<p>4Beardolls–Re: private college counselors. This was actually a fairly easy decision for us. We know that our D outwardly values the opinions, advice, direction from others WAY more than what we have to say…"Mom, please stop nagging me about…(insert word here…grades, practice, college, cleaning room, etc.). </p>
<p>Back in the dawn of time…both husband and I had awful experiences in HS with the lack of real guidance from our counselors. My HS counselor told me to check the box for business school in the U. of Ill.'s application. Horrid advice, considering you couldn’t apply to the business school until your junior year. Of course I was rejected from my “in-state dream school”. Fortunately, I went to another in-state school where I was offered a scholarship, met my husband (30 years this Sept.), and went on to a successful career, life, etc.</p>
<p>We wanted D to have a different experience. We know her HS guidance counselor is overwhelmed with way too many students. Not her fault–just the way it is today. In fact, she hasn’t even met once with her since she started at the school 18 months ago.</p>
<p>When D was in 9th grade we attended an after-school info meeting from a private counseling service that had ties to my daughter’s middle school. The company had many positive reviews and was currently working with children of 5 of the 9 billionaires in our state (WA–so you can guess who some of the families are…) so we knew they probably were very credible.</p>
<p>They offered three different programs ranging from $3 - 7K. The number of counseling sessions vary depending on the package you go with. They work with kids beginning in 7th grade but our D was just finishing 9th grade when we started. In hindsight, wish we had started in 8th grade so she would have had a better feel for how important 9th grade grades really were. Well…that’s water under the bridge now.</p>
<p>Initially, our D took a custom proprietary 400-question personality profile to help the service understand our daughters interests, dreams, goals, etc. She was assigned a private counselor who met with our her about ever 60 days for an hour. They talked about what classes to take in 10th grade, ECs, summer programs, etc. Her counselor gave her goals to shoot for (GPA, activities, etc.). They also discussed differences and pros/cons between private, public, large, small, secular, etc. colleges.</p>
<p>In the fall of 11th grade they gave her a list of about 50 schools and a matrix for her to fill out to help HER narrow the list down to about 20 best fit schools based on 11 different criteria including: location, cost, # of students, graduation rate, %men vs. women, professors with PhDs, average SAT acceptance scores, class size, etc. Our D was able to score each of the 50 schools and was pretty easily able to narrow down the list to 20+/-.</p>
<p>Two months ago, they asked her to research on her own, those 20 schools and narrow down the list to 10 or so leading candidates. They told her that this list may change depending on actual SAT/ACT scores, not probable scores. What’s great is the list has a variety of schools, some “safety”, some likely, and some reach schools. Their goal is to have kids apply to 8- 10 schools with an 80% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>In the Aug. before Sr. year, kids go to their offices every morning and work on their essays. Her counselors will offer suggestions, and proofing. Their goal is to have the kids’ essays completed so they can “relax” unlike many of their peers who are uber stressed and in denial once school starts. The counselors will help our D decide if she wants apply in the early fall ED or wait for regular decision. </p>
<p>They also help with financial aid questions and forms, scholarships, etc. This was VERY important in our decision to hire a private service. We felt they could help our D get more money for aid/merit, than we could on our own. Parents can sit in on meetings with the kids and counselors, but we’ve chosen to keep most of them private for now. I suspect that will change as we’re getting down to the big decisions including $$$ for college.</p>
<p>Our experience has been fantastic so far. The process has been so helpful and motivating for D. When we first met with them, we asked if D was a good fit for them, since she’s not going to HYPMS and a lot of their clients are. Our D is a good student (3.6 UW GPA) with a very unique and interesting EC sport she’s done for 11 years. She will probably score around 1850+/- on the SAT. Our goal was not for her to go to an Ivy school, but find one that was a great fit for her.</p>
<p>Her counselors have helped our D consider schools outside our state that we would have never thought of–Syracuse, Ithaca, Boston Univ., Univ. of Colorado, etc. D does want to go away to school and we’re totally fine with that. She wants to double major in Marketing/Communications or Fashion Merchandising.</p>
<p>Private counseling has been a great fit for our family and our child. She’s gotten better grades, pushed herself to do additional activities (Business Week Camp, NHS), and get excited about college and a future career. A win-win for us.</p>