<p>"Parents at our school (private) pay big money to supposedly give their kids a better education, better resources, better everything."</p>
<p>....which is why some of us parents at privates (boy, does THAT sound weird, LOL) are annoyed major with the exclusively CYA behavior of our GC's. They are concerned only with making sure they don't "promise" anything. The result is the opposite of the above. They are low-balling <em>everything</em>. And when you ask them a straightforward question, i.e., INFORMATION -- not "promises," not results, not expectations, but "do you have a list of schools in region X which are mid-size?", their answers are "non-responsive," as they say in court: "I just can't promise this student can't get into ____, " etc.</p>
<p>Yes, I pay. I pay for resources, as you say. I pay for information. No, I don't pay for personalized college counseling at premium rates, but basic knowledge of the student -- accessible without difficulty in a small class -- and a fairly comprehensive knowledge base of at least categories of colleges within various regions or at various levels -- & certainly a willingness to explore that irrespective of "predictions" about admissions. Year after year, parents at this school are doing a much better job at even the fundamentals, let alone much more sophisticated searches, than our GC at this elite school.</p>
<p>In a word, she's worthless at anything except administering the paperwork necessary to distribute to the colleges. That's all she does. And she has 1/6 to 1/7 of the student load that any public h.s. college counselor has.</p>
<p>Grrrr.</p>