<p>Regarding GC…not assigned until 2nd semester Jr year…100 students shared between 3 counselors…supposedly randomly assigned …son brought home big packet of info to complete…has individual initial meeting next week…then an evening “supper” meeting with his whole class next week as well. Supposed to get introduction to the process, get Naviance password etc</p>
<p>Then the following week counselors meet en masse with parents in an evening meeting. it sounds like the students will get everything first…then the parents, as it should be I suppose.</p>
<p>"I think there are as many answers as there are high schools. " - Blueig</p>
<p>I think that is exactly correct. Every school is a little bit different. Our DD had the same counselor for 4 years. Our DS had an academic advisor for 9th and 10th, but gets a College Counselor 2nd semester Jr year.</p>
<p>Thanks 2015 and Vandyeyes–It is interesting to see all of the different ways to approach the same process. Our guidance dept held a couple of those evening parent & student info sessions last fall. One was a panel of reps from five colleges who spoke about the admissions process at their schools, and one evening was an overview of the process. They also held a session during Open House night. The GCs don’t want to see the Jrs until Feb 1st, once they truly have all of the Sr apps out of the way. </p>
<p>Parents and students each need to complete a separate Jr college packet! I am procrastinating as I don’t know how to reply to ‘describe your child’…‘significant accomplishment’,…etc, etc. </p>
<p>Parents and student will then meet one-on-one with GC to start the process, I guess.</p>
<p>I asked for the Naviance password at the end of 10th grade and the GC gave it to me. I wanted to use the ‘Compare Me’ feature for ‘schools I am thinking of’ so that I could start thinking about this sooner. To date, much thinking, few conclusions!</p>
<p>Vandyeyes–in terms of students getting info first. I suppose I could say that parents and students are receiving info at same time, but as 2015 mentioned, those of us stalking the boards may well know more than the GC. Time will tell. Thanks for the info!</p>
<p>Loved my oldest son’s guidance counselor. He truly had his best interests and listened. The two got along great, and the GC even helped him gain additional scholarship money. The younger son ('14) is attending a larger HS. He does not have much of a relationship with his GC. So he’s glad that I know what he needs to fulfill his diploma requirements, how to look for colleges, scholarships, etc. The questions that my son usually are about college stuff, so he goes directly to our college counselor. She is caring and knows her stuff. She does not let him fall through the cracks.</p>
<p>BlueIguana, I’m sorry to hear about your diagnosis. But glad that you’re feeling well.</p>
<p>S14 and D11 attend(ed) a private school with about 70 kids in the graduating class. They can choose between two counselors to see each time they go in.</p>
<p>Even so, CC expertise often beats the experts…</p>
<p>A very warm congratulations to Barnard son!! </p>
<p>Oh, the GC Packet!! I’m wondering how different those are as well. I think we got ours early Sr. year. There was a parent portion and student portion. DH and I both worked on ours for over a week. Three words to describe your students, what would you like the admissions committee to know about your student, etc. It was HARD. Looking back we actually did a bang-up job on S2’s and hope we can do S3 justice. I saved S2’s as a pdf so if the questions haven’t changed maybe we should get a head start?! It was fun to read S2’s when he was done. His questions were similar, what is your motto?, three words, etc. His motto had us in tears. I’d go back and read it now, but I miss him and am not in the mood for a melancholy sniffle-fest. Another day.</p>
<p>We have four visits officially set up over the spring break time frame. He’s done two official previously, and two others unofficially. Three that will be high matches, and one a safety. One I hope he likes and will consider it a very viable option. One I am all too afraid we both are going to love. We’ve never rolled the dice on a private school before and I don’t know how much I trust those NPCs. If his scores pop up in March/May a reasonable amount there are possibly two others we may add in the mix, but only if he rules out too many of the options over spring break. He doesn’t need a list of 10, but something over 3 is going to be necessary given the competition for our in-state publics.</p>
<p>Welcome back NHCtMom and congrats Barnard son! That’s so lopsided for NHS! Last year at DD’s school the top 10 in the class were all girls. At honors night the Principal (a male) made a good-natured comment about needing the guys to step it up this year! I know the top 2 in this senior class are 2 guys and I think it may even be the top 3. I don’t know them as well as my DD does.</p>
<p>As for GC’s, at DS11’s school, all the freshman had the same counselor who helped with that transition. Then in sophomore year they each got a new one who would last for the next three years. It seemed to be a good way to go and my son had the head of guidance for a counselor who was very good. Unfortunately he retired at the end of DS’s junior year and he was then assigned a new guy! Really bad timing and the guy wasn’t great. Luckily DS was headed to engineering at the large state school and the whole search/merit issue wasn’t as complicated as it will be for DD14.</p>
<p>For DD14, she also had the head of guidance for her counselor (different school) for her first two years and had a great relationship with her. She has since moved up to be head of admissions and DD has a new counselor this year who I really don’t have any confidence in! Luckily her old counselor said DD was welcome to talk with her anytime and I think she will try to see her next week now that finals are done. I’d like to talk with her too about the schools we have on the list, classes for next year, and DD’s ranking and how much it has been hurt by taking band for her first two years! She should be ranked #1 based upon grades and honors/AP classes but by taking band (a “CP” not honors class) as a 7th class, she may be below those kids who took 6 classes and a study as a 7th class! Just doesn’t seem right! Ok, today’s rant is over!</p>
<p>My DS14 is in the same situation as akmom124’s DD14 in terms of class rankings. He has uw4.0 and has taken the most rigorous courses. The only class kept him from ranking 1st is orchestra which he has taken every year in middle and high school. In soph, he ranked 9th and after the first semester was over this year, he moved up to 6th. I think he will move up further by end of junior year if he continue to make all A’s. One good thing is our school caps max weighted GPA at 5.0. So by end of senior year, he will catch up with the students who had been taken weighted courses instead of electives like orchestra or band. It’s too bad that the colleges will only see his rankings at the end of junior year. I asked DS14 if he regrets taking orchestra and not ranking 1st in class. He said absolutely no regret.</p>
<p>This may come as little comfort, but having been through this once, and actually following several Sr. admissions reps on twitter (quite informative and entertaining during reading season!), universities see long term commitments to things like band and orchestra that are unweighted, yet required for participation, and realize that they make a difference in the very minute ranking if your student is at the tippy top of the class. If they see a student with 4 years of band ranked 4th, they know full well they choose band over APlites, or study hall which would have bumped them up, possibly to the 1st or 2nd spot. While your student may miss out on very specific scholarships of $1k here or there for being val, in admissions being 1 or being 6 with 4 years of dedication to band/orchestra/drama/etc is not going to get you a ding for rank and it’s probably going to get you noticed for the participation and dedication in an activity as opposed to taking study hall.</p>
<p>So, what my long winded post means…IMHO</p>
<p>Rank 6 + 4yrs dedication to anything unweighted where it’s clearly attached to an EC
vs
Rank 1 + APlite or study hall/no class</p>
<p>D14 is in a similar situation - 4.0 unweighted but not ranked first. Her problem initially was that she took an extra class first trimester of freshman year (not weighted), so her overall GPA could not match those who took less classes - even though they all had straight A’s and one AP class. This year all the kids dropped down when there was a transfer from another school that weighs honors classes. D14’s school did not recalculate the GPA, so there is no way for the current kids to match it! I was impressed that D14 had no problem with this - she says the new student is smart, somebody has to be #1, and it took away some of the rivalry from the current students.</p>
<p>blueiguana, thank you for sharing your thoughts. It really was comforting for me to read it as I always felt bad (when I see his ranking) for encouraging DS to participate in school orchestra.</p>
<p>Hmmm, our hs doesn’t rank at all, which I actually kind of like. It would be more competitive than it already is and possibly affect relationships between kids I think. The hs is huge, and the kids in Honors and AP REALLY care about their grades. The only ranks disclosed are the valedictorian/salutatorian, who always have about a 5.25w GPA…last year, it came down to a test grade in a class to differentiate the two, which seems really kind of sad. At graduation, the kids who are in the top 10% do get recognized, but that isn’t disclosed until May of Senior year. It’s not clear to me how this will all play out when it comes time to apply next fall… although, it sounds like many high schools have given up ranking.</p>
<p>Let me clarify… the gc switch was not per the norms of the school district… I wrote about it a few pages back… I am sure that some of you probably saw the length of the posts, eyes began to glaze over + skipped over them! I don’t blame you one bit… The kids in the school are assigned by last name and they keep them throughout their hs career. </p>
<p>The switch was b/c the original gc was incompetent, lazy and liked to distort the truth… I finally caught her in a big lie in December and went to the principal and told her that the switch had to happen! I knew that if dd had stayed on her case load… that she would not play her part in the college admissions process and I didn’t want to end up on CNN or Fox News next January being carted off in a paddywagon with the headlines “IVY LEAGUE HOPEFULS DREAMS DASHED DUE TO SHIFTLESS GUIDANCE COUNSELOR & MOM GOES BESERK”. Too many red flags since freshman year and I knew it would only get worse. I would only have myself to blame if the switch wasn’t made… NOW!</p>
<p>As I mentioned in my post from yesterday, a parent and I chatted after a PTSO meeting and told me about their horrible experience with this same gc. No surprise there, I was not surprised in the least. And whats really sad is that this same gc is looking to be promoted to an administration position…</p>
<p>You’ve all been busy and it’s taken me a while to catch up on all the posts. Has someone actually begun a 2017 group? If so, count me in as I have an 8th grader who has had middle school itis since the first week of 7th grade. </p>
<p>Next Tuesday begins the dreaded finals week so starts the studying frenzy . I can’t believe we’ve made it to January. It was touch and go in October with the deluge of homework, but DD has done amazingly well and we’re exceedingly proud of her organizational skills. </p>
<p>We’re planning a quick trip to California for some sun and college tours next month and then a college or tour over spring break. Anyone else have college tours on the horizon?</p>
<p>Not sure if we’ll catch a tour over presidents weekend (4 day) winter break…last year visited Georgetown…fun weekend to be in dc as well
Definitely planning to hit 3 schools over spring break on the way to Florida for actual vacation…planning to get to Duke, Vanderbilt, and Emory…hopefully DS17 can endure the “misery”…thankfully have arranged visits on the way down rather than on way home…we’ll see</p>
<p>Congrats Barnard on the NHS induction! Ours was back in the fall - about 150 juniors out of close to 500 juniors. </p>
<p>We’re in a larger public high school (around 500 per class) after being in a smaller (<100 per class) junior high. Our schools run 7-9 in junior high, then 10-12 is the high school. We get assigned a guidance counselor when they start 10th grade - assigned by alphabet. My DS has yet to meet her! I plan to make an appointment for us to go visit to see where he is - but will wait until the seniors are settled with their college apps. I’m not sure if she is good or not - but she’s been there a long time! I’ve sent a couple of e-mails, and she has answered to the point without elaborating. Then suggested I check out the guidance department’s wiki page - which is never updated!!!</p>
<p>We’re going to visit a school Monday. We’re out for MLK day and they are having the Junior visit day. It’s only a couple of hours away, but we’ll spend the night in that town the night before - don’t want to have to leave home by 6am!! The school should be a match and has ds’ major. Don’t know about the $$ though!</p>
<p>wow! This thread has had quite the flurry of activity to say the least! I got dizzy trying to read it all between last night and this morning…I had soup from the Ivy Noodle last night and awoke with quite the headache. So I just have no patience for all the pages that I have to catch up on! Please forgive me :)</p>
<p>A warm welcome to those who are new and to the rest of you… you guys have been quite busy! </p>
<p>I ran into dd’s old nursery school teacher whose daughters also went to the same nursery school. The eldest daughter just finished her first semester in college and is quite happy. We discussed SAT prep and she paid $5,000 for her daughters test prep last year…I was stunned to say the least. This garnered her a 400 point increase. Not sure if they got their monies worth. She went from a 1350 t0 the mid 1700’s. </p>
<p>I printed a practice test from college board and took the math section out so she could work on it last night/not timed. So she and the tutor would have something to work with today. The geometry is still an issue for her. She gets the easy Q’s but the level 4/5 questions are the bane of her existence. </p>
<p>She was able to figure out the class at Yale. I picked the books up yesterday. She needed 5… OUCH!! To say the least. The original class(Urban Street Gangs) was filled to capacity and then some, students sitting on the floor and standing in the back. He has room for 22 I believe, 55 showed up! So she definitely wasn’t getting into that one. But she did chat with him afterwards and told him that she wants to work with him possibly during the summer if he is doing any kind of research/sent an email to follow up. She said that the class was fascinating and she was sad that she wasn’t able to be included. He was open to her working with him as she is from the city and gangs call our streets home. </p>
<p>The class she had to settle for seemed lite on first glance but after she sat in, is going to be very challenging. I guess the title/course description can be quite decieving(sp?). </p>
<p>She will going on a college tour with an after school program. They will visit UNH/Dartmouth, MIT, RPI, WPT(or is it WPI?) and Brown during winter break. She signed up for it a few weeks ago but it looks like it will conflict with her class @ Yale. So she may have to sit this one out.</p>
<p>NewHaven: Your acquaintance spent $5K for SAT tutoring? Yikes. I wonder what the average cost is? We are very lucky as MIL is an SAT prep coach. And that woman is a miracle worker. </p>
<p>Our rural school district (and to be fair, the entire state of Oregon) has the most appalling writing/grammar/reading curriculum and the test scores to show it. Our TAG, straight A student scored in the 37th percentile on her high school entrance exam because she had never been taught any of the curriculum. MIL has had her work cut out for her. And DD is beginning to reap the rewards as her practice test scores are greatly improving.</p>
<p>BTW: A former colleague and friend works at WTNH and I can always remember the station name because he says it stands for We’re Totally Neurotic Here :)</p>
<p>Yes! She did. I am not surprised b/c this family is also able to pay for a nice private school which both daughters attend/attended. Which is around $20,000/year. The youngest will move on to a private high school in the fall. So I guess $5,000 is nothing.</p>
</p>