<p>I don’t understand the constant killing of GCs that go on here at CC. It does not matter whether you have the best or the worst college/guidance counselor on the face of the earth, I do not think that it absolves you or your child from doing **your due diligence ** and being an informed consumer, yes, you are purchasing college education. </p>
<p>There are over 3,000 colleges in the country and it is unreasonable to think that **any GC/College Counselor ** knows the admissions/financial aid process all of them off of the top of their head. I do think that we have come a long way because there is loads of information right at our finger tips.</p>
<p>With a sticker price of $200,000 for 4 years at a private college, other than the the purchase of your home, you will probably never spend this amount of money on anything else again (whether you are full freight or full FA, someone’s money is being spent) are you really going to take someone else’s word as the be all and end all? My D had a great GC however, it did not mean that I did not do my homework since I was going to be the one writing the checks.</p>
<p>Each family’s situtation and value system is different, and professionally I do not impose my value system on my students or my parents. Where I am willing to send my kids, what I am willing to borrow, pay for my kid to attend college, may not be where you are willing to send your child or what you are willing to pay for them to attend college. </p>
<p>I had a kid who turned down a 4 year EOP at SUNY(after weekly calls to get him in to the program) because they had a sibling who was going to CUNY and getting money back from their FA package and had no loans when other students with the same package, jumped at the opportunity. College admissions and financial aid are 2 things were we can say with absolute certainty that YMMV.</p>
<p>I recently spoke to one of my colleagues because she could not understand why a student would not attend college “X” that left a gap of $9,000 (plus loan) on a $46,000 price tag. I explained that the family is on a fixed income, and cannot afford the loan. She said $109.00/month is nothing. Again, I told her it is a lot for a family on a fixed income with other children to feed. At minimum, these parents are going to have $36,000 of debt in addition to ~$35,000 in student loans that the child would have. Long range, IMHO, school is not a financially feasible option for this family. I gave the GC and the student the “MY Affordability Story” sheet (thanks Calreader) and let them work the numbers out in black and white and they finally got it.</p>
<p>Even if you have a good counselor, it does not give you a buy and it does not mean that you/your child should not be active participants in the process. Our role is to advise/ counsel. It does not mean that our opinion is the be all and end all or should even remotely be taken as gospel. At my NYC public high school, there is no dedicated College Counselor. Every counselor covers soup to nuts with their caseload and unfortunately there is not enough time to adequately do everything (I have had to interupt a college advising meetings for a student who slit her writst in the girls bathroom, fights, ACS cases, etc. ). I meet with kids at 7:30 in the morning, after school, I have a separate e-mail just for my seniors which I respond to after hours/ weekend/ over the summer. When it is all said and done, you know your financial situation better than we do and you know your kid better than we do.</p>
<p>Yes, I know what superscore is, I have the list of SAT optional schools, I know every HEOP/EOP program in the state, I have written a 70 page document, which I have given to my students and their parents on the FA process (I can give a pretty good predication of a FA package at a lot of schools my students are interested in attending), I wrote college process booklet for Juniors and Seniors and I do a year long advisory for juniors on my caseload on the college process.</p>