<p>Do all public schools have college counselors? What do schools do if they can't afford them? Do guidance counselors usually take on the role of college counselor? How does your public school student learn about the college application process, and is this a four year process, i.e., do they have contact with a counselor each year talking about the appropriate pre-college perspective/work for that particular year? Who writes the counselor recommendation for the application? Who sits down with students and families?</p>
<p>Do any schools have a part time college counselor who supplements the guidance counselors' role?</p>
<p>I'd love to hear experiences of this...our small public school is struggling with an approach to this. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>No, our small public does not have a college couselors. The kids have the same GC all four years and those GCs write the counselor portion of the college reqs. The GCs do not “sit down” with the parents although I’m sure they can and would when asked. They do not get involved in family finances that I’m aware of (perhaps they do with the high need kids) so have very little involvement or influence on the college choices for the middle masses. I’m sure there are one-offs where their involvement is greater. In September they meet with all the seniors and go over their “list” or attempt to get the kids to put a list together but I’ve handled my kids college “stuff” so generally they hand over the list and that’s the last they hear from the GC. Roughly 50 seniors per GC at the school and about 85% go off to 2 or 4 year institutions.</p>
<p>In the spring, they ask the kids for a list of where they were admitted and any merit/scholarship awards they received. Not everyone turns those sheets in (S1 didn’t, S2 did.)</p>
<p>Every year one or two go to the highly selective colleges and a handful leave the region for an LAC or large public, but most stay in the region since there are abundant great schools in the midwest of every size and flavor. I’m sure they are involved in some way with the kids navigating the ultra competitive colleges and I’m sure they have some involvement with the kids signing sports agreements and those that are national merit finalists. But for the B+/A- student from the middle class not so much involvement.</p>
<p>I’ve thought about this, but I don’t think high school counselors are necessary. Are the kids really “better off” not going to UofM in lieu of some other college or uni? I don’t know the answer to that. Perhaps there are students that have “dreams” of going to another region and don’t because they or their parents are not “aware” of the possibilities but is it “necessary” to be aware of those possibilities? I’m not sure. </p>
<p>If you are in a region where higher educational opportunities are not as rich as in our region or your public university system is deficient, then I might think a college counselor is important.</p>
<p>Our public (600/class) has a group of GCs who oversee everything (course selections, issues) through college apps. There is not a “college counselor.” The structure of roles in GC dept keeps changing though as we have had multiple principals, superintendants, heads of guidence. In my ds’ frosh yr, there were two GCs who were only responsible for the frosh class - dealing with any transition issues, stuff specific to frosh. Then kids got transitioned to a GC for their soph. to sr. yrs. This was fine, but now, they are switching to one person from frosh to sr yrs. With the size of the classes and the amount of GCs, this still amounts to 300 kids or so per GC so regardless of whether you have the same GC all 4 yrs - that person doesn’t know your kid (unless they were a problem kid, those they know pretty well!) And with turnover, layoffs, my dd, a soph., has already had 3 people assigned to her. </p>
<p>As far as the college planning process, my ds’ GC sat down with us spring jr yr to both plan courses for sr yr and also look at which colleges met up with his interests, GPA and SATs. This is the 1st time I met him because all course planning has been done in school without my involvement really - my ds and I discussed his electives at home, but he submitted the forms, etc. The guidence office has a handful of genl college planning mtgs with parents to discuss process…but they hand you the tools, it is your job to follow through. It is overwhelming but they are organized and factory-like. (so far…) The GC asks for both the parents and the student to complete “brag sheets” - which serve as the meat of what they write in the recommendation letters. Student is also required to create a resume. Our school uses Naviance and that is a great resource with alot of data (since we are pretty big).</p>
<p>My two friends who have their kids in private school have done nothing but complain about their GCs. The consensus with them (3 diff private schools) is that their GCs are out of touch, try to control where apps go. I think they are disappointed that the 30K they spend/yr is not getting them superior svc in this area. They don’t have access to Naviance and the GC steers kids to 2-3 favorite schools repeatedly.</p>
<p>Our public HS (about 1400 kids) hired a college counselor a few years ago. We have 4 GC’s plus her. She has been a great resource, offering input on selection, redoing the profile, contacting admission offices personally, getting the school to purchase Naviance, etc. Many of our kids go to in state publics, and the GC’s were not much help with other types of schools, so this has been wonderful.</p>
<p>Each GC has about 400 students to “guide.” They have to deal with everything from homelessness, truancy, drugs, gangs, to pregnancies. They do a capable job of getting people graduated and providing basic college info on the in-state options that appeal to the bulk of the students.</p>
<p>But more specialized/high end/tail-of-the-distribution stuff is beyond them. In a severely under-resourced system it is simply unrealistic to ask it of them.</p>
<p>When I mentioned Questbridge to the Principal (his first month on the job), he had never heard of it, although I would guess that 30% of his student body could be candidates.</p>
<p>^^Our local HS principal left a Coca-Cola application on his desk. The parents had to go through the guidance office and the app was found in time.</p>
<p>Our public (1600 students) has five GC and one college counselor. That position was added three years ago. She is a former admissions counselor at a local directional school. Her knowledge of schools beyond a 180-mile radius is limited, but we have found that everyone at school is willing to help our son with his selective admissions process. We had a meeting with the GC, the college counselor and the principal this week to do just that.</p>
<p>If you as a parent are willing to do a little research on your own, you can work with those counselors to help your son or daughter. Every school would love to be able to brag about students going to selective schools. Usually all you need to do is ask for a meeting and some help.</p>
<p>Our HS has 4 counselors + psych, d&a, service coord, etc. so they are spending most of their time on academic counseling. They have several meetings for parents & students at the start of the year on colleges (testing, financing, apps, recs, etc). They bring in colleges from Ivy to community college & voc tech. Each October is dedicated to seniors and colleges. </p>
<p>Students from the school go mostly in-state and in the region, but we have kids going to Ivy, major Eastern & Mid-west LACs & U’s and the top CA schools every year.</p>
<p>Our small public graduates approx. 95-120 kids.</p>
<p>1 GC; no College Counselor.</p>
<p>Like UT84321 – The GC is dealing with everything from truancy, bad home life, to college. </p>
<p>Does a great job “knowing” the student to write a rec, but does a poor job in uncovering opportunities out of the immediate area, financial options, and “presenting” the student (ie student resume). Half the kids do not go to college. Of the half that do, few look beyond our local Community College and state options. </p>
<p>Some of the teachers will help edit essays if student seeks them out. Overall, great people, but little time and knowledge to devote to the college process.</p>
<p>I got involved helping a family member & CC has been a blessing! </p>
<p>The biggest learned here that HS was unaware of is “financial shopping” – i.e. applying to more than 4 schools so that come spring financial packages can be compared.</p>
<p>^^I think in a public school they are trodding on sensitive ground to get into “financials” with parents. If they do it is with kids who have already been identified through reduced lunch fees and the such and are “known” to the school through appropriate channels. A counselor in general is not necessarily going to know the difference between school A who meets need with “scholarship” money and school B who awards “scholarships” independent of need. There is no way for public school guidance counselors to make those sorts of determinations at a level that can help a student in any significant way without having a very clear picture of a family finances with the exception of the very low income families.</p>
<p>Smallish public HS (graduates 200/yr) has three alpha counselors (all kids are divided by last name and stick with that counselor all four years). As they approach senior year, they meet with 4th counselor, the designated college counselor. You can then decide whether you want the college counselor or the alpha counselor, who presumably you developed a relationship with after all those years together (yeah, right), to be in charge of handling your paper work and writing the LOR. Ds went with the college counselor, and she was a delight. Friendly, efficient. She didn’t provide ds with much real “guidance,” but that’s cuz he already had his list ready to go. At times, she went well above and beyond, including helping us weigh FA packages and advising me on what to ask when I call the schools for clarification. </p>
<p>The only thing I asked her via e-mail that she left hanging was whether she thought it was within her job description to call a college to lobby on behalf of a kid. I didn’t ask her to; I was just curious whether she would do that. I guess I got my answer. ;)</p>
<p>ETA: Cross-posted with momofthreeboys and, in our case, couldn’t disagree more. There are some real gems out there. The counselor of whom I wrote used to work in admissions on the college side and loved working on FA packages. She was quite versed on these things. Oh, and ds is not free/reduced-lunch eligible.</p>
<p>We have a career center where students can access college info. They also bring in college reps to meet with students (mostly all state schools, though). But when it comes down to really meeting the needs of the individual student, I have to say they are inadequate. </p>
<p>My kids have a wonderful guidance counselor who has helped them navigate the various requirements of graduation and college prep, but she has no real knowledge (or perhaps, interest) in the college search/application process. My friend’s S is assigned to another GC who IS helpful in helping kids with college searches and applications. We are going to see him when the time comes. He is also receptive to meeting with other GCs kids. He is a real GEM in my eyes.</p>
<p>We also have college visits, set up in auditorium during lunches - right now 103 college visits planned. Local county college has college fair for around 200 colleges in couple weeks.</p>
<p>The ‘financials’ gone over at our HS are things like - need vs. merit aid, FAFSA and Profile, college costs. General discussions on paying for college. #1D knew where she wanted to go and as far as I know there wasn’t any talk with her on what we could afford. The other night’s meeting touched on private schools sometimes being a better value than publics, especially those privates that give almost guaranteed merit aid. Also how and where to figure out EFC.</p>
<p>^^Yes, I agree with that sort of general info. I was more thinking along the lines of “financial shopping” which is a fine tuned art meant solely for the anonymous forums of CC LOL or paid college consultants…not so much the public high schools I guess.</p>
<p>And yes, if you have kids that never get in trouble they only ‘see’ the counselor once a year to get sign-off on classes for the next year or occasionally to change a schedule. I don’t how they write those recommendations (and the kids provide the input). “Little Sammy was a joy to have in school we hardly ever needed to speak with him. He appears to be well adjusted in the hallways and involved in many activites such as band, NHS and Quiz Bowl. The teachers all say he’s a pleasure to have in class”</p>
<p>Years ago, our HS had a WONDERFUL GC. She did everything from MAP testing, to guidance sessions, truancy, scheduling, etc. She took the time to tell the kids about available scholarships, what classes they would need to take if they were going to a 4 yr college, vs a community college, vs vo-tech. EVERY student received a couple of scholarships each year when she was here. She knew where to find them, when the deadlines were, all the facts.</p>
<p>The GC while S was in school was the worst. She claimed most kids don’t get scholarship money anyway, so we parents were spending too much time and putting too much emphassis on filling out the applications. She had a roll-a-dex with available scholarships. The kids or parents were to come into her office & look at it. Ok, hmmm, does she want them to miss Chemistry to do this? Or Calculus? Should I take a vacation day from work to go through it? She set up a few college speakers throughout the year, but only brought in the closest ones. Community college, 1 private, and 1 state. Offered no advice past that. Told the kids she would not hold their hand.</p>
<p>To families that are having their first child go to college…guidance is essential. How do they know where to begin? Where and when to visit? How many visit absences a year are allowed? When & Where do you look for scholarship money? No one explained fit, reach, etc. She wasn’t even encouraging. Needless to say, she was fired at the end of the year.</p>
<p>Our new counselor seems on top of things. I’ve already seen college info in the announcements for the kids.</p>