<p>Bay
The GC can make the call to see if there was a mistake or to inquire if there was a particular reason for the rejection . I am not the only one who has said this. An admissions office would be more willing to divulge that sort of information to the GC, in the interest of future applicants from the HS. Maybe there was a mistake or maybe it was the grades or a LOR was not as supportive as the student thought [ and students and parents do not see LOR’s as a rule] or who knows. An ED rejection, at a college that the GC thought was a slam dunk acceptance, is a wake up call that he should be addressing. The point that many of us are making is it is time for the student and parent to be looking forward, not backward, and be putting their efforts into finding colleges where she is more likely to be accepted.</p>
<p>“Adcoms expect to get such calls from GCs. Part of the job. And if the GCs understand better what the college is looking for, he/she will steer the right applicants to them and steer the others away. Works to make life easier for everyone.”
Exactly my point.</p>
<p>Adcoms are busy , stressed folks. They don’t want to talk to parents and generally will just refuse. A GC may be able to make a call, particularly since the admissions folks and GCs like to have a solid working relationship.
If this was a really competitive school, it could also certainly be the case that your child was a solid candidate, but that’s not always enough. There are , for many schools, more solid candidates than there are slots.
I agree with other posters - if you have access to Naviance, use it.</p>
<p>This always cracks me up. There are 30,000 high schools in the country. Why we think some adcom cares about the opinion of some stranger on the phone saying that he or she is the guidance counselor at East Bumble High is beyond me. It makes sense if we’re talking about some elite or private high school, but your average high school?</p>
<p>Calling as a student or parent would be useless. Adcoms are just like everybody else and will want to avoid confrontation. I feel for them…what a lousy part of their job.</p>
<p>At least your guidance counselor has a chance that the adcom will be somewhat candid since they are speaking as one professional to another. You also may find that a call isn’t necessary and the guidance counselor already has a good idea.</p>
<p>If I were in your shoes I would take the Olymom approach. To heck with this podunk LAC…there are many better schools for your D.</p>
<p>“Quote:
Adcoms expect to get such calls from GCs. Part of the job.”</p>
<p>“That doesn’t mean they like it.”</p>
<p>LOL! Yes, but OP was not asking us what would make an admissions rep like her the most. In that case, absolutely–fade back into the woodwork. Disappear. She was asking for the best way to get her D help in improving her application to other colleges. I’m not sure why there is such fear of admissions reps and their tender feelings. The D’s GC had advised her she was a good candidate for the ED. It’s no wonder she’s puzzled and disappointed that advice was off–and hopeful there are some fixes within their power to improve D’s chances with other schools. Perhaps they are less inclined to just blindly go with their GC’s advice after this and would like actual feedback from an actual school instead. </p>
<p>I note how polite and self-effacing some posters are, and if we were all standing in a long line together, I’d appreciate you not stomping to the head of the line and pushing me aside. But not all situations call for putting one’s own needs last. How are we modeling to our kids that they can approach professors and ask for advice, or ask their academic dean to intercede if necessary, if we refuse to ask our GC to help us understand a surprising decision and to inquire on our behalf? </p>
<p>If the admissions person does not choose to answer, so be it. However, no one ever got an answer if they didn’t ask.</p>
<p>This is exactly the reason why the GC should be making the call. The GC should be making the call to the regional admissions person to ask about “flaws” in the application. Colleges depend on high school counselors to feed them viable candidates. </p>
<p>Is the college a school that makes visits to the high school?</p>
<p>Does the college attend fairs or gives open houses in the region?</p>
<p>In this situation the counselor would have been remiss not to tell the Op’s daughter that while overall she has a 3.5 GPA, a drop from 3.6 to 3.2 especially junior year was going to hurt her. Perhaps the GC may have told the student that this school is a good fit for her, however her best chances of being admitted to the school was to apply as an ED candidate. She did and it did not work out.</p>
<p>The other side of the coin is as counselors, everyone wants the counselor to give the student an honest assessment of the student’s chances, but they don’t want to hear anything negative. When we talk about admissions, I try to tell students as gently as possible that you are the big dog here. When you go into the application pool, almost every other candidate is the big dog at their school, and the college will only take so many big dogs. Parents and students complain to the administration that the GC is not supporting the application, which is not the case. </p>
<p>I teach a junior seminar class. We are currently discussing financial aid, and I discussed with my class that the first 2 people in line when it comes to paying for your education is your parents, and my students got upset and began telling me about everyone they know who went to college for free. I then discussed the 2 types of “free”, those who are attending school on full financial aid and those who are attending school on full merit $$. I give examples, review the FAFSA, TAP and CSS profile, but everyone still thinks that they are going to get a boatload of free money.</p>
<p>Back in 2006 my son applied and was rejected by Princeton. He was “the kid” at his school that year and the surprised counselor called the school to find out what he , the gc, might have done wrong.</p>
<p>The Princeton admissions person gave him a 4 worrd answer. " Well, we ARE Princeton."</p>
<p>My son laughed and said he would never have fit in there with that attitude.</p>
<p>He got many great acceptances but chose his safety, Penn State. 4 years later he was accepted to Yale as a grad student ( which he ended up turning down). </p>
<p>So let the GC call. But look forward, not backwards, because your student will do just fine.</p>
<p>The gc should call and ask for feedback so the right students can be advised to apply in the future. (especially since he thought she was a good match) All colleges want a lot of applicants and a good adcom will want a positive relationship with the gc. If the gc is not calling on behalf of the parent/student but rather so he can better advise future students I think you will get some good feedback.</p>
<p>A friend of mine once worked in admissions for a top-20 school. </p>
<p>She said they were always able to “go back and look at someone’s application” and say why that person was accepted. But she was very clear for rejected students, that without being able to go back in time and recreate the discussion and context, there was no way they would state the reasons why someone was rejected.</p>
<p>Why not call? What do you have to lose? I think applicants ought to get some feedback, I’m sure there were notes made on her file-e.g. “dipping junior year”, or “poorly written essays”. Probably you will just get the usual platitudes, but it cannot hurt to try to get some information.</p>