If I have a question, is it better to send that question through my child to the guidance counselor or can I just cut out the middle man and send it myself?
Depends on the question.
Both. Many will say have the kid do it but I had many questions that would just annoy my kids. Never had an issue with communicating with our kids counselors. They actually encouraged it during our Junior high school sessions plus as you said just easier to send an email and get the answer your looking for quickly. Hope that makes sense. Also the counselor will let you know when little Johnny should be coming in to speak with them… Lol…
Also depends on the guidance counselor. My D20 handled stuff herself. I could have emailed but she had a much better chance at getting an answer than I did. Very nice person but just swamped and student needs and student inquiries were handled first.
D’s school requested that the students initiate all contact. If they felt it was appropriate to reach out to parents directly after that, they did.
OK - thanks. Here’s my question. What do you all think? Parent or Kid question?
Quick background. Our public HS does not rank. The HS profile lists the highest weighted GPA and the highest unweighted GPA and of that graduating class and that’s it. D is a high achieving student and Clemson is one of the schools she is interested in. Clemson gives OOS merit based upon standardized test scores and class rank (must be top 10%)
I’ve read on CC that some kids from non ranking schools get less aid than they thought they “should” get due to the non ranking nature of their school. If my daughter didn’t get the scholarship associated with her ACT score, other similar schools would be noticeably more affordable and the chances of her attending would drop to almost 0 pending “falling in love” during our Spring Break trip this March. Even with the associated scholarship, Clemson is more expensive than other options she is interested in.
I’ve also read on CC that some schools will release a ranking to a school like Clemson even though they don’t rank. This seems to fly in the face of the whole concept of not ranking, but, since I’m about 99% positive D is in the top 10% (but not the top 1% so it would be obvious from the school profile), if our school did this, then it would really help in deciding whether Clemson is a reasonable option out of state.
I just want to ask two things:
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Do you have rankings that you send to Clemson (even decile rankings) even though the official position is that you don’t rank?
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If you don’t, what is the historical Clemson review of our HS’s kids for scholarship purposes? Clemson accepts between 10 and 20 kids from our HS a year and usually 2-5 attend with lots of green checks near my D’s stats on the Naviance scattergram, so maybe they have a pattern of scholarship offers they can share.
I personally would just send that in an email to our GC and be done with it, but then he doesn’t get uptight about whether questions come from a student or not. He was very quick to answer the couple of times that I had a question (and at least one was about rank).
I almost always favor a single path of communication. Multiple paths make it frustrating for the person you are trying to communicate with.
So, I assume the GC knows your child. Do you have a working relationship with the GC (504 plan, etc)? If not, definitely a question for the student to ask, even if the child asks the question by email where he/she has simply copied something you wrote.
Whenever I email DD’S GC I always copy her on it. Yes, teens will actually read emails if it’s about themselves! It keeps everyone in the loop. Our GCs aren’t particular whether they speak with a parent or a student. Ultimately I feel that DD can’t make informed decisions without being involved directly and getting information from multiple sources.
Thanks for the feedback - I like the option of cc’ing my daughter on the email.
My daughter actually does have a 504 plan (she has type 1 diabetes), so I do have a working relationship with the counselor due to that.
I like the idea of copying your child on the email, too. At D’s school, students have to add their name to a list to see their GC and it is first come first served with no other option for an urgent matter. GC responds quickly to parent emails but is slower with students. D was deciding between 2 schools for ED, made up her mind and had her name “on the list” for 4 days waiting to be called down so he could sign the agreement form. I ended up emailing him explaining the situation and he took care of it in an hour.
I think it depends on the school counselor. For our son, I never(not exaggerating) got an email response or a returned phone call from his GC…when i just sent to her.Yes, she was a dud. I started to CC the principal, and guess what? I got responses.
Your questions are reasonable enough. I’m not sure why you are asking the first one since you see for yourself that Naviance suggests probable acceptance, and the school has quite a history of sending students to Clemson.
The GC might not know about merit scholarship awards. We never told our school about the aid our kids received. Yes, they asked. No we didn’t tell. We weren’t the only ones.
With an established working relationship, directly emailing the GC and cc’ing your daughter sounds perfect.
I’d send it directly. I’ve been in direct contact with GC and teachers since elementary school. It’s typically only two or three teachers, maybe two or three times a year each, and have never had a problem. Many of them actually thank me for being involved/partnering in the education process.
Oh geez. Our GC got bombarded with emails from me when S19 was going through the process. I’m sure she thought I was both the most demanding and one of the most educated parents she ever dealt with. I’m sure I was supposed to have S19 ask all of the questions but I didn’t care. He was so crazy busy with school and sports and other ECs and I had a lot of questions. I copied him on the emails.
I think your question is important and I would email the GC and copy your D. I hope your GC can get you the answer you want. In fact, I would be pretty pushy about getting Clemson the info about your D’s decile at school. The school may not rank but they have the info and they should release it privately to Clemson. It would be crazy that your D can’t choose a school she wants because the high school won’t release info they have.
I don’t have any doubt that she’ll get in. It’s a field of green at her stats, but I don’t know who actually attends out of the accepted students. It could be kids with lower stats who weren’t anticipating merit aid anyway.
Maybe all those green check kids at her stats choose somewhere else because they aren’t feeling the merit aid love from Clemson that they thought they would get.
I’d like to have a better perspective on the matter before our Spring Break trip (we will visit regardless) so we can view the school with an eye toward what it will likely cost.
I had very good relationship with both of my girls’ GCs. I made a point of cultivating the relationship. When it came to ranking(their school didn’t rank) and LORs I consulted them directly, with my kids’ knowledge. I especially liked D1’s GC because she would always say to me, “Let me talk it over with your D,” whenever she wasn’t sure what D wanted. I knew she had my kid’s interest at heart. I also found it was better to discuss certain things face to face rather than over email. When D1 wasn’t invited for honors at a college, I contacted her GC directly and she called the college right away to give D1’s ranking.
The GC can often reveal a student’s ranking in their letter of recommendation. This was a workaround for two of ours in a district that does not report rankings, both near commendation awards are given to the top 5% of students. The admissions office reads the letter and the student can place their rank in their application.