<p>may 2010 previous post, again most parents have no idea as to the role of the GC.</p>
<p>What you wrote is a typical day in NYC day high school and we have no dedicated college counselors. Just wrote a letter Friday for a student who got arrested in order for him to be ROR. Student back in school today, now needs to make up work for the 8 school days he was in jail. </p>
<p>Today -I was screamed on social worker as why my student (a teen mom) could not get the seat she was promised at the lyfe program (in school day care for students with children under 3)</p>
<p>mediated a group of kids to stop a fight</p>
<p>had to talk to ACS worker concerning the sexual abuse of one of my students</p>
<p>program students for next year</p>
<p>begged an admissions officer to place my student back in the EOP program so that her $1500 in book money can be reinstated for the fall. Student was accepted, went for the visit, decided to go, and never formally told the admissions people that she would be attending. Got an e-mail saying that she was out of the EOP program because she declined admission, child came crying into my office wailing. </p>
<p>I don’t even want to address the break-ups over the weekend one resulting in changing a young woman’s program 3 weeks before the end of term because the ex boyfriend is making her life hellish in class (he’s getting suspended)</p>
<p>and how many young women are lamenting because they don’t have a date to prom this friday. </p>
<p>Committed 2 pairs of my daughter’s strappy just have to have these worn one time sandals to 2 young women who do not have shoes for prom (got dresses from the cinderella project) and teachers donate money to purchase tickets for students who cannot afford prom.</p>
<p>Did I mention that CUNY now has a waitlist?</p>
<p>IF the only thing that your GCs have to do is expedite transcripts, then they have a cake walk of a job. </p>
<ol>
<li>We got lots of input from them, they were excellent</li>
</ol>
<p>Twins had the same GC (assigned by last name). Although twins were focused and knew where they wanted to apply, GC provided much needed feedback. I’ve heard some other GCs in the school were not necessrily as good.</p>
<ol>
<li>We had enough other sources, never used them (for college selection).</li>
</ol>
<p>S2 had a great GC, we just didn’t ask or expect him to suggest colleges. He did have a few suggestions, but S2 (as 3rd kid to college in the family) already had a very good idea of what he was looking for.</p>
<p>GC was great at suggesting courses, helping S2 get into appropriate courses, etc. The Guidance department was very well organized in getting the application documentation put together and off to the colleges. With 8 acceptances and 1 wait list it is hard to complain.</p>
<p>6, without a doubt. The GC actively sabotaged my kid’s chances at the most selective schools. She wrote a rec for a book award during the spring of junior year, and not only did it contain numerous inaccuracies, but she failed to update it to include any of the quite significant state and national level honors he won junior year. She also failed to mention ANY of his rather significant intellectual activities, ranging from CTY to independent study at the HS. She failed to give any idea of who he was. </p>
<p>We also found it impossible to make an appointment with her.</p>
<p>His admissions results were achieved in spite of her, not because of her.</p>
<p>Her responsibilities were limited to seniors applying to college. The process of getting transcripts out was well-organized, and run by the guidance secretary.</p>
<p>sybbie, I disagree. I think everyone in this situation is more than aware that the GC’s are responsible for hundreds of children, and HAVE to take care of more pressing matters (truancy, behavioral problems, special needs, psychological counseling, substance abuse, etc.) before they can deal with college advising … and that when they do deal with college advising, of course the bulk of their focus is going to be on scholarship acquisition / financial aid and the local universities instead of the more far-flung elite schools. They are put in a no-win position and everyone recognizes that.</p>
<ol>
<li> She never made any suggestions at all. I didn’t know she was supposed to. My kids and I found all their colleges and ALL of my kids attended a college that no graduate of their high school had ever attended.
Two colleges the GC had never heard of before even though one was within 100 miles.</li>
</ol>
<p>Her offices was terrific with transcripts though. Very efficient and always had everything out on time and complete.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, each of our 3 kids are attending or have attended LACs that never before enrolled a graduate of their high schools. I’m sure our GC would have provided advice on college suggestion had S2 asked, but he/we saw no need.</p>
<p>Didn’t need the GCs to assist my kids with the college search, but they did do what they were supposed to do as far as recommendations, transcripts, etc. No complaints. We have a separate College & Career counselor who helps with college searches and financial aid info; I have found them to be competent and knowledgeable.</p>
<p>It is ludicrous to expect a GC who has several hundred students to get to know any of them beyond superficialities, or to have any special insight into where those students should go, beyond the level of “he’s interested in engineering – here’s a list of top engineering schools.”</p>
<p>Public school GC had her hands full, and we didn’t expect much.</p>
<p>The only “problem” was that she didn’t recognize her limitations (understandably knew only about the local schools) so I think some people may have received bad advice.</p>
<p>I made sure to follow up on each piece of information that was supposed to flow out of the GC office to the colleges to make sure that there would be no hang ups there.</p>
<p>I agree it’s ludicrous to expect the guidance counselor (ours in an urban public school with many more urgent needs) to do extensive college counseling or know the students very well. However, the common application requires someone from the school (counselor or other school official) to fill out the secondary school report.</p>
<p>Yes, but it is exactly because of those limitations that some of us believe that the weakest link in the college admission is the OVER RELIANCE on GCs. </p>
<p>Why is it wrong to recommend to people who ARE concerned to realize the limitations of the GCs. Why it is wrong to to state that the best scenario for the parents and the students would be that the GC be asked to do one thing and do it well: </p>
<p>**Send the correct transcripts to the right school by the deadline. Nothing more but nothing less. **</p>
<p>This intimates that GC should stop trying to manage the process when parents tell them they prefer to do it themselves. This intimates that the GC should stop to place irrelevant information on the transcripts, including information they have NO legal right to attach (Test Scores.) This means that the parents should stop HAVING to worry about keeping the gatekeeper happy or fear … retaliation. Do patients have to worry about the administrative assistant sending the right documents to the insurance company? Have to worry about not roughing her feathers? Yet, that is what happens at schools, as parents fear getting a poor LOR or report for the GC and worry about the documents to be sent to schools. </p>
<p>What is so wrong to expect LESS from the GC? After all, isn’t established that they have neither the time or the resources to do their primary job well?</p>
<p>The real question should be … Why is so hard for GC to recognize the limitations and accept that parents and students have the final words on their college admission process and that the high schools should only have a limited administrative support.</p>
<ol>
<li>when my kids were there but I understand it has improved since then. Informed parents in the district finally demanded that changes be made and they were.</li>
</ol>
<p>I think the problem in a lot of high schools is that even though some GCs are not remotely qualified as college consultants, they actively work to give the impression that they are. That is what can be so misleading. There are some dedicated and well organized guidance departments that perform this function well, <em>despite</em> all their other responsibilities, so I think there can also be an element of defensiveness and denial on the part of the GCs who do not. The latter may hold meetings with parents and students, but in reality know very little beyond the administrative. Many give bad advice , make uninformed recommendations and meet with the kids way too little or too late. </p>
<p>I think some guidance departments need to be honest, and give more of a head up to those they serve. They should be forthcoming about the scope of their knowledge and limitations. At the very least hold a required meeting with parents and students and stress that they are the ones that need to take ownership of the search and application process and provide some basic resources. </p>
<p>Our HS is now doing some of these things and by popular demand they at long last even officially sponsor Naviance - about time!</p>
<p>My personal pet peeve in the whole process is that as my kids will be applying ED to their top choice schools, that I have to get some signature / verification from the GC that she knows we are doing this, she is certifying that the kid is not ED-ing to several schools at once, etc. It just feels like the insertion of some random person in the process for no reason at all. Like going to the bank and intending to withdraw money, but having to get approval from the teller how I’m going to spend it. </p>
<p>Yes, I know the argument is that she needs to do so, so that the college doesn’t get burned by someone not following the rules and thus penalizing future applicants from that same school. </p>
<p>But maybe, just maybe, adcoms should stop the stupid practice of treating applicants from the same high school as responsible for the failings of the classes ahead of them. If some kid a year ahead of mine ED’s at two schools against the rules and gets found out and dismissed from both, I see no reason why my kid applying to one of those schools should be penalized, when my kid has nothing in common with that kid other than the fact that their parents happened to live in the same geographical area.</p>
<p>I could be wrong but I think those gc signatures on ED applications are a bit of a holdover from the days when top colleges had tacit agreements with prep schools that there would be a certain number of seats for them. It makes much less sense for a public school student today.</p>
<p>A few cheaters ruin a lot of things for a lot of non-cheaters, Pizzagirl. However, who other than the GC can be a gatekeeper on ED applications? The GC sends the transcripts and he/she should know if a student is applying ED.</p>
<p>Two large semi-urban public school experiences here. </p>
<p>We weren’t looking for college selection advice. We had CC and did the StatsEval thing here, plus I had some wonderful angel parents with kids a year or two ahead of my kids and who had much advice to offer.</p>
<p>S1’s GC did have him prepare a list in advance and was familiar with the schools. S2’s never asked where he was applying. Both GCs asked for detailed questionnaires from the guys and from us, which we all took as seriously as college essays. I know that S2’s GC mentioned something in her letter from one of the questionnaires (because an adcom commented on it) and that little factoid was presented nowhere else in his applications. Both knew my kids at least somewhat and wrote the rec letters over the summer. (Those questionnaires also helped the guys focus on what kinds of things they wanted to talk about in their essays, so it was useful for all concerned.)</p>
<p>We did not expect the GC to update letters with every new award; the guys did mid-year updates themselves (though S1’s GC did tell us she updated her letter for 11/1 apps to include a big award S1 got in October of senior year).</p>
<p>The counseling/registrar’s dept. presented a number of seminars on applying for FAFSA, discussing college readiness, promoting the PTA’s $15 practice SAT/ACT administration, broadcasting new deadlines for the flagship, and had meetings in spring of junior year w/parents and students where we got a copy of the transcript. They had over 100 schools come to visit. The registrar folks got everything out the door on time and in one piece – we didn’t have to anything re-sent. Many kudos for that – they were at big schools and some kids applied to many colleges.</p>
<p>We knew there were lots of kids with more pressing needs (i.e., a place to live, shoes, etc.) than selective college admissions, and so we tried not to be a pian. However, we were particularly grateful when the GC offered significant support and presence when S2 was ill in mid-senior year.</p>
<p>We were happy with our experience, but we knew our GC was stretched terribly thin and we had a pretty good grasp of the process already.</p>