<p>Ha. I would consider the original poster’s guidance counselor pretty knowledgeable.</p>
<p>My D’s counselor called her in one day, said that she had looked up Davidson College (which was on my daughter’s list) and really didn’t think it would be a safety. “Dickinson”, my daughter replied, “Dickinson College”.</p>
<p>Nobody from my daughter’s school had ever attended Swarthmore and I’m pretty sure that the guidance office hadn’t heard of it. My daughter must have started a fad because now another student from her high school is at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>To answer the question, yes, I think College Confidential, some key books like the Gatekeeper, and a willingness to do some research can help a parent become a very effective college counselor for their kids. A lot depends on the relationship with your kids. Some kids simply aren’t going to listen to a parent and some parents simply aren’t going to listen to their kid.</p>
<p>Our family “team” really clicked when mom, dad, and daughter ALL read The Gatekeepers and had the same lightbulb of understanding about the process go on over our collective heads at the same time. In retrospect, I don’t think we did a great job on the safety end of the application list, but the overall list of two reaches (one with a double-legacy) and six matches (75th percentile scores) was pretty good, I think. We never got to test the list, but I would have been surprised by many rejections and I feel even more strongly as I have learned more. It’s all about the application. If anything, we probably underestimated the application, but we really tried to bring an attitude of cold realism to the assessment. Pie in the sky is not a helpful approach to building a college list.</p>
<p>One other piece of advice. Don’t get hung up too much on Naviance plots using only SAT scores. The real trick here is to be able to make a qualitative assessment of your kid’s complete application. For a lot of schools, it’s not really about the SAT scores because all the applicants all have good ones.</p>