<p>Depends on your kid. You could at least tell him that people you know (if only virtually!) think the college counselor he saw is an idiot, because that’s definitely what I’m thinking about the counselor!</p>
<p>How much does such a college counselor charge, in ball park figures? How do you go about hiring one?</p>
<p>Do not show to your son. Copy and paste the comments that you like into a file, change from refering to him to neutral reference and show him that. You need to maintain his trust 100%, he will not understand that you are trying to help him. Well, at the end, it is really is up to you, we can only suggest based on our experience.</p>
<p>Don’t hire this one Dad II!</p>
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<p>Reminds me of the old Groucho Marx line about not wanting to be the member of any club that would have him…</p>
<p>Back on topic - There are plenty of public flagship U’s with plenty of rah-rah (I presume that is what he is looking for) that would have him. I will warn you though that you need to look at OOS admissions statistics for any school before trying to apply. Often they are significantly higher.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, I was asking a general question about any college counselor.</p>
<p>My kids know I post on CC and that I occasionally post questions that I hope will be helpful for them. They know my screenname, so I am reasonably careful not to embarrass them. I don’t feel like you’ve said anything he’d mind, but you know your kid best.</p>
<p>Private pay college counselors usually give advise, but also use their connections in college admissions offices to champion the client child. Private counselors could be thought of as talent scouts, working for the colleges. To maintain their own reputation with the colleges, they will only champion top of the line, 85th percentile students. They are not going to attach their name to a 50th percentile kid. </p>
<p>So to keep the paying client, they will steer the student to a lower range school, where that kid will be “a find” by comparison. Then the counselor retains his relationship with the college as the deliverer of talent.</p>
<p>The counselors relationship with the colleges is his bread and butter. Your child is just one more client coming through. With internet resources, parents can pull the same data the counselors used to have exclusive access to. If you have time, you can do this yourself.</p>
<p>Hi, just some more info here. I have kids who got into Pitt, Penn State, and U. Md. over the last couple of years, so I am pretty familiar with the app process and the necessary stats.</p>
<p>In no particular order:</p>
<p>1) Pitt and Penn State are pretty near equal now. If you don’t get into Penn State, you probably won’t get into Pitt (and vice versa)
2) Penn State is hugely hugely hugely numbers-driven. For instance, they don’t want to see essays from the applicants. If your counselor is telling him that he won’t get into Penn State, s/he is probably right if she knows her numbers. IMHO there is NO holistic app process at Penn State.
3) Pitt doesn’t require essays but will accept them. I think that the right essay can have a minor effect, but it’s only minor.
4) Md. seems slightly (but only slightly) more holistic. I think my daughter’s essays helped her to get into their 2nd-tier honors pgm. I don’t think they helped her get in period though.
5) If son is interested in Pitt and Penn State, APPLY EARLY!!! Late September is not too early. Early September is not too early. In 2008 some of the Pitt rejection letters said something to the effect of you are fully qualified but we are out of room.
6) My kids’ stats (to put things on scale) 2008 grad had 2000 SAT, 3.5 UW, all honors classes and 1 AP soph / 1 AP junior, top 20% of class. 2006 grad had 2150 SAT, NMF, ~3.5 uw, all honors classes, 1 AP soph, 2 AP junior, top 10% of class. They got in comfortably (ie heard within a month or so of submitting app, which they did EARLY).
7) Penn State does its own GPA weightings - they want unweighted grades from the HS and then they apply their own weights - honors courses help. I think that Pitt and UMd also weight. In my experience that GPA bump from honors courses has a strong positive effect on admissions chances.</p>
<p>I would urge your son to apply to wherever he wants to but to find some true safeties that he really likes (probably lots of good suggestions in earlier parts of thread). I’m sure that your son is quite bright and a wonderful person. However, I would not rely too much on large state unis doing “holistic” admissions - by and large, they don’t.</p>
<p>Re toadstool’s comment about counselors working for the kid at the colleges–this is totally untrue in my experience. They never want their presence known to colleges and work completely in the background.</p>
<p>DadII, prices are all over the board. Some charge over $50K for a 4 year package while others charge $50 per hour.</p>
<p>I also think UGA is worth a look. It has gotten harder to get into, but an OOS, paying full freight, might get a second look. Older D graduated from there and she absolutely loved it. I also think U of Delaware, U of Maryland, Va Tech, U of Arizona and James Madison might be worth a shot. Younger D was accepted to Delaware and Maryland and they were both on her short list, but she decided to stay closer to home. I loved Delaware. I am a VT alum so I have strong feelings for the solid educational experience you receive and the real sense of family and community there - school spirit is fantastic. My only gripe with James Madison is that 81 seems to go right thru the middle of campus. Good overall experience though. I was at U of Arizona last year for graduation. Great atmosphere, but I 'm not sure I could stand the heat. My niece loved her time there.</p>
<p>Naviance data (average GPA and SAT for accepted applicants) at our school for the following schools for 2006-2008:</p>
<p>Pitt GPA 3.34, 1942 SAT (OOS)
Penn State University Park, 3.34, SAT 1845 (OOS)
VT, 3.33, 1775 (OOS)
Towson avg. 3.25, SAT 1688 (in-state)
UDel, 3.35, SAT 1948 (OOS)
Clemson, 3.14, SAT 1600 (OOS)</p>
<p>Even assuming a more competitive admissions environment, these are definitely not out of reach for the OP’s S. All of these (except Clemson) had a fairly decent # of applicants. Some also accept students for spring semester (I personally know kids who got such offers from UMD and Clemson), which is another possibiity if the OP’s S is willing to wait a semester to get to a school he really wants. University of South Carolina is another possibility. If OP’s son is willing to consider the south, he may find the big school scene quite to his liking!</p>
<p>What grade is your son in now?</p>
<p>Thanks again all. The college counselor called today and left a message, so I called her back to tell her that my son was a little discouraged and we would see if he starting committing himself more this quarter…and I would get back to her. Surprisingly, she called again tonight and was fairly harsh about him not being able to get into a college. She told me that she had looked up UMass and that it was very hard to get into. At this point, I was a bit more turned off, especially since her data doesn’t seem to match with my Naviance data. (Also, she was pushing a bit for me to sign a retainer agreement.) As some of you said, he may need a different kind of approach, or maybe he doesn’t need a college counselor at all. I was never going to use a counselor for more than a couple of meetings anyway at an hourly rate…and was certainly not planning on paying a retainer for anyone!</p>
<p>ReadyToRoll, </p>
<p>See how far you get with your own research and the parents here at cc before you shell out $ for advice on getting into a state school. The best advice by far that Iv’e received regarding college admissions came from cc parents. There’s a lot of wisdom here.</p>
<p>ReadytoRoll, I think your radar about this counselor is spot-on. If she’s not on your S’s side, then she needs to be gone. If negativity about a student’s prospects is her marketing method to attract clients who “need” her, I’m not sure that’s a good strategy on her part!</p>
<p>Something does not add up. When you say 3.2 does your son have his 3 years for foreign language, and will he end up with at least pre-calculus (3-4 years of math), and 4 years of English, and 2-3 years of history, 3 years of science with labs and a few electives? Can you just ask the GC at your son’s school for some direction as well as here? I also would not sign a retainer with this counselor either.</p>
<p>I just made a quick visit to the UMass web site.</p>
<p>2008 Freshman Class: 28,931 applicants for a class of 4,144
Mean high school class rank was top 21% (for schools reporting rank)
Middle SAT: Critical Reading 510-620 /Math 540-640
Mean GPA is 3.56 on 4.0 scale</p>
<p>By no means would I say that this is an impossible reach for your son – I would dump the counselor.</p>
<p>northeast mom…</p>
<p>My son will have had one year of Spanish and three years of Latin (honors Latin as senior)</p>
<p>He had Honors Algebra II as a freshman since he is accelerated. Right now, as a junior, he is in Calculus (non-honors). Next year will be Prob. and Stats and Discrete Math…just to have some kind of math.</p>
<p>He has honors Bio and Chem and is now in regular Physics. Next year he is taking Forensics, just to have a science…since he has finished the regular ones.</p>
<p>He will have had History through 11th grade (no honors) and is probably taking some kind of History elective next year, but I don’t remember what that would be right no…and he is at work so I can’t ask him.</p>
<p>P.S. He got a 760 on the math section of his first SAT and a 670 on the CR section of his second SAT.</p>
<p>So he has a 1430 CR/M…pretty impressive! Is the writing score in the same ballpark?
Does the school offer AP Stat? With a year of calc already under his belt and that math score, there is no reason he can’t give it a try. </p>
<p>In our school system, the school can recommend placement but the parents get the final say. Might be worth it to push the GC on this.</p>