I think guidance counselors are obsolete. Take hard courses, study for the SAT, stay busy outside of school, use google to research colleges. It’s not rocket science, let’s stop pretending there are all of these helpless youth ruined by “bad” counselors. Teens have smart phones, iPads, laptops, and high-speed internet. If they can figure out how to get 500 peers to watch their perfectly curated snapchat story, they don’t need a 50-y.o. woman to hold their hand and explain the college app process.
@OldFashioned1 Why do you always assume that everyone has the same advantages as your kid(s)? Guess what, a lot of teens don’t have smart phones, iPads, laptops, internet. Those are luxury goods that many poor kids don’t have. So they can’t just google. They go to schools that don’t have hard courses or extra-curriculars. They don’t know anyone that ever went to college so have no clue what they need to do to get there. I wish it were as easy as you seem to think for everyone, but that’s not reality. Your perspective is very skewed.
OldFashione1 writes more like an immature, coddled teenager.
Really doubt that post was written by a parent…
I thought that we freely express our opinions here based on our own experiences. What is the point of arguing who had whatever experiences and what opinion they formed based on them? Isn’t it great that we all have it differently and as a result formed different opinions. Otherwise life in general would be boring…
Going back to the topic. Some relied on GS’s (in most cases, I say, “poor souls”, which is MY opinion, I am not expressing anybody else’s). Others relied on their own research based on their personal criteria for choosing the college. GS will disregard most of the personal criteria, GC absolutely cannot deal with such personal details while he has so many kids. And I am basing my opinion on my experience when GC dealing only with 33 kids in the senior class (my second kid), which in vast majority of cases is way higher. GS has to be “in a loop” because he has certin responsibilities during application cycle. That is how WE looked at it.
“They go to schools that don’t have hard courses or extra-curriculars. They don’t know anyone that ever went to college so have no clue what they need to do to get there.” - No American HS, including best of the best, have hard courses. None. Again, I am familiar with the HS curriculum abroad and that is how I formed my opinion. You can disagree with it, but you have different experiences so, you cannot say who is right and who is wrong. Another point is that if my S., average caliber student was able to research everything when he was about 14-15 in the middle school and in the era when internet did not exist (yes, I am ancient), then I assume that all those 10 - 18 year olds who know internet much better than any adult (good luck arguing this one), can research ANYTHING their heart desires. My S’s research ended up with him attending the college that he had as his #1 choice. He was not helped by anybody, we had no idea what he was after and how in a world he accomplished that. He even overcame the obstacle of being put on the waiting list initially. Again, he did everything all by himself, average student with average scores coming from the crowded public HS. Trust in your kids, they can do much more than you imagine, that is if they desire to do so! And when they do it because they want it, the results will be beyond expectations. The kid may turn from the average student to the one who deeply cares about his academics at college, who cares to supplement his college education on his own if he sees that something is missing. And this again was based on my personal experience with my S. who was much better student at college than he ever was in HS.
Everybody is different, nobody can do anything about it!
@itsgettingreal17 I work with low income inner city youth several days a week. None of them are without easy access to high speed internet and computers. 50% have cable/dsl internet at home. 90% of them have smart phones. 100% of them have social media accounts. If they can’t (or don’t care to) google they aren’t prepared for college, let alone colleges with challenging admissions.
@menloparkmom I just choose not to waste my time or my children’s time having conversations with counselors. In my experience, with both good and bad, it’s pointless, at best.
There are still a lot of teens in our town using computers at the library because they don’t have computers at home.
Our GC’s stay with the same kids for four years so they know them, but they have kids from every grade so they are doing some seniors every year. When my kids were in school there were, I think, 200 kids per GC. Despite that, I thought they did a fabulous job. They had streamline the system so that much advising happened in small groups. They did several college nights including one just for financial aid, and one just for sports scholarships. They also ran at least one session on the main college night in Spanish. They instituted Naviance pretty much as soon as it was available and put in several years of data so it was useful.
“There are still a lot of teens in our town using computers at the library because they don’t have computers at home.”
- You must be sure about the reason why they are not at home. It maybe many other reasons than the lack of computer for them to be outside of their home. And most are using the phones anymore anyway. If one cannot buy a phone, there are booths in the cities where they can obtain it for free. I pass such a booth on my way to my parking, they build it every year when the weather gets better.
Kids who speak Spanish get really spoiled, but it works against them at the end. The ones from other countries that do not have any options of using their native language, get to learn English much faster, they simply do not have a choice but use English, good for them!.
" I just choose not to waste my time or my children’s time having conversations with counselors. In my experience, with both good and bad, it’s pointless, at best. " - I agree. Others may disagree, but I feel sorry for them. Oh, well, everybody is different!
"No American HS, including best of the best, have hard courses. None. "
wow, just wow… 
Someone who knows what classes are taught and the level of their rigor at every high school in the country!!
I dont think so…
=))
In my town a teen can get a free phone if they have fled an abusive home or have an order of protection against a former significant other. The phones do not come with internet access- they are meant to make it quick to dial 911 or phone a social worker in an emergency now that there are almost no payphones on public streets.
I’m not really seeing how the “we’ll give you a free phone” adds up to every teenager having internet access.
I volunteer at a high school in an impoverished area. This high school’s population is the least academic in the district. A charitable organization set up a full-time employee and a large classroom to assist the students with the college process. Volunteers come and go as well. The library is filled with computers that have access to the internet. I have to agree with old fashioned that you will be hard pressed to find a kid that has ZERO access to the internet and can’t google. All public libraries have computers. The kids had iPhones. If the school does not have hard courses, it is my understanding that the lack of APs or honor classes where none are offered is not held against the student. Admission officers know that these kids are working hard to help pay bills, not playing tennis or going to model UN conferences. Oh by the way, I would hope that the teachers all went to college, so in fact they do know people that went to college and could help them if they asked.
Tell this to the kids at TJ. Or any successful IB school.
Because all kids can get to public libraries with computers, right? Not. Everyone on this thread making assumptions based on their limited experiences need to check their assumption.
@itsgettingreal17 Not having access to a computer or internet doesn’t fly with me.
All high schools have computers and internet — children are allowed to come early or stay after. Looking at Detroit, there are 23 public library branches, open today until 6pm or 8pm. There are half a dozen community colleges and four year university libraries open until 10pm or 24 hours. There is easily a dozen church, YMCA, Boys & Girls Club after-school programs with computer access.
Not saying it’s always easy, or the most convenient, but if you want out, you have to put SOME effort forth. There are many issues low income students face – in my experience, lack of computer/internet access or the inability to know how to use google are anywhere near the top of the list.
Having access to a computer doesn’t mean you know how to use it for college. They don’t know what they don’t know.
For example, at a low-performing school, all kids know about the SAT is that it’s a test they’ll take senior year if they intend to go to college. They’re given the official booklet a week before the test. Period. (The school’s average was about 1100 CR+M+W). How can they mgically guess there’s khan academy and they could be using it starting after sophomore year in order to prepare thoroughly? That, in other town, there are such things are prep classes and tutors? Or that you can buy books and can spend a long time preparing for this test, when their teachers and counselors tell them “it’s a week from now” and that’s it? Should they second guess everything teachers and adults tell them? How can they imagine upper-middle class lives with professional parents - at best from films and from TV shows, and we all know how accurate these are.
These kids wouldn’t know the timeline. They may start searching for information in September senior year. They may not now where to look, what to look for. They may end up on nich, or reddit, and find useless crap. You probably don’t know there’s such a thing as Fly-ins, “request info forms” that count for “interest”, (or what “interest” is), that you may need recommendations, that subject tests exist (especially in ACT-territory but not only), that you have to write essays or what’s a good essay, that some colleges meet need and others don’t…
How many EDUCATED PARENTS stumble on this website and ask questions?
The magnitude of what applying to college entails, especially for lower income, first gen youth, is staggering.
@MYOS1634 - great post^!
I didn’t know about subject exams until halfway through my oldest’s junior year and I’m about as educated and tied in as possible. You would think the teachers or counselors at his high SES public school might have mentioned it, but they didn’t. He had time to take the required ones, but not in his best subject.
Why are you assuming that their teachers and counselors are telling them a week before? That’s insulting to the thousands of educators out there who work for little pay but are dedicating their lives to these children. At the school I tutor at, they take their standardized tests junior year, like everyone else! They are given advance notice. Our high school, separate and apart from the charitable organization that I volunteer for, sends top students every week to tutor disadvantaged students for the SAT/ACT. The inner city kids do have programs set up to help them, I’m not talking about the one kid who lives on a farm in Idaho without access to a library or the internet. I’m also not trying to argue that the playing field is level, by any stretch, just trying to argue that there are resources available to these children.
I agree!
"Oh by the way, I would hope that the teachers all went to college, so in fact they do know people that went to college and could help them if they asked. "
Oh, by the way, applying to colleges has gotten a LOT more complicated and competitive in the last 10 years. And lets not forget that college costs are now SO MUCH more expensive college than they were 10-20 years ago.
For the poorer student whose family is making less than $ 45000 year- how are they supposed to know that they MIGHT be able to afford to go to college, unless they KNOW that the “sticker price” may be much lower for them? Or how are they supposed to know how to find out what it may cost ?? Or that if they take the PSAT in their JR year they MAY qualify for tens of thousands of dollars in NM scholarships? But that they then HAVE to take the SAT in order to be able to qualify?
There are PARENTS who come here not knowing what a NPC is, let alone that all colleges are required to have one on their website. And you assume 16-18 year olds , whose parents may or may not not have gone to college, and whose teachers got their degrees 20 years ago, will magically, while going to HS, and perhaps working after school to support their families, will easily be able to research colleges with all the free time on their hands and figure out the ins and outs of college applications, learn about NPC’s, financial aid, Common Data sets , etc, etc by doing Google searches???
right…
AsMYOS1634 said above- they DONT know what they dont know -until and when they get knowledgeable help.
my high school had the absolute worst guidance counselors i could imagine
in fact one of em was in the news recently for writing a “good” letter of rec to her friend’s son after her friend (who works in the district) got an unfavorable (and honest) letter of rec from one of the other counselors. that district friend who used to work at our school wasn’t pleased with the unfavorable letter (her son was a classmate of mine and he was an awful student so i have no doubts the bad letter was being honest) so she just asked her other counselor friend to write a better one. she threatened the principle and other counselors as well.
both of those counselors however, are absolutely horrible. the one who wrote the unfavorable letter of rec told so many students including myself that we wouldn’t go to college. she told us we wouldnt even graduate high school at times. she is absolutely awful and refused to help us out just because of her opinion that we wouldn’t make it anywhere. she even told this to white students so i don’t think it’s a matter of it being an underrepresented student body. and believe me the students she talked down to ended up going to UCLA and other great schools but at absolutely no help from her. just horrible. they would never send transcripts on time, lose things all the time. every year our schedules would be completely messed up with unrelated classes, sometimes classes that weren’t even for our grade level. this would happen for the first month of school before these counselors finally sorted out the mess they made. this happened every year. they never bothered to fix the problem.
the other counselor was just as bad (the one who wrote the good review for her friend’s son). she was honestly a female dog, there is no other way of saying it. we hated having to see her. much less, none of us would want to see her for college guidance even if we knew that was a thing she was meant to help us with. our school was both a middle school and a high school and yet it only had 3 guidance counselors. absolutely ridiculous. for a huge public school. she was so condescending and mean. everytime we had to see her, she would just act so rudely towards us and always roll her eyes and looked like she hated us so much. absolutely cruel.
i do remember once that these people came to our school once and made us meet with them w/ appointments where they asked us where we wanted to go to college. that was all i remember though, they didn’t really help unless you were wanting to go the local state college, in which they’d just tell us what classes they required us to take which was common knowledge that us students already found for ourselves online. they knew nothing, they didn’t even know what our current grades were to help us stay on track or anything. no help at all. and that was probably the only time i recall talking about college at that school. it wasn’t helpful and i only remember it happening once in my 4 years in high school. college guidance shouldn’t be something you introduce once every 4 years. these organizations just think that’s enough and then they pat themselves on the back for thinking they impacted our lives or something. college guidance should be something students think about every day, ever week. not every 4 years, and not once every year.
our school wasn’t even that bad to be honest in terms of quality you’d expect… it was a magnet school and it was mostly whites and hispanics (but it was mostly white-washed hispanics, not cholos or whatever), and then a smaller quarter was filipino, and then less than that were a few vietnamese and black people. suburban area. probably not a very rich area compared to most places, but for the surrounding areas which were a bit more rough and ghetto, i suppose it was the richest area in context.
and even that didn’t save it from having terrible counselors.