Long story short, my kid is a junior and his school only has a part time counselor for both junior and senior classes. (The original counselor left last year and the school has not been able to fill the spot)
We tried to schedule an appointment but since she is a part timer, plus helping students of the current senior class, looked like we won’t be able to get to meet and talk about potential scholarship, college… etc until before summer break.
Is there online counselor service available?
I am afraid we will be missing some milestones, or steps to take besides just the had him finished PSAT and prep for SAT, or doing college search on our own.
Problem is she works only really part time, and only in the school office several hours a week. So its a scramble to get the appointment since its first come, and you can never know when she is there.
She does zoom meetings, but only with senior students only…
There are paid-college counselors… either in person or online. Is that what you are asking?
Some people do prefer engaging an outside counselor for various reasons (time-constraints, keeping peace in the parent-kid relationship, limited access to school-provided resources as you mention, etc.), but that may not be necessary if you are not interested in paying for that service. The CC community could act as counselor to some extent (a general statement since I do not know your student’s particulars).
If you are interested in paying for that service, I suggest asking for referrals in your local area. Let us know what exactly you are looking for and we can try to help.
It sounds like your school counselor does not have the time to provide you with the personalized attention that you want. That is not uncommon in public schools which are often understaffed and overworked. My two kids had the same counselor for all four years and I never met her once. The only time parents meet the counselor is if something is very wrong, like your kid is failing or is a major discipline problem. The counselors don’t have time to pay attention to good kids that are doing ok.
So what do you do? Well, you could spend a lot of time on this website. It’s free and there’s a lot of information. You could get some books on colleges like Fiske so your child can flip through to get an idea of what types of colleges are appealing. You could hire someone but that can be expensive. My vote is for this website plus some books.
I guess I was just not happy that not having a counselor to assist the students, when they are at the stage of high school, is totally not normal and might hurt many of them.
Some of the parents at the school, whom have the $$, do indeed have hired outside service.
In fact, I was looking for advices over the weekend and stumbled on CC forum. I have been reading a lot of posts and getting as much information as I can these few days. I think my brain is melting…
Another CC parent have just pmed a link to get a free guide. I am about to tell other parents at the school about CC forum, so they can visit and check out some of the information that everyone has been sharing here.
I would venture to say that most public high schools in the U.S. do not have counselors with sufficient time to provide one-on-one guidance to high school juniors about their college search, certainly not at the beginning of January (perhaps April or May…maybe). Usually, they are busy dealing with mental health crises, abuse situations, etc. They’re also trying to get the seniors to apply to college right now, as many students are rather oblivious in the fall and then they’ll roll around and it’s February or March and some students are talking about their college acceptances and they’ll be like, hmm, maybe it’s time to look for a college. At most schools it might just be a single meeting for all juniors to attend with handouts or links offered.
All that being said, however, CC has a lot of knowledgeable folks who are happy to provide to answer questions, offer suggestions, etc. You (and any other parents) are encouraged to get actively involved!
ETA:
I just did a quick search, and these were the two best college search timelines I found:
https://www.*****.com/blog/college-application-timeline/ (replace the asterisks with niche)
A few other things off the top of my head that might be different than what I saw:
Parents need to figure out a budget of what they are willing and able to spend that will still keep them on-track for a safe retirement (there are no loans for retirement, and there are lots of affordable options for college) at the BEGINNING of the process. No use falling in love with schools that will be unaffordable. (Falling in love with a particular school is strongly discouraged, too.) Also, run the Net Price Calculator on each college’s website once it becomes a real possibility (before applications are submitted).
College visits are often best when the college is in-session. So fall/spring break, Labor Day, etc. If that’s not possible, however, visits during breaks or doing online tours are good substitutes.
If your child is at all unsure about what size school they’re interested in, visit some local colleges, even if they’re not likely to make “the list.” See how they feel about a big, medium, and small school or rural, suburban, or urban, etc.
It was mentioned in one or both of the links, but ask teachers for recommendations before the end of junior year. Some teachers are popular and will only write a certain number.
Yes, I forgot about mental health issue and other things that might be contributing to the stress on both the students and educational worker.
Once the school can really hire a full time counselor, first thing I do will be sending a gift basket to thank him/her! Hoping he/she will stay on this time.
My D22 went to a HS with one counselor for a class of 600, she could not have picked my D out of a lineup. Out of that class maybe two dozen applied to selective colleges. The counselor had no time and no experience with this. Regardless, my D did fine in college admissions, the absence of a good counselor did not hurt her!
So, with the help of CC and some FB groups, I became the de facto college counselor and it worked very well in our case. I think we spent $70 on an essay review service, which was well worth the money, but that was all.
So I just want to say, if you have time and a good relationship with your teen, it’s possible to do this yourself.
Our school has about 400 students per counselor. There is a parent student meeting junior year, 20 minutes, where you get a handout with dates to keep on top of. They do not recommend any colleges, talk about loans or scholarships, just told to look at Naviance to determine chances. I’ve been to the meeting with all 5 kids, they were all the same, I honestly think counselors are told not to mention any colleges.