We’ve heard about great college counseling in public high schools, along with some real horror stories. So, for PUBLIC high school students only, tell us how your counseling office stacks up. The objective of this question isn’t to dump on HS guidance offices, most of which have lots of responsibilities other than college counseling - I’m just curious how useful and supportive CC members have found their guidance counselors to be in their college search and admissions process.
<p>Well, for 9th, 10th, and 11th grade, I had this guidance counselor who seemed pretty cold, patronizing, and discouraged me from taking a tougher courseload.(Case in point, instead of me taking two AP science classes senior year, she said that I'd fare better if I chose electives like child development, photography, etc). But, after my junior year, she retired (thank God!) and the new guy I've gotten to know only my senior seems very warm and supportive, gives solid input as to my chances at several schools, and didn't discourage me from taking on challenges and applying to schools that seemed out of my reach. My gc also was very curious about my hopes, interests, aspirations etc. and dug deeper than the numbers and genuinely wanted to know me well so he could write a good rec. And he was very prompt in sending my recommendations, secondary school record, mid-year reports, etc. He's really the best thing that's ever happened to me this year.</p>
<p>My counseling office is next to worthless. For 9th grade I was in the Junior High, where I met my counselor once or twice, I think, for course selection.</p>
<p>In 10th grade I met with my counselor once, to get to know her.</p>
<p>In 11th she was out sick, so I had a new counselor, whom I also met once.</p>
<p>This year the counselor from 10th grade is back, and I met with her once this year. She's been good enough getting the things done that she needs to get done, so no real complaints; but really, how effective can a high school counselor be if you've only met her twice in your life?</p>
<p>I don't mean to denigrate the counselors though. It's not their fault; we have one counselor for every 300 or so students.</p>
<p>My counselor is my tennis coach! Phew...I have an extremely helpful counselor. I've basically been to her house a lot of times babysitting her children. Eventhough the student to counselor ratio is immense, I'm lucky that I got to know her so well.</p>
<p>The counseling office at my school is absolutely awful. They're uncoordinated, unreliable, not knowledgable beyond the UC/CSU system, and absolutely disgusting in their work ethics and morals.</p>
<p>My 9th-11th grade counselor, retired because of an illness, was kind and helpful me by having me take the right classes to be academically prepared fore college.</p>
<p>My current counselor is new, doesn't know who I am (despite trying to set up an appointment to meet him) and only makes fun of me.</p>
<p>I've been fortunate enough to have outside help and a college advisor outside of the counseling office who has the powers and equal standing of a counselor. She's awesome and has been great support and encouraged me to apply to Stanford and Georgetown; I had doubts about being accepted. So far, Georgetown has sent their acceptance letter. I'm waiting for Stanford in April.</p>
<p>I wrote a nasty opinion piece about the counseling at my school, so I'm sure my service will get even worse.</p>
<p>My counselor has yet to mention college to me, EVER. She just bullies me into taking classes I don't want to take because the Kansas Board of Regents thinks it's a good idea, like I can't get a 21 ACT or something.</p>
<p>Oh, our counseling department is a joke. </p>
<p>They have so many rotations; I've had a different one every year of high school. How am I supposed to get to know them when they keep disappearing? They're of no help with scheduling or college or anything because they're "busy with the Seniors". Well, you probably wouldn't be so busy if you had helped them as Juniors. If a person sends down a request, they don't get called down for at least three days. It's quite pathetic actually. However, I must admit that the counselors are (generally) nice if you can get a moment with them. I think it's an organizational issue; we've been trying new "systems" for everything and most of their time is spent caught up in that instead of helping college prospectives.</p>
<p>I think it all depends on who you get. Some counselors are very proactive, and take interest into what you're doing, and others don't. My counselor was a great guy. He knew his stuff and was always open to what I thought I could and should do in the future; he always helped when I asked.</p>
<p>The office itself is well organized although a little stingent. If you don't have everything you're supposed to have when you're supposed to send something they get a little irritated. It's all about their extreme organization (we have a senior class of 700) so they have to make sure everything goes according to plan.</p>
<p>I am a student at the top public high school in Canada!! lol...woo!</p>
<p>My counseling office has 5 counselors for 1500 students, so they cant physically be as on top of things as a private counselor. However, my counselor has always been helpful, from ninth grade on. I have had numerous scheduling problems throughout high school, and he has always supported me and helped me get the classes I need. For college stuff, although he hasn't given me any chances information, I do have to consider that I went into his office with a list of schools I'm applying to that already had safeties, matches, etc. But, he has helped me with applications and things along that line. I would say very good-if I drop in, I can see him once every one or two weeks.</p>
<p>i agree with the fact that the counselors need to spend more time with underclassmen (planning!!) and that it would make their job with seniors exponentially easier.</p>
<p>that being said, once I got to know my guidance counselor this year, she really helped a lot-- spent time with me so she could write a good, well-informed recommendation, helped me plan the college applications, etc.</p>
<p>My high school's guidance couselors are easily the worst aspect of the school. Yes, they are overworked, but you would think that they could at least care enough to know something about the college admission process. The little they know is directed toward the Florida state school system and they have no knowledge outside of the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship. It is as though they think that no one in my school is affluent enough to pay for college. Florida colleges don't require a counselor recommendation, so by pushing the Florida schools so heavily, they are basically looking for a way out of work. It turns out that my counselor failed to send out two of my recommendations so I have been trying to track her down to resubmit them. I haven't found her in her office in 3 days! Still, I sympathize with them somewhat, we have six guidance counselors for over 3200 students, not including the freshmen.</p>
<p>Two college counselors - 800 collegebound seniors, each applying to, on average, seven schools = 5600 apps + scholarship applications.</p>
<p>They are way overworked and there's very little time for actual advising and only meet with individual students twice, once in spring of junior year in groups of about three and once in fall of senior year individually. I was applying ED and had my meeting with my college counselor TWO DAYS before the school-imposed ED deadline. People applying only RD didn't get their meetings until late November or early December.</p>
<p>It's just ridiculous that one of the nation's top public high schools is so understaffed in the college office.</p>
<p>The guidance office at my school is abysmal. I've had the same counselor for all four years and it hasn't been the easiest ride ever. She's a really nice person but a really bad counselor. </p>
<p>Before senior year there weren't too many problems (considering I primarily dealt with her during registration) but there were some substitutions of, say, Art and Drawing for Anatomy and Phys Honors - not exactly the same type of class, nor the same sort of appeal for a prospective Bio student.</p>
<p>Senior year is when it got ugly: with all of the college applications and awards coming up, there were bound to be troubles. She delayed sending the National Merit papers in until the very last minute but, luckily, after a call to the principal by my dad, she got on the ball. Like sarah4 said about her counselor, mine seems to know little about any schools outside of FL, which is not great since I applied to 7 out of state schools. Perhaps the biggest horror story, though, was my application for the Emory Scholars program. I was nominated and given the papers a mere week and a few days before the postmark deadline so I immediately gave her the secondary school report to complete. I made sure that I could pick it up on Thursday (it was due on Monday, so I wanted a day's worth of grace to protect against any misfortunes.) Come Thursday, I go in and ask her for it and she says "she is close to being done." So, frustrated, I go in the next morning and, not surprisingly, it still isn't done. That afternoon I go once again to pick it up again and she has left for the day! Frantically, I ask the secretary if she left anything and all she left was the letter of recommendation but no secondary school report. To make a long story short, my dad once again calls the principal, but this time to no avail. So, out comes the phonebook and he calls the school board and soon my counselor calls from her house arranging for us to meet at the supermarket so she can give it to me. Not a pleasant experience...</p>
<p>So the best way I've found to cope with the ineptitude is to fill out EVERYTHING that I can in advance, make checklists for her, clip all appropriate papers together with instructions on each one, check with her about 3 or 4 days before the deadline to ensure that she has sent it, and, of course, use CC liberally.</p>
<p>Our counseling department is fair. I've had four different counselors through high school and with each I have had a different experience. In terms of general in-state college admissions, they do their jobs well. For the few of us who want to go out of state, and those of us who want to try for top schools, the counselors know zip. Some are friendly, eager to learn, helpful if you tell them exactly what you need, and some seem like they could care less if you graduated high school and then went to flip burgers at BK for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>My most recent counselor (who I've had for the last three months of this year, my senior year) has been the most proactive and caring. Of course, that was after switching counselors from one who probably didn't really remember my name. In my experience, the counselors don't seem to bother to get to know you and don't really allow you to get to know them until senior year, when it's really too late.</p>
<p>But I know if I was in their position and had 300+ kids to deal with, and new ones coming in every year, I wouldn't have time to do my job all that well, either. </p>
<p>Considering the school doesn't cater to Harvard admit wannabes, they do okay, but not great.</p>
<p>Mine isn't horrible or anything, but they certainly do not go out of their way to meet the students. I only know my counslor (who is now on a 2 month leave of absense to finish her masters) because a friend and I tend to leave our 3rd period early. ;o She still has the enthusiasm that the rest of our Guidance Department lacks, mainly because this is only her second year. But she can't be too bad, she wrote a nice rec. for me.</p>
<p>My daughters high school counselors are so overworked the district sends "specialists" to visit the school and talk with students. Next week, she is supposed to meet with them, so they could make sure her applications are done.....a little late, don't you think. Counselor's office claims they never heard of Profile or that early decisions were binding...... I am thinking about advising juniors as a volunteer.</p>
<p>My high school counselor is, IMO, excellent about getting stuff done. Although she handles 400+ students, only the 100 or so juniors and seniors have access to her regularly. She knows what she's doing and has pushed all of us to get stuff done on time. My only gripe is her lack of connections--our old guidance counselor talked regularly to the admissions officers at the big schools (or so I hear); this one, as far as I can tell, has not. Nonetheless, she is as good as one can expect from a public high school, probably even better.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I am thinking about advising juniors as a volunteer.</p> </blockquote>
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<p>This would be a great serviceto the students in your community, Mr.B. Nevertheless, be prepared for the possibility that your generous volunteer assistance might be unwelcome; the existing staff might perceive your effort as indicating that either they don't know their job, or are not performing their job in a satisfactory manner. (Remember, no good deed goes unpunished... ;))</p>
<p>We have some conselors that are a joke. I told one that I wanted to go to either Pepperdine or Emory and he didn't even recognize those names. I am from Oregon, and he doesn't know much more than the location of a couple community colleges and the University of Oregon. Luckily, he isn't my couselor.</p>