<p>Without guidance, students can easily make poor decisions, especially if no one in their families has gone to college, yet the national ratio is almost 500 students per counselor.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t rely on the possibility of the guidance counselors getting to you. You need to go to them or even work up other avenues. Forming a friendship with an older student who is going through the applicants process can be helpful as can be contacting a graduate from your school who is doing something you are interested in.</p>
<p>That was about the ratio at D’S school. Their concentration was on getting kids to graduate from high school, period. Very little if not negative help with the college process. For instance, one friend had her recommendation letter from the GC sent to the wrong college for early admission and she missed the deadline- when she realized it, it was way too late. Most kids were directed to state schools or athletic scholarships. D’s were discouraged from taking high level classes ‘take pill and drop a class’ was what one said at the junior orientation for college prep. I made sure D’s never got here for GC.
I did feel that if the parents were either not interested or naive or hands off approach the kids did OK but the kids did not live up to their potential. I really think that with facebook and the ability to see what others are doing once they graduate from high school is an advantage. It is a way to contact them and give you courage to take chances.</p>
<p>if I was a guidance counselor …the hardest job at a competitive high school would be to help students understand the world does not revolve around the ivy league. I would encourage those students to expand their horizons. </p>
<p>the ratio at our public is even worse.</p>
<p>If I were a guidance counselor in those situations, one of the hardest things would be to write recommendations about people I’ve barely met. That and dealing with students that haven’t even thought about what they wanted to do after high school</p>
<p>This is why I think it is a complete farce for colleges to require letters from GC’s. </p>
<p>They already KNOW that the kid at an elite private school is going to have a counselor who can accurately discuss strengths, weaknesses, fit, etc. – and that the kid at the average public school is going to get a boilerplate letter that Johnny/Suzie/Mary would be a fine addition to your college because he/she is vitally interested in studying history/math/chemistry. </p>
<p>It doesn’t tell them anything they don’t already know - they know which high schools have “real” counseling services and which ones have boilerplate / fill-in-the-blank situations, so what’s the point? If I ran the adcom world, I’d get rid of those letters.</p>
<p>Yes. Very unfair. Many of such schools do not have a lot of kids applying to schools that require much of a counselors rec however… When we lived in a district with a graduating class of over 700 kids and 2 college counselors, fewer than 10% of the kids went to schools requiring much in the way of recs. They mostly went to state school with the flagship the prize, and local schools where admissions is not competitive or selective at all. Close to open admissions. </p>
<p>At my son’s private school there are about 100 kids per counselor and most all of them apply to schools that require recs and where the recs count heavily. Also the average number of apps per kid is up there, and it’s the exception, not the rule, going to state schools (though most apply to at least one as a safety). They start the rec process junior year because so many kids jump start the process in the fall with early apps and programs. Not to mention all of the scholarships that need recs.</p>
<p>Where the real issue lies, is that the gcs pretty much focus on the academic side of things with other life counselors focusing on other issues that can permeate some high schools. Like teen pregnancy, drugs, dropping out, criminal activity, family issues. Those are addressed by counselors specializing in those things. With a close to 98% grad rate, and families paying for tuition that are focused on the school, it isn’t like some of the schools where the only adult involved with kids’ lives in those areas are the GCs. They are more incidental than front row. </p>
<p>For some kids a generic ref would be better than the in detail refs GCs give from some of these schools. They know the bad as well as the good about the kids, weaknesses and strengths and that could hurt as well as help.</p>
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<p>Some big high schools have the students turn in sheets of paper listing their accomplishments to the guidance counselor to help the counselor write their letter of recommendation. I’ve never been able to work out how this is different from just having the student turn in a resume or talk about their achievements in an essay or personal statement. Does having the guidance counselor rubber stamp something that the student wrote for them really add any value or clear anything up that wouldn’t otherwise be clear from the rest of the application?</p>
<p>For me, the main value in a guidance counselor recommendation (as opposed to a teacher recommendation) is that the guidance counselor can maybe share some insight as to challenges that the student overcame to get where they were or talk about special circumstances and difficulties. It doesn’t seem to make sense to make this a mandatory part of every application given these ratios and given the fact that most aspects of the guidance counselor’s recommendation letter will be repeats of things found in the rest of the application.</p>
<p>At many public high schools with large numbers of students per counselor, the counselors are only familiar with the schools in the state system and what it takes to get admitted to them. </p>
<p>Students who plan to choose from a wider range of colleges need to do their own research (or their parents do). </p>
<p>And I don’t think kids suffer from boilerplate (or cheat-sheet based) counselor recommendations. The colleges know which high schools only have the resources to produce those kinds of recommendations. </p>
<p>At my Ds high school, they spent a lot of time having assemblies focusing on the UC and State School applications and deadlines. The GCs had no time for individual college guidance, they were focused on the trouble kids who weren’t going to graduate. We had to hound them to get docs to the colleges. They use an automated system and it appears that they just send stuff out in a giant big batch - it didn’t matter if you submitted early and were trying to get everything to the college early.</p>
<p>No choice but to get myself educated and become the college counselor. The saddest thing is some of Ds friends from families with no parental involvement, or no college experience, who never even submitted applications because they had no knowledge of the deadlines or testing deadlines. They just didn’t understand that there were colleges out there that might be affordable for their high stats.</p>
<p>“And I don’t think kids suffer from boilerplate (or cheat-sheet based) counselor recommendations. The colleges know which high schools only have the resources to produce those kinds of recommendations.”</p>
<p>I agree kids don’t <em>suffer</em> - because the colleges know which high schools only have the resources for boilerplate. But it just seems pointless to produce an extra piece of paper that confirms for the school what they already know - that the GC at Average Public High wouldn’t know Johnny if she tripped over him, and the GC at Superb Private knows all the ins and outs of what Susie is all about. That knowledge is already communicated by knowing that the kid goes to Average Public High or Superb Private High. So what’s the point of re-confirming it? </p>
<p>I don’t completely discount the value of a counselor recommendation as the GC can put information that others aren’t qualified to do, but I agree that there is a wide disparity between the quality of the guidance counselor. Primarily, I think they provide important information about the academic rigor of the students’ schedule and unforeseen obstacles/challenges that the students may have had overcome. It lends credibility to the stories of a student that triumphed over difficult AP classes and other difficult courses despite having ADHD or one that came from a low income background with little familial support but rose up to become one of the valuable contributing members of the school. Some of these details probably wouldn’t fit anywhere else and others students wouldn’t be comfortable telling their teachers. It’s all about context.</p>
<p>That said, there can be a vast disparity between the quality of the recommendation across schools. My GC, for instance, sat down with the student, talked with them, and asked us about important info that we thought should be included. And I went to a large public high school where each GC had like 250 kids each. But I realize that not every high school does that, and it even varies across different counselors within the school. I think for this reason, the GC recommendations should be taken in perspective and weighted less because not many students have that opportunity to get to know their GC. Some of it can certainly be “fluff,” but where they can provide useful information, they can and should because it adds to the college student’s “story”</p>
<p>My DS’s school has about 1400 kids in each graduating class, but since the kids are grouped by area of interest and have a guidance counselor assigned to each grouping (called “majors”) the counselors at least can speak with confidence about the courses the students are taking, and how rigorous they are. </p>
<p>The counselors have the students fill out several detailed surveys through Naviance in spring of junior years, then they each have a meeting. In the fall they ask for an update with summer activities (in written form), along with “proof” of extracurriculars that the students have talked about. So, the guidance report may fulfill sort of a back-check function to give the colleges a sense that the student actually did the things he or she listed in the extracurricular section, and offer a sort of general screening function for any big red flags. </p>
<p>The colleges and universities that get lots of applications from this high school are doubtless familiar with the output of the guidance office and would not expect anything more, unless the applicant was very exceptional in some way… and such an exception would probably be notable to the college (in either a good (or bad) way). </p>
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<p>Probably one of the reasons why UCs and CSUs do not use recommendations – they know that GCs vary greatly in workload and quality, so that requiring any college application support from the high school can be a blocking hurdle that the most disadvantaged (low income, first generation college) students will have difficulty jumping, and that the quality of a GC recommendation may depend as much on the quality of the GC as the student.</p>
<p>Exactly. GC letters already privilege the already-privileged kids. </p>
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<p>I could not agree more with this.</p>
<p>Guidance counseling at our large public high school is an absolute joke. I know I did more to help my kids (and even their friends) than our GCs. They just do not know most of the kids or their needs.</p>
<p>It has been nice this time around to have a child applying to schools that only require transcripts and test scores.</p>
<p>The fact is that it’s a fairly good way to tell how much of an impact the applicant in question has actually had on their school community.</p>
<p>Completely agree @zobroward that the impulse of the best students at competitive high schools is often to look at the ivies first, for reasons of prestige or status. The challenge for GCs in that situation is to communicate effectively the value of the next 100 great institutions below the ivies, where students can get an equally outstanding education.</p>
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<p>Not sure of this. Many of the students best known to guidance counselors are those who have had some kind of difficulty in high school. </p>
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<p>Yes, but it does provide an opportunity for an explanation of any difficulties that a student may have faced and that the GC knows about. The GC recommendation is the best place to say, “In 11th grade, Susie was tutored at home for months and dropped her ECs for most of the year because she was recovering from serious injuries from a car accident” or “Johnny’s grades dipped in 10th grade when his father was being treated for cancer.” </p>