School Guidance Counselor - Seeking Guidance!

Parents Forum
1

Hi College Confidential,

I am new school guidance counselor at the high school level. I come to you all seeking advice on one basic question: How do I help my seniors start/complete/finalize their college selection list? Also, this is a semi-long post but I’m very passionate about helping my students. Please and thank you for reading it in advanced and I welcome feedback from students, parents, counselors, teachers, anyone willing to help!

Now, before everyone states the obvious, let me proclaim the following:

(1) I know conventional wisdom states that it might be “very late in the game” to barely be brainstorming your college list.

To which I respond: “It is what it is, I need to help my students move forward.”

So, here is what I would like from your unofficial expertise:

(1) Read my plan of action.
(2) Provide feedback on my plan of action

My plan of action.

I made a worksheet to help my students start to answer some basic questions. This work sheet has eight sections.

Section 1 - What do you think you might want to study while in college?
Here they list up to five potential majors/minors/concentrations. I inform them not to put any “pre-professional” programs because you can’t major in those programs. I tell them put at least three subjects because they might wake up one day on a random Tuesday in October and hate biology! So they are at least in a place to select something else!

Section 2 - Variables
This is a section with ten questions about the college they might want to attend. Trust me, I know there are a million questions to ask, but I broke it down to ten questions to get the ball rolling on selecting a college. These questions are “What size of school to you want to attend?” “What kind of city do you want to be in?” etc…

Section 3 - Non Negotiable
This is a section were they state, “I won’t go to a college if it has this…” or “I will only go to a college if it has this”

Section 4 - “What do they bring to the table?”
This is a section where we talk about numbers - GPA/Rank/SAT/ACT/SAT 2 This section, in my opinion, is important because I want the kids to know where they stand “historically” to the previous entering classes - this also helps them understand if the college they are applying to is a “safety / match / reach”

Section 5 - Brainstorm List
Some kids come in with a list of 25 colleges and some come in with none! If they come in with some colleges, and based on how they answered sections 1-4, then I can filter the brainstorm list into sections 6-8.

Section 6 - Safety Schools
I have them select at least 3

Section 7 - Match Schools
I have them select at least 6

Section 8 - Reach Schools
I have them select at least 3

So that is the worksheet. Based on what they answer in sections 1 - 4, I help them begin section 5 if they have no idea on where to go.

Here is my problem! I need help! It’s tough to find colleges kind of randomly for these kids!

I’ve been using this site from the University of Texas - Austin that has every college in America via state.
https://www.utexas.edu/world/univ/state/

How do you all do it?
Feed back to my method?

2

I know you are a GC and not a financial counselor, but the first question should always be what can you and your family afford? Unfortunately for many students, this will be a limiting factor when selecting colleges to apply. There is no reason to waste an application fee on a school that will not be affordable. Also students in need of financial aid, will have to target in-state schools due to FA available or schools where merit aid is available to make these school affordable.

The rest of the questions are excellent in defining the needs of your students and I commend you for trying so hard for your students.

3

I don’t know that you need to know the answer to this from each family, but HS counsellors are often terrible at getting families to think realistically about college finances. That is honestly the #1 question that a student needs to answer when making their list. Teach students to run the net price calculators, and maybe have a handout for parents on it when you meet with them, as the parents have to provide information to fill it out.

Figuring out what they can and are willing to pay, and matching that with schools they are interested in is critical. There is no point in having them generate a list they can’t afford.

Looking at your questions, not all colleges are in a “city”. Some are in cities, some are in suburbs, some are in small towns/pretty rural areas. Also, are you asking how close to home they want to be? Or if they want to live at home during college (some students do it because they want to, some can’t afford to live on campus).

Section 4 - Hooks are good to know. Athlete, URM, legacy?

For your knowledge of colleges, learn about all your state college and community college options. If your state has any kind of reciprocity deal, learn about that deal and any schools that are part of it. Check out “colleges that save lives” to learn about some less selective LACs. Get a copy of the Fiske Guide to Colleges and read it end to end. Look into historically black colleges so you are familiar with them.

Other suggestions: review the YOLA website for automatic scholarships. Start a list of scholarships your kids are getting so you can make suggestions for students looking for realistic or local scholarships.

Read College Confidential. :). Refer your stiudents and parents here, but tell 'me not to get psyched out by the Ivy forum. Encourage them to visit the financial aid forum, college selection and admissions forums, and individual college forums.

4

I’m a high school student and I’ll just put in a few remarks on how I’d feel about this worksheet:

Section 1: 5 majors/minors/concentrations seems a bit overwhelming. Top 3 majors is probably enough. I personally think that minors aren’t as important in the process right now and can probably be figured out after creating a initial college list.

Section 2: No problems!

Section 3: This ties really closely to Section 2. If you look at the SuperMatch, you’ll see that for each “variable,” it asks whether it is very significant or just kinda significant. You might be able to use that format to make the worksheet a bit more efficient.

Section 4: ECs are pretty important too. If I were a student, I wouldn’t mind writing the top 3 ECs I’m proud of. College admissions isn’t just about numbers! (unfortunately for me)

Section 5-8: 12 schools total?? Thats a pretty big list. I’m not against it if its just preliminary, but my college list is half of that and I like it as it is.

Hope I helped a bit!

5

MONEY

Please educate yourself about financial aid and student loans. You would be doing a great service to your students whether they be low-income, middle income or even upper income. Also, understand the fee waiver process for lower income students. It is so unfortunate that we have promising, smart students who struggle financially to attend college.

Try to prepare a simple step-by-step chart for your students. Include dates to take the SAT or ACT as well as a good date to have rec letters, GC letter, and apps complete.

There are scholarships available for automatic stats. Share this info with your students, so they know what scores they need on standardized tests and GPA requirements.

If you are in Texas, talk to your students who are auto-admits and make sure they understand how they will pay to attend a state university. UT Dallas, for instance, is generous with merit scholarships while UT is less so.

Your services are very important, and you really can alter the course of a young person’s life. Best wishes!

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One more money comment, it will be helpful if you know which colleges are need blind in admissions, and which ones are committed to “meet need”. I admit, my go to list for this info is on Wkipedia.

Also, keeping track of schools that are test optional can be helpful.

7

Excellent advice. “colleges that save lives” in a post above should be “colleges that change lives”. ctcl.org

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^Sorry, that is right.

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Great list! I’ll jump on the money wagon though with one more detail; be sure your students understand that if they have low income/high stats, they should look at the big reach schools with excellent FA. It may well be less expensive for them to go to an Ivy League school, for example, than to your state school. (Or Rice, maybe? If you’re in Texas, I don’t know much about Texas state school scholarships.) On the other hand, if they are higher income there will be no financial aid and no merit scholarships to those same schools. Look for merit aid elsewhere.

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I agree with previous comments - especially the financial concern. I would also emphasize that students look at a climate report for the colleges they are interested in attending (average highs and lows, precipitation, humidity). I’m not sure where you’re located, but if you are in CA or the Southwest and students are interested in moving across the country then they should know what they are getting themselves into. I was amazed by the amount of Californians who complained once they moved out to the East Coast - it was clear that the weather patterns were never considered when selecting the school and four years of griping ensued. Climate can have a big impact on student happiness, especially someone who is accustomed to constant sunshine and is suddenly experiencing precipitation 50-60% of the year.

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I wish my guidance counselor cared this much about each student

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The issue with Section 3 “Non-Negotiable” is that students often say that, then immediately change their minds when you tell them which schools they have just eliminated. Lol

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Section 8: For the guideline on reach schools, it would probably be better to change it from “at least 3” to “no more than 3.” But be willing to grant exceptions readily, especially for top students or those who can articulate a clear reason for having more. This will help keep the length of lists in check.

For tools, take a look at Super Match or College Factual.

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Finances are huge! There are kids who are low income, but also kids who have parents that don’t plan on contributing. So don’t waste any time or effort on schools that are unaffordable. Some schools give terrific scholarships, but can still end up being unaffordable for many students.

Also, Ivy league schools w/ huge financial aid are often suggested for low income students, but they are like winning the lottery and should be presented that way. Terrific aid is pointless if you can’t get in to begin with.

I also commend you for putting so much effort into this.

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I pretty much disagree on the whole concept of safety, reach and match. Everyone needs at least two safeties they can afford. After that it really doesn’t matter. My oldest top 1% student with stellar scores had two safeties and 6 reaches. There weren’t really any matches that made that much sense for him. He had specific interests that the safeties met very well and they came with the bonus of merit money.

Younger son ended up with a similar approach. He had had two safeties and a bunch of reaches, but after he got into U of Chicago EA - he dropped the safety he didn’t like that much any way. He really liked his other safety and as with older son they threw a lot of merit money at him so it stayed on the list. If he’d needed the financial aid (say our finacial situation had changed) he would have been happy to attend it.

I think one thing to do is urge kids to apply EA anywhere they can. I’m not a big fan of ED, but it is the right thing for many kids and it’s pretty clear that at many schools it increases your chances by a lot to apply ED.

One thing our high school does is organize meetings for the parents. They do a big one on how financial aid works every year.

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Are these students starting as a blank slate? Have they never given this any thought in 10th or 11th grade? What is the demographic of this hs (hh income, college-educated parents, etc)? I am trying to get a read on why this the students aren’t coming to you with a list based on their own research and perceptions.

17

Focus your kids and their parents on schools they can get in and not “dream” schools where they are in the bottom 25%.

Reach Schools are generally a waste of time because they are almost always schools with very low acceptance rates. So if you have a student in the bottom 25% and the acceptance rate is 25% or lower, the chance of acceptance is too low to worry about. These schools also require very time consuming supplemental application work as well.

Students and parents do not understand this.

18

It would be helpful to know a little more about your situation:

How many seniors at your school?
Are you a general guidance counselor (providing counseling to kids 9-12 perhaps), or college-only/college-focused?
How many other counselors are there?

(Basically, these allow us to know how much time you have to spend with each kid. A college-only counselor, at a school graduating 80 seniors, is in a different position from a general guidance counselor, with other responsibilities, who works with one other counselor at a school of 1500…)

What is the general profile of the school? Private/public? Rich/Middle Class/Poor? What % of the kids go to college? What kinds of college have they gone to?

===

One thought - you say that you don’t know what colleges to suggest to them. Most kids go to in-state colleges. Yes, on CC, there’s a lot of focus on the elites (mostly private), which are in turn out of state for most folks. But for most kids, the relevant list is the state flagship and/or STEM/A&M school, and then a descending list of lower level public universities (directionals, community colleges etc), along with perhaps some specific training programs (nursing school), and, for a few, some more elite privates - generally the closer ones, but for a handful, the Ivies and such.

What I’m getting at is that you probably don’t need to know about all 3000 or whatever colleges in the country. Learning a lot about the top 5-10 publics in your state, a bit about another 5-10 publics and assorted in-states, and then some more about a reasonable assortment of 10-20 specialty schools (including some nearby privates), will perhaps cover 60-80% of your baseline needs for your kids. After you’ve been on the job longer, you can fill in your own mental framework of some with some of the more obscure/distant schools.

19

Another thing to consider in the Finance area is if your state has any Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP)-type programs that assist low-income students with both financial and academic supports.
They will often require a supplemental application and an additional recommendation from the counselor.

20

That questionnaire is tough. Even some of our brightest kids here on CC have only a vague idea of what they want to study, much less “major” in. They’ve only studied what your own high school offers. Better to just ask what subjects they like and think of pursuing more of, what subjects they have heard of that they might like to explore, and gently, what they have thought about future work. Kids, unless they know someone in the field, don’t really know what geology is about versus linguistics, what a French major entails or what accountants do.

And in addition to scores and gpa, for the most competitive colleges, a match in the sort of EC’s is very important. That’s more than varsity captain or pres of stu gov.

I also think a key question is how competitive they want the academics to be, whether they envision that constant opportunity for stretch or need a less demanding environment where they more easily succeed. Big fish/little pond or little fish/big pond.

In 11th, nearly everything D1 said she wanted went out the window by December of senior year. Size, location, Greek life, distance from home, etc. Except her major (but that was a little different for us, because it was one of Dad’s fields.)