perhaps it was much more innocuous and twisted in translation</p>
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<p>This is one reason why this is unethical and not permitted at the independent school I work at. It is not in the school’s nor the parents/students best interest for a school employee to trade on the school’s name / reputation and set up a side business that even gives an appearance of a conflict</p>
<p>limabeans - I have stated on this thread I work for an independent school. No doubt teaching is not a 9-5 job, but please, lets not exaggerate with the 7:30am til midnight schedule. A typical High school faculty member at my school teaches 4 periods a day. They may be involved in another school activity or school committee (so lets say that takes another 1 period). That leaves 2 free periods a day and an extra 45 minutes after school when they are required to be on site) spent on lesson planning, grading homework / tests, providing extra help. Are there times when some do work at home - certainly, but it is not the huge hours you make it out to be and no different than a number of other professional jobs which at times require extra time and effort. Sure, everyone likes a thank you for their efforts - and in the example you cited the parents sent you a box of choclates as thanks - but apparantly that didn’t meet your criteria for sufficient thanks.</p>
<p>Oh well, I digress, this is off the subject of the thread</p>
<p>Someone mentioned that independent counselors don’t call colleges and advocate for their paid clients- some consultants advertise in the newspaper that they DO make calls on their clients’ behalf. Personally, I do believe that there is a conflict of interest</p>
<p>When my first kid was applying to colleges, we hired a consultant (who also was a guidance counselor in a local public HS)who charged an outrageous amount of $$$. She absolutely contacted colleges on his behalf. She also discouraged him from applying to some colleges that, in retrospect, he had decent chances of getting into- I think this was so she could play the role of “savior” when he was accepted to every single school he applied to- which we now know were safety schools. Looking back, I do question her ethics on several levels- she collected a huge fee, but did not give my son great advice. And I have to think she was no more useful to the kids she was advising as part of her job. Lesson learned- my third kid is a senior, and I feel confident that between his HS counselor and his parents, he is getting very good advice.</p>
<p>Teachers at our students’ hs get $75-80 a hr to tutor!! …which is ridiculous—we found another local teacher at $35 a hr…for out middle school student for alg 1…</p>
<p>I would think having a business to counsel college apps might be a conflict of interest IF the clients are getting a different (better?) service than those families already paying the private school fees for this service already…
but perhaps time per student etc is an issue…and how much tuition is being paid…15k, 20k…25k…then a parent should expect great GC service for their sr…</p>
<p>berryberry1, oh you annoy me! I guess you haven’t been an elementary teacher, because indeed, I was in class with students starting at 7:30 until the very last minute of their day. Official time started at 7:45, but some kids always came early. And did every parent pick up their child on time? I had to wait til everyone left before “my” prep time could begin. And does an elementary teacher have only four classes? I don’t think so. More like I had 4 minutes to run to the bathroom (if that). I even ate lunch with the kids, snacks with the kids. Specials with the kids. I was there helping them change into their PE (that was my “break”). Then, after school ended, I had to do the planning & prepping & cleaning up the room. I had regular meetings, and often worked w/ kids. And yes, I was indeed writing to parents at midnight. One kid, for instance, needed advance time to talk about the morning writing prompt, and often I didn’t get that sent until late the night before.</p>
<p>You also questioned the parent who criticized me to my boss. Ha! My boss was the one who wrote to me about it. He said this parent said, “I must have felt guilty.” He told me it was because I was spending too much time with another kid (and clearly saying it was a wrong choice.) </p>
<p>So cool it with the criticism about my story, will ya? Not made up. Not twisted in translation, as you so ‘nicely’ put it.</p>
<p>Fogfog, I don’t think the issue is the quality of the advising. Almost all the parents think that the CC is very good.</p>
<p>What happens if the Counselor has two students interested in the same college, one from the high school and one private pay? Now in theory, each candidate is judged on their own merits but let us assume that the GC is giving each advice on how to apply or what that college is looking for. Possibly the GC may give the best unbiased advice to each of the two students, tailored to their situation, but there is a perception issue. Something about “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion…”</p>
<p>I suppose the GC could have two students at the same school also interested in the same college. Would that be any different than ^^^ ?</p>
<p>“I suppose the GC could have two students at the same school also interested in the same college.”</p>
<p>This occurred from time-to-time at my D’s private HS. It was up to the GC to determine whether the college would consider two students from the same (small) HS. If not, it was the GC’s job to discourage one student from applying.</p>
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<p>Well it seems your story has already changed. Twisted in translation indeed</p>
<p>The difference is that if you have a private pay and a HS student, there is a potential conflict of interest. In case there are two students from the same school, then the GC’s advice is now swayed by the fact that one person is paying them extra. So let us say a GC discourages a HS student from applying (as has per NewHope33’s example) but encourages a private pay student to apply, there could be a perception that the payment by the private pay student influenced the decision to discourage the HS student to apply. </p>
<p>If the same thing happens with both being HS students where one is discouraged, then it could attributed to professional judgment. In other words in both situations the GC may have made the right decision, it is the perception that is the key. Providing advice is the same area to two difference groups who may be in competition with each other raises a potential for conflict of interest. On the other hand if the private consulting was for graduate school (say law school), then there is no perceived conflict of interest as they are in in different areas. </p>
<p>So if I am a parent and paying for a private school, I do not want the GC to be doing things that I might consider will influence the GC’s judgment</p>
<p>The biggest question should not be about the GC having a side business, but why the parents believe this person might be in a position to help them in the first place. The value of the “guidance” given should have been easy to measure by what is offered at the school. It is either good or bad, and that should not change by paying for added services. </p>
<p>In this case, it seems that parents seem all too willing willing to pay for something they should receive freely, and that this payment intimates a way of obtaining … advantages over the rest of the pack. If what they seek is VALUABLE guidance, they should most definitely look OUTSIDE the four corners of a high school. </p>
<p>What do they say about a fool and his money?</p>
<p>berryberry1–I’m a guidance counselor and would love to be “paid very well” for a caseload of 35 to 40 students. Talk about a dream job! Instead, I have 300 students and get a low-to-mid rate salary, which I would hesitate to describe as “very well”. Your counselors, their caseloads and their pay are NOT the norm! I am following this thread to gauge the ethics of doing consulting outside of school hours to pay for my own son’s college tuition–as there is no way my salary will!</p>
<p>This thread is FOUR years old. Can’t imagine that the poster is waiting for a reply after four years.</p>
<p>What’s with all of these old threads getting bumped in the last few days?</p>
<p>please use old threads for informational purposes only and do not post to them</p>
<p>Closing thread.</p>