Is it fair game for every kid in Private High Schools? Or does school management somehow favor the kids of the influential families? I have been hearing about this in bits and pieces and I just saw this briefly being discussed in below thread. Can some families shed some light on this and share their experience?
My kid went to a private high school with some very rich influential families. Had been in the school since Kindergarten At think at that point since everyone is “paying” for the same service, each student gets the same. I did not see any differences during our process. Their jobs at these schools is to get all the kids into the best schools possible. Of course, more influential folk may have the legacy hook for their kids, which may trump any finances. If the family wants special treatment, they are more than able to pay for a private counselor for the admission process.
Both of my children went to elite private high schools with very influential families (of which we definitely weren’t one). I never got the sense that the guidance counselors gave any preferential treatment to the “power families.” But the colleges sometimes did! In all seriousness, the counselors are definitely trying to get the best possible outcome for every kid. In the case of my kids’ schools, the wealthiest kids often end up at our state flagship and the nerdy kid from a modest family goes to HYPSM.
Thanks both. We are by no means rich but we make enough to send our boys to Private High Schools as full pays. Although it will reduce our disposable income significantly, we just want our kids to have best possible education. We are by no means Ivy obsessed. Most likely our kids will end up in Europe for college where we are originally from. We just don’t want to do them a disservice in case they decide to apply to top colleges here in USA. Again, I heard this from a few friends and after reading the link I provided, I got concerned. Thanks for the inputs. I hope more parents can chime in.
If anything, the URMs and first gens are favored. In my student’s first group college counseling session with her college counselor, the cc asked for a show of hands for first gen, and minorities and marched them out for a “special” strategy session. I believe these kids are highly sought after by ivies and other elites, so the school invests special attention in these students because these are the ones getting into ivies from presitious boarding schools. IMHO. No hate mail please.
My daughter was full pay at a private school (quite expensive) and I will say her counselor was largely no help, but then again, I don’t know if she was a big help to anyone, influential or not-and we are decidedly not influential. My daughter had a likely letter for an ivy (for a sport) but that was 100% due to our efforts and not her school counselor’s. My daughter wasn’t at the tippy top of her class and it seems like that is where all the effort went in regard to getting kids into college. Which I suppose makes sense since they want to say “we got x kids into x-elite college”- it was discouraging though, since we all paid the same amount in tuition…
I do know at my daughter’s private middle school (a K-8th school), the influential families were definitely favored by the guidance counselors. My friend was on the school board and told me the stories of calls to high schools by guidance counselors telling them (about wealthy, influential families) “you definitely want this student.”
My kids went to private High Schools and I felt like she got the same treatment as everyone else. Which particularly for my younger D was very good. (New counselor who is really into it) In fact I would say that the personal attention from the college counselor is one of the big pluses for private high school in general. I don’t think the “big donor” kids get more attention at my D’s school at all. The counselor seems to have enough time for everyone
Thanks all. Let me be more clear. I am sure all GC’s are spending time with every kid. What I am trying to understand is, do you feel GC’s favored kids from influential families in their recommendation letters top colleges. If two kid are similar in their GPA and EC’s, did they somehow gave a more stellar recommendation to kids from influential families?
At any school, a counselor can favor a student for any number of reasons. What I suspect (but don’t know) is that they are trying to get as “good” a college list as possible. What that may mean is that if 4 kids want to go Stanford as their first choice, the counselor may only really push for 2 of them, knowing that Yale and Harvard will be delighted with the other 2. So while the results are no less stellar, 2 of the kids didn’t end up at their first choice. But I would guess (again don’t know) is that the decision about who to push is based on optimizing the group outcome, not necessarily whose parents are influential.
I have heard variants of theach above story from parents at certain schools in very competitive communities but it’s impossible to know what really happened behind the scenes. (It’s in the category of who represents the school at xyz contest/event.) At our school, this did not happen.
Guidance counselors have to preserve reputations and relationships. They won’t favor a kid if he is not the right candidate for a school, even if the parent is influential. What I have seen, is they may favor the kid that is qualified for the school, but also has outstanding personal qualities. Of course, the colleges then make their own decisions.
I haven’t seen favoritism in my kids’ private school. However, as others have mentioned, colleges often do favor wealthy families due to legacies and as development cases. Additionally, a whole lot of these folks hire their own private college counselors.
Obviously the quality of counselors will vary widely, but those at the strongest high schools will be well known by the top colleges. They have reputations to maintain. If they give undeserved recommendations to any student, their recommendations will stop carrying any weight. And it is in their best interest to get as many kids into the top schools as possible. My feeeling is the counselors (or at least the ones we have worked with) are honest while emphasizing the positive about every student. The difference I have seen is in how honest and forthcoming they are with the parents. At my son’s school, the counselors were amazing and very up front with the parents about their sons chances of admission at the schools they were looking at. At my daughter’s school the counselors seemed hesitant to tell parents that their unhooked, but top stat “special snowflake” was unlikely to be admitted to her dream school. I guess my point is, the politics seemed to impact the communication between the counselor and the parents much more than between the counselor and the colleges.
@gardenstategal I doubt the counselors are writing targeted recommendations to specific SCHOOLS. I’m sure there are students they write stronger recommendations for because the student is stronger, but I doubt they are writing a better recommendation for Stanford for kid A and a less favorable one for Yale and Harvard for Kid A. If you mean they will pick up the phone and call the Stanford adcom and say, take these 2 kids for Stanford because they are better for Harvard or Yale… I can bet that does not happen
There was a very mediocre student at my kid’s school. I have never heard of this student excelled on anything academically. When she was admitted to Yale for early decision I was totally shocked. D1 told me she had special talent for art. I kind of wonder if her GC pushed for her especially hard because the family was rather well off. I was right and I was wrong. The family was so wealthy that they had buildings named after them at Yale, but no, the GC didn’t have to do much.
My kids also went to a vey good private school. I didn’t think their college counseling was particularly good when D1 was there (since then they have hired a new head GC), but I didn’t feel they favored wealthy students.
College admissions will have wealthy families on their radar. They don’t need the HS college counselor to point it out to them. Those development teams are usually fairly sizable.
My kids went to a private high school, and I think it was the same for everyone. Now… my D2 got the benefit of my years of CC participation, and had the best admissions results of her senior class, even though her GPA probably put her around the top 20% mark. So sure, use the school GC. But come out here and be proactive yourself, too.
Who needs a HS counselor to show favoritism to very wealthy students when this kind of stuff goes on?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/at-u-va-a-watch-list-flags-vip-applicants-for-special-handling/2017/04/01/9482b256-106e-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_uvalist-715pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.7cbd901b543c
@suzyq7, the parent concerns (and from parents, so who knows) were never that the counselor dissed a kid but that they pushed, via the phone calls, certain kids. These were schools where the school counselor had relationships with the AO and AD at the schools concerned. Really impossible to know without a wiretap! None of these kids didn’t end up at a tippy top school either. Happened to be a guest at an event where this conversation dominated, so just listened (with interest and no dog in the fight.) Clearly, schools will accept who they want!
I would wholeheartedly believe that early on, they tried to push kids toward different schools so that everyone didn’t have the same first choice. No school wants 8 kids from the same day school in Boston, for example. That is common, and generally based on fit.
What I know they did in the case of one child (whose mother said it was common) because I saw it, was push the child to accept the most prestigious offer they had. Whether this was done to keep the school matriculation list “better” or because of a relationship with an AO, or simply enter deep conviction that one should choose Yale over Tufts is anyone’s guess.
I didn’t see this at our school, btw.
My kids went to a well-known private school for a long time. Neither graduated from there, but I was very familiar with their college counseling and outcomes (which were, on average, excellent).
At this school, the counselors – only one of which was not also a classroom faculty member – were completely dedicated to the greatest good for the greatest number. They were not heavy-handed, but I think they subtly tried to channel the best students into not competing directly with one another. In one class with which I was familiar, there were probably four students at the top of the class (of course, the school didn’t rank). Each of them applied early decision or SCEA to a different college, and three of them were accepted and never applied anywhere else. I would not be surprised at all if each of them had a letter of recommendation that said she was the top student in the class. Sometimes that didn’t work. In one of my kids’ former classes, 12% of the class applied to Yale SCEA, over half of them legacies, some who had a parent on the school’s board. One was accepted: a completely unhooked, un-plugged-in Asian woman whom everybody loved and respected but nobody would have picked as the top candidate.
Of course, some kids got special attention, and some fell between the cracks a little. That’s just human nature. The counselors tended to put on a massive effort for some kids in the bottom half of the class who were quiet, lovely people without a lot of flashy accomplishments, and who risked getting overlooked in the admissions process. The biggest pushes were not to get Junior into Princeton, but to get Smith or Earlham to take another look at Iris and admit her off the waitlist. Kids who were arrogant or withdrawn might suffer for that.
For the most part, there was less tension around the college counseling that you might have expected. Partially that was because the overall results were in fact excellent, and everyone was thoroughly trained to understand that there were lots of outcomes that were great outcomes, and they shouldn’t be attached to a narrow definition of success. And another important part was that the school screened parents pretty thoroughly before admitting their kids. If it thought the parents were the kind of people who would get in the counselors’ faces over college advice . . . those kids attended other schools.
Sometimes, however, that didn’t work. I was peripherally involved in one situation where there was significant conflict between the faculty and a powerful family over their child’s college outcomes. It was a sad situation – the kid was under a lot of pressure, from herself and her parents, she worked her butt off and got very good grades, but intellectually she was a clear cut below her best classmates. (As an adjunct, I taught a course she was in and saw her work, and some of theirs.) She had a perfectly good admissions outcome, but it was not at the level the parents thought appropriate. The faculty was pretty good at holding firm; they saw their role as defending their student against her parents. (As a parent myself, I was ambivalent about that attitude. But that was the deal at this school.) If the school were less strong an institution, however, I suspect parents like that could have an effect.
My kids have/are both going to privates. My 23 yo S went to a less expensive private, my D to one that cost more than most state colleges. My experience, at both schools with the college counselors, is that the big donors, very involved parents can more easily get the ear of the administration. Perhaps getting the college counselor to make that phone call, put in a little extra effort. But, I don’t think LOR would be any better for rich kid and I dn’t think the college counselor is making extra effort on their own. As others have said, the school is looking for good results for all the kids and, the colleges and universities will know whose parents have big bucks.