<p>Are you happy with the college guidance your child received from her or his school counselor? I know a lot of us have engaged private counselors, but I'm not interested in them in this thread. Please let us know if your child attends private or public school and if you know of the counselor's credentials, broadly defined. And please don't tell us the name of the high school 8+) Thanks for your feedback.</p>
<p>My boys had the same counselor in high school - she was fabulous. She really knew both guys (who are quite different) and was extremely attentive. I don’t know her credentials but thought she did a great job recommending colleges and working with them and if one of my boys had questions, she was readily available in person or via email. Our high school is our town’s only public high school.</p>
<p>My DS had a horrible counselor, but the one they hired to replace her has been wonderful with his gf. They still don’t know schools outside the Midwest, but she is willing to learn. I am helping her create lists for summer opportunities and to better understand selective schools that offer merit aid. For a working-class school district it is tough just to get the kids to look beyond the satellite campuses or the flagships, but it is even tougher for the bright kids who apply only to reach or big state flagships.</p>
<p>Me: “Your GC isn’t very good. You might want to change GCs.”
D: “But Dad, she’s the GOOD one!”</p>
<p>YMMV.</p>
<p>Public school. Both S and D had different, equally useless GC’s. They have so little experience with highly selective schools that we were even hesitant to get recommendations from them.</p>
<p>Large public school with counselors that had a couple of hundred kids in their charge - probably 50 of them seniors. I thought our school did a terrific job all things considered. They have a big packet they give to kids January of junior year along with PSAT results with all the deadlines regarding testing, transcripts, typical ED/EA dates etc. They organize a college night where admissions officers give sessions on different topics. They do a separate evening just for athletic stuff. They use Naviance and other software to generate lists of possible schools. They hand out a huge questionairre for parents to help them with their recommendations. They also ask junior year for two teachers recommendations that go to the GC to help her get to know you. (They didn’t have to be the same you used for real LOR.) I was already familiar with CC so I was quite comfortable with the level of assistance provided.</p>
<p>Large public high school here. Haven’t even met with our counselor since mid-junior year when we picked senior classes. I was a little surprised they never did a college meeting or any individual college counseling. Very nice lady though and has been very supportive of my daughter. Sent home a 1 page form for parents to fill out prior to recommendation, but since this only happened the day before it had to be returned, I wasn’t able to put much thought into it. Didn’t seem to know as much as I already did about National Merit. Hasn’t contributed any information to the college search for us. I hope she’s written a nice letter for my daughter, but I worry a little about how well she knows her since they’ve only spoken a few times; she’s got about 200 students I would guess and probably spends most of her time worrying about whether some of them are going to graduate.</p>
<p>Public school of 2500 in So. Calif. There are 5 Counselors. I thought they were fantastic. They met with kids individually as needed. They also held group workshops to complete the UC and Cal State applications as well as the Common App. They individually went over essays and completed apps before submittal, and helped kids come up with a well rounded list of schools. We also have a separate College and Career Center where Staff will help kids research schools, contact schools to help clarify admission requirements, etc.- they do an amazing job! My son’s counselor sent him a hand-written letter of congrats when he got into his top choice and also followed him in his sport, cutting out articles and writing little notes on them which she would then send him.</p>
<p>Do counselors these days tell students and parents to run the net price calculators on college web sites in order to get financial aid estimates before applying?</p>
<p>Ours did (although we had already done so). They definitely made sure kids were aware of financial situation for each school on their list. I’m sure it depends on the Counseling Staff.</p>
<p>“Do counselors these days tell students and parents to run the net price calculators on college web sites in order to get financial aid estimates before applying?” </p>
<p>They certainly should! But they didn’t when we were looking about 4 years ago. (Specific college npc were not yet common. But there were generalized FAFSA calculators online.) </p>
<p>Certainly the internet has made it easier for families to do their own research. In my day, we checked out college viewbooks from the GC office.</p>
<p>My son’s school’s counselors were pretty terrible. For example, he kept on coming to their office hours and sending them his essays, but his counselor was almost never there. When she was there, all of her edits were really superficial and about grammar and such.</p>
<p>We ended using an online counseling service which actually turned out to pretty decent. We actually asked the advisor to help tutor our son with his essays and that is going well.</p>
<p>Public school. Counselors contributed little to the process except for making sure the school’s paperwork was turned in on time. And really, that’s all I expected of them. They have a lot to cope with other than college applications.</p>
<p>Public school for S. Counselor didn’t know him from Adam. No help whatsoever.</p>
<p>Private school for D. Counselor was very nice, but not especially effective. She did know D, though, which may have been helpful in terms of recommendations.</p>
<p>Counselors - in my day and now - seem to be more geared to behavioral issues than to college counseling. Many schools have a career center, where students seem to be able to get good advice on college selection.</p>
<p>It varies. The first GC that D had blew me off when I tried to introduce myself at back to school night. When D and I later met with her to discuss college planning she insisted that D was planning to major in dance (because it was her main EC) and additionally kept babbling on and on about some girl she knew at a college D was not even remotely interested in. Not sure what planet that woman was on. Public school, fairly large.</p>
<p>The next year they changed things around and D got a new GC who actually got to know her and listened to her. Someone else in the guidance office told me that she wrote a wonderful rec for D. Needless to say, we were very happy with her.</p>
<p>S attends a magnet school where most kids go on to very competitive colleges. He has a wonderful GC, but even in that school there is a wide variation.</p>
<p>Our school also did a whole evening just devoted to financial aid and how to fill out FAFSA forms. I’m sure they tell people to run the financial calculators now. They also met multiple times with the kids in either small groups and at least twice with parents, once spring junior year and once fall senior year.</p>
<p>Personally, I thought both my kids counselor’s did a better job than the one I had in a very well regarded private school way back when.</p>
<p>
Are guidance counselors expected to edit essays?</p>
<p>Our HS had, and probably still has, a system where kids have one GC for the first three years, then senior year they are all transferred to the GC who handles college apps. I think that the positives and negatives of this are fairly obvious. The first three years, S had a great GC who happened to have a PhD in Philosophy from Cambridge, of all things–you should have seen him at graduation in his full regalia, he looked like Henry VIII 
--and really “got” S, who was also interested in philosophy. The college counselor at that time did a good job organizing things like recommendations and transcripts–or rather the staff did, but I assume she organized it–but she was completely useless as a college counselor and she really screwed S by not updating his recommendation to include 3 very significant state and national-level awards he won junior year. (We found out after the fact.) We could not get a meeting with her during the crucial period between early decisions and RD, could not get any advice re safeties, etc. I know many parents who were very unhappy with her.</p>
<p>I have a much more positive impression of the person who replaced her, who seems to actually understand and support with kids’ aspirations, whatever they may be. The other one’s stated philosophy was that “if kids are getting in somewhere and getting money, I am happy.”</p>
<p>Small Christian school, one GC with a very knowledgeable part time assistant. She knows the elite schools, as well as the small “niche” schools that I’d never heard of. She works her tail off, writing LORs for each student (usu. only 65 per class), meeting with each one several times and making them submit their common app essay draft to her in the spring of junior year. We love her!</p>
<p>By contrast, DD’s first two years were at a very competitive regional public high school (about 170 kids in her class). The counselors were good, but heavily skewed towards the Ivies and other elite schools. Once you were identified as being top school material, you were set on the treadmill (“No, you can’t drop AP Bio to take ceramics!”) even if you weren’t sure you wanted to be there. And the late bloomers and others who were in the CP classes jokingly referred to themselves as “SPED” students. </p>
<p>A good GC serves every type of student well, not just those who want to go to Yale.</p>
<p>I’ve been lurking on these forums for a little while, but I saw this topic and just had to chime in. My D attends a large (~2000 kids) public high school that is very new (first graduating class last year). My D’s GC/GO has been absolutely horrible. They simply call the kids in, hand them a packet on the state university system and send them back to class. D’s class schedule has been messed up every year, and there’s been no real guidance on what classes she should take for her goal of going to college (the school doesn’t offer AP - just standard track, a few honors classes, and AICE program). D requested her transcripts be sent out, we called to verify, they told us they were sent, but the transcripts never showed up at the colleges. I physically had to go into the GO and stand there while they sent them out, which of course caused D to miss a couple EA deadlines. GC also implied I didn’t have the qualifications to understand what was on D’s transcript when I asked about discrepancies. The GO secretary spends all her time chatting with her student assistants, watching videos on their cell phones, etc. All in all, it’s been a nightmare having to deal with them, and I’ll be so glad when D graduates.</p>