Met with our school's college counselor - Wow

Parent Cafe
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<p>I really didn’t get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning but my first thought was * quit your bellyaching!*
:wink:
My kids are first gen college-While my oldest attended a small school, because of extra challenges she had to deal with the advising was not so much help, few students there had her background. Some parents hired advisors, we couldn’t afford to spend the money and didn’t feel we needed to.</p>

<p>While it was * long before* I had discovered CC, I was able to find enough information on line, through school sites and through sites with professionals (like Br uce Hammond, who were gracious enough to advise me personally through email), so that she was able to find and attend a Lac that met 100% neeld.</p>

<p>Really what more can you ask for than finding a school where your children can continue their studies in an environment that is stimulating and supportive?</p>

<p>I have assisted the students in a local public high school, where counselors are stretched thin & are dealing with students who speak many different languages, where they may be living on the streets or in their own apt caring for siblings.
I have tried to help students who didn’t get to the place where they were interested in continuing their education till junior or senior year of high school.
Some of them had peers who were pressuring them to join gangs instead, some didn’t even have family members who were supportive, but who needed their income for the household.</p>

<p>Even though my kids came from a lowish income, blue collar family, they had parents who always had their education as a priority even if we have made mistakes.
We are fortunate enough to not only be able to seek out community resources for education, example local libraries and NELA, but the multiple resources on the internets.
CC alone, not to mention all the other web sources, is a clearinghouse for those looking for information about college prep/selection/aid, as well as social and health issues. We even find suggestions for potluck dishes, electronic buying guides & support for health/life challenges.</p>

<p>In retrospect, it is just as well I didn’t know about College Confidential, as I might have decided the first child in our family to attend college, should attend a school that had a bigger brand name.</p>

<p>No one is going to care about our kids education more than we will, ( and it may be our last time to give them advice :wink: )
I doubt if a public school ( or private school) counselor receives enough salary to motivate them to spend hours researching opportunities for students, when it is all they can do to put out fires.</p>

<p>My younger daughters counselor I think is very good.
Even though I had painstakingly built a relationship with the two previous counselors ( who took jobs elsewhere), I made another attempt with the new counselor when she was a junior, although it was not as successful as I had hoped , mostly because of his personality/sex ( the previous counselors were women & we hit it off fairly quickly)
This was disappointing and made it more difficult from my point of view, to ask and receive help, not only regarding college, but he was always very professional and generally responded quickly even if not to the depth I would have liked.</p>

<p>This still was at a challenging inner city public that was a magnet for the top gifted students of the area - challenging community to deal with.
There is a career center ( which is only partially staffed) and I have donated materials and tried to share information, which they are fairly open to.
It can be tricky not to step on toes when you have almost 7000 posts on CC and they may have just graduated from college.
:wink: But if you ask, I bet they could find something you could help with so that they can set up Naviance or read their inbox.</p>

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<p>Hey, it could have been worse: a guidance counselor told the daughter of a friend of mine that she was a “shoe-in” at Brown. This girl is a good, and probably very good student, but has yet to take her SATs. I tried to explain that no one is a shoe-in at Brown unless your name has an appropriate ring of money and prestige attached to it, but I’m afraid the damage’s been done and now the family thinks the UCs, where this girl was originally to apply, aren’t good enough.</p>

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<p>Actually, the college counselor at D’s school was OK. She was not very well versed on schools outside of our geographic area, but she was otherwise very good. Yes, I knew more than she did about some things, but she was helpful in other ways (she convinced me that D probably has enough safeties).</p>

<p>Now D’s guidance counselor (the one actually writing the recommendation) is atrocious, lazy and nasty.</p>

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<p>Sorry…I guess I wasn’t clear.</p>

<p>This was not the guidance counselor…who would arrange for recommendations and write a recommendation.</p>

<p>This was the woman the school hired to head up the “college information center” which is designed to provide students with information about selecting colleges, filling out applications, and evaluating chances at various schools.</p>

<p>She would not have any influence over my son’s application. His GC will do that. We had already met with the GC previously to ask about schools, but she is pretty busy and suggested that if we had specific questions about admission chances to talk with this other person. Yes, this is a public school, but a small one in an area with a lot of wealthy parents. (Of course, in retrospect I realize that all those parents are probably hiring private counselors and don’t expect anything from the school!)</p>

<p>So, based on the fact that the GC recommended seeing this person, I was hoping for something a little more expert. Certainly we didn’t need to meet with her at all. I’m not sure how many do.</p>

<p>I didn’t ask her anything about FAFSA as I didn’t want to prolong what was an uninformative meeting.</p>

<p>And, while I wasn’t really complaining, I was definitely expressing great surprise that the person whose job it is to provide college application advice and supposedly evaluate whether schools might be matches/reaches/safeties didn’t know what a super score was, nor what criteria certain schools might use to evaluate their candidates. (My son is actually considering a college that her child just started attending…and that particular college only will use scores from one SAT sitting. She didn’t know that.) And…I was also wondering if anyone could tell me what a professional college counselor knows and if it is more than what this person knew. </p>

<p>In the end, we are no worse off than we were before, but no better off either, which is a bummer because I left work early and my son went into work late so that we could meet with her!</p>

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<p>To me, the overarching message is that no one is going to care more about the college process than you and your kid. Act accordingly.</p>

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<p>Just want to throw in a word of support for ReadyToRoll. I think the real point is simply that the counselor wasn’t the sort of expert she was expecting or hoping for. (RtoR—sorry if you’re not female.) </p>

<p>For many of us, this is a tough process (notwithstanding an earlier comment to the contrary), and for many of us, self-help has its limits. So, to me at least, it’s pretty easy to understand both why you would be looking for someone to bring something extra to the table and also why you would be frustrated when that didn’t happen. And I don’t think that feeling this way means you’re really upset because you can’t off load work you ought to be doing yourself. </p>

<p>So to RtoR, I hear you.</p>

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<p>Thanks for starting this thread. It comes at a great time; we’re meeting with my son’s college advisor/GC tomorrow AM. This helps me to set expectations accordingly.</p>

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<p>Don’t assume a paid college counselor knows more than you do.</p>

<p>Friends tried to get their money back when the paid counselor didn’t seem to know the difference between SUNY and CUNY. (yes they’re both in NY). And assured them that “NYU will work with you to make it affordable”. Which may be the case at a macro level… but is certainly NOT the experience that most folks around here have had with NYU- which seems to offer loan heavy packages even to families with well documented need and poor access to credit!</p>

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<p>RTR, it can be a frustrating process! I have 4 children & started doing the research when the oldest was a freshman in HS! Then I started in on the financial aid! So, I am “self-educated” in the whole process, I guess! I quickly learned that the GC’s in the public high school were not well-informed, so I was glad I had taken the time to research college admissions, financial aid, etc… My little home office here is full of books on colleges and financial aid! Why, just the other day I happened to be talking to S’s GC on the phone & I had to explain “Superscore” to her and why it is different from “Score Choice”… We had that discussion on the 3.0 to 3.3 thread, remember? </p>

<p>Do your own research & talk to people on CC… Don’t waste your money on a private counselor!</p>

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<p>So, uh, what is a super score?</p>

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<p>Some schools will only take your SAT score from the same sitting. Some schools will take your highest subsection scores from as many times as you sat for the test and combine them into one score. The latter is called super scoring.</p>

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<p>seems a little “gotcha” to focus on “super scores” </p>

<p>1- critically assess the counselor’s skills and capabilities, identify the information and analysis gaps, and probe for areas of weakness, then regard the counselor’s usefulness as less than desirable </p>

<p>2 - critically assess the counselor’s skills and capabilities, identify the information and analysis gaps, and probe for areas of strength, then regard whatever the counselor’s usefulness is as a positive </p>

<p>It’s sort of like having an employee; the counselor is working for you, so how can you get as much assistance from that person as possible? </p>

<p>We are going ahead with what we know assisted by a school counselor, and feel that combination is working well for us . . . even though we have no idea what super scores are or whether they matter . . . seems like a tertiary issue at best, especially for a counselor who has to tailor their work to people who DON’T read CC :-)</p>

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<p>Actually Kei…I think the whole concept of whether a college in which you are interested will super score not tertiary at all! It may make the difference between your kid deciding to take the SAT again (and again) or not…and if choosing to take it again, whether he or she needs to focus on preparing better for a particular section or all sections again…</p>

<p>Thanks to all for the comments.</p>

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<p>. . . does anyone know what what colleges superscore?</p>

<p>I’ll start a thread on it!</p>

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<p>No need to…here you go:</p>

<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat-score-use-practices-list.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;

<p>:-)</p>

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<p>It looks like that boat is getting pretty full, but if there’s place for one more I’d like to hop in. Our school has fewer problem kids than most and I’d say 90% or better don’t even know where the GCs’ office is much less they’re names. But that can be a double edged sword because the counselors can’t be bothered to show up to work so they don’t know the kids either. </p>

<p>The first two years we didn’t have a counselor. Last year they hired four and I didn’t see it helped since they’re clueless. I took S in one day and talked to one (not his because he’s never there) about him needing specific classes on his schedule for college and degree plan, etc. Her reply was if he couldn’t get into college he could aways get someone pregnant… </p>

<p>Later in the year, I finally got in to talk to the correct GC. I asked what S needed to be doing and when for college. He couldn’t tell me. I asked if there was a timeline, no but he’d work on it. At the end of the year I went in again and he was so proud to be able to give me a timeline that he’d printed off of an insurance company site. I knew then it would be useless to complain about the Juniors not being able to sit in when colleges came to visit the campus and why wasn’t I told there was a local scholarship for an EC he’d done. Ok, so another one bites the dust.</p>

<p>Then a couple weeks ago S and I went in to get his transcript and some papers signed. No one is there but the first GC. With a bit of a push and shove, we finally got the papers signed but no transcript because it turns out he had been put on the wrong track, blah, blah, so excuse me but he’s now a Senior and you’re just now noticing this? He and I have been arguing about him not getting his blue sheet turned in and he swore he didn’t know what I was talking about and that the GC didn’t know what a blue sheet was (a form for recs). Hello, it’s on the school website! Ok, so I print it out and he gives it to her and she tosses it aside never looking at it or anything. I bring up the fact that it asked for college deadlines but he needs to have everything from the school ready to go on Aug. 1st and not wait until the deadline at the end of the year because of rolling admission. I might as well have been talking to the wall. The only thing S and I got from that visit was a view of her thong and he was not impressed!</p>

<p>My tax dollars down the drain.</p>

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<p>We should all give a standing ovation for CC! Thank you CC for being here!!!</p>

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<p>Oooh! Didn’t need the thong comment. Now I have to wash my brain out… We must be fortunate with our GCs. While our GC didn’t know as much about specific schools or who still doesn’t take ACTs (thank you CC), she did know both DDs and completed all paperwork correctly and on time. With approx 450 students to watch (1/4 graduating), that’s pretty good.</p>

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<p>Re private counselors, in NJ they are very expensive and I hav eyet to hear they do much that you cannot do if you are willing to do it. Some parents use them because they want to show they have the money to do so; or are doing the best possible job for their kid; or assume a public school GC is no good; or do not want to be the one to push their kid to work on the essay, etc.</p>

<p>Re school GCs, even if you have one you believe is useless, you have to try to get along with them, as they will write the school recommendation for your child. Our school is very highly regarded and our taxes are equally high to pay for it, and our first child’s GC was excellent–but the second child’s had me steaming at first, until many other parents told me the same about their counselors.</p>

<p>I find the parents on CC are mostly remarkably helpful (which made me wonder why the GC did not mention it to parents). Once you narrow down your child’s interests (for example, medium-sized schools in or near a big city in the northeast), I think CC can provide you with most of what you need, other than what you get from the schools themselves, letting you just ask the GC (or a Naviance-type service) for how your school’s applicants have fared there.</p>

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<p>How strange, because all sorts of companies that want to sell you college services have timelines, and handouts and maps of how to get your kid to college. Check out this one from CollegeBoard:</p>

<p>[Action</a> Plan: Your Junior](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools)</p>

<p>There’s one for senior year also. Getting these handouts–I’ll bet they are free if the counselors ordered them–is not a problem.</p>