Little College Guidance: 500 High School Students Per Counselor

Parents Forum
81

We have about 1600 students in our HS, and 3 counselors. They do have one temporary counselor that comes in and is suppose to help the seniors with colleges.

I understand they are overworked, but there are so many parents/students who don’t understand this process. There are many of DS’s friends who hadn’t even taken an SAT or ACT. I don’t know if they school is that bad with this information or the kids did not pass it along to the parents.

I did talk to two of the counselors and suggest they put some sort of program together for the parents of the juniors, so they at least had some idea on where to start. I doubt it will ever happen.

And like the above poster, it seems most of the HS seniors go to the local colleges/universities. We do have a large number of them in driving distance, but there is a whole world outside this area, they just aren’t exposed to it.

82

My competitive public HS has around 2200 students and 4 counselors. They do help when needed, but are often swamped with sophomore meetings (to plan out junior and senior years, where they discourage people from taking too many high-level courses and people take them anyways) and senior stuff (letters, etc.).

However, we have a career center and a career center specialist, which I guess helps. It has stuff relating to majors, colleges, and computers that can access Naviance.

Thankfully, every sophomore is required to meet with their counselor and talk about their plans for the next two years of high school, which includes all of the courses they’ll take, some colleges you’re thinking of applying to, majors, taking the SAT/ACT, etc.

83

I go to a rather poor school with a student body of about 1,400 and 3 college counselors. Not many students at my school attend college, and a larger than normal portion of the student body drops out to join the workforce or to start a family, so the guidance counselors are more focused on increasing the graduation rate than college acceptances. The students that take AP classes, or even honors, will never be talked to about college unless they schedule an appointment because the counselors assume that they are taking more difficult classes and are already on track, and even if you do get an appointment, it is often just sitting in the office with the counselor as they read to you from the College Board’s Book of Majors. The counselors almost do not know how to react when someone asks about college, and they really have no idea what to say if the college the student is asking about is something other than IUP or Penn State. Having guidance counselors to help with college planning is definitely something of privilege.

84

School size does not matter. My twins graduated with a class size of 83. We made an appointment with the GC. I found his suggestions useless and pretty much inside the box. He is also a sports coach and I think he was more interested in that. That’s when I started trolling these boards and did my own research. I became a little mini expert and helped 5 kids apply to schools last year. I think the parents really need to get involved or hire someone to help. In his defense I must say that he did know all the kids and did a great job pushing paper. I know he really liked my kids and I am more than sure the recs were excellent. However the closest to Ivy any kid every got in recent memory was a non- ivy, Williams, and that was several years ago The Ivies never accept kids from our school and that is a shame.

Edited to say: oops I used the T word… I’ll rephrase that. “That’s when I started reading these boards…”

85

Exactly. All it takes is for a few parents to volunteer in order to see a big difference. The kids need to have some idea of what the alternatives are. If no one has seen Ivy, how will anyone else know what they could be trying for?

Many parents learn enough on CC, for example, to be a passable college admissions coach. Use whatever Parents group you have to schedule “College Information” presentations.

Many of those students and parents might need to come find out what a “Numsquat” is and how important it can be.

86

" I found his suggestions useless and pretty much inside the box. "
-Exactly my experience.

87

Its not a farce, its unfair. Deliberately so, IMHO.

Most colleges are not need-blind. But instead of nakedly favoring the full-pay kids you can indirectly screen for them with tricks like the GC letter. Those with a strong letter come from pricy privates or live in upscale neighborhoods where the taxes support a top-ranked district. Everyone feels better, well, except for the kids applying from less privileged backgrounds. The adcoms made decisions that were “fair”. The FA office is happy because they’re not straining their budget.

88

What’s a Ds?

89

Dear son/ darling son

90

My D’s GC is awesome. I always tell her that she’s the best GC in the world, lol! My D attends private school that we have busted our humps to pay for since middle school. We tell our D that we have paid for college. She has had so many opportunities, more than we could have ever dreamed of because of the school, the teachers, her coaches, friends, etc. She is a very smart girl, and we knew that in elementary school and so wanted to give her every opportunity that we could. Her class has 66 students, and that’s their largest class ever. They’re expected to do great things and to aim high, so lots of high honor rolls, multi-sport athletes, NHS, Beta Club, Nat’l Merit Finalists, etc. Junior year they have a meeting with the parents and the students to let you know what’s coming down the pike as far as SAT/ACT tests, prep classes, AP classes, summer programs, preparing your resume, etc. We have three GC’s, so that’s 22 kids per. They will meet with each kid and find out what they’re interested in, what schools they have on their radar, go over their test scores and current grades and will let them know where they stand. Her GC knows each kid personally, so she knows their strengths and weaknesses, what scholarships they qualify for, what schools would be a good fit or maybe not such a good fit.

My D is my third one going to college, so I started learning about a lot of the ins and outs from CC, asking a lot of questions, and researching for my first daughter who is a music major with average grades who is now in grad school, but not a lot of ECs besides music-related things but a real go-getter, my son who struggled just to make it out of high school but made it into college and wound up dropping out (don’t ask) to my youngest who is the whole package – high GPA, three-sport athlete, great EC’s, great test scores, great personality, etc. So between her GC and I, we’ve opened her eyes to schools near and far, and her GC suggested a service academy which was nowhere on her radar, but she saw those attributes in her and thought she would be a good fit. Lo and behold, she got in as well as every other school she’s applied for. Options, options, options is her GC’s mantra. Don’t know how things would have turned out at our local public high school that has probably 5x the students in the senior class, which is where my older D went, and whether she would have gotten that personal attention or somebody that cared as much or encouraged her along the way. Probably not. I had to do all the legwork for my older D and shudder to think where she would have wound up if I had not.

I went to a technical school, so I didn’t have the whole college experience. I don’t even remember my GC in high school, let alone meeting with them and them letting me know that I could go to college. Most of my class just got a job, got married and started families. I happened to stumble on a career. But I was determined that my kids would have those opportunities, and so that’s who I am, a dog with a bone and persistent when it comes to finding out how things work with this college thing. It does take a lot of time, but I think it’s worth it and that both my daughters will benefit from it immensely. So bottom line, if you don’t have a good GC in your kids’ life in high school, then you’ve got to step up to the plate.