<p>i’m an international and my school doesn’t even have a guidance counselor. i did all the transcript work myself. i had to go to my counselor’s house to help him fill the secondary school reports etc. all this in addition to essays, sat’s n other tests… i’m slowly goin mad.</p>
<p>@bengalmom
my gc dint have the first idea about a decent reco. it was hardly a paragraph about me. so cliched’. when i gave suggestions he shot all of them down. no matter how hard i tried to tell him recos play an imp role, he refused to rewrite my reco 
typical indian school teacher that he is, he said colg look at my scores rather than the recos… i’m so helpless here</p>
<p>The counselor in my public magnet covers the entire magnet school—about 350 students. She’s our college counselor, guidance counselor, and until this year, she handled all transcript requests. As a freshman and sophomore, there’s really not much she’ll do for you, but she really takes care of all the junors and seniors. I guess when you’re handling so many students but still want to do a quality job with recs (for seniors) or academic advising (for junors), it must come at the expense of the underclassmen.</p>
<p>The tough thing to see are the resident school counselors. There are only two counselors per class, and they do both guidance and college. Class sizes range from 700, the senior class, to over 1000 students in the freshman class.</p>
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<p>I thought that was unique to our school (on the better side of the Cascades), although that is evidently not the case. ASPIRE is mostly useful for kids not at the top of the class - that is, those who otherwise would be swamped by nescience in the world of college admissions. For those on top, it is relatively useless. I’ve never met with my assigned ASPIRE counselor, although the experienced college admissions specialist who they got to volunteer is very helpful.</p>
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<p>Except for the aforementioned specialist, who comes in through that program once a week, we only have guidance counselors. They are more useful for getting transcripts sent out and having schedule issues resolved than anything else. I certainly haven’t dealt with any college planning issues with them.</p>
<p>We have 2 counselors, also, for our school. I’d love to say for how many students, but I like having some degree of anonymity on the internet. They aren’t seeing any obscene ratios such as 600:1 or 700:1, though.</p>
<p>The ratio here is about 200:1. It’s not ideal, but it’s not terrible because of the way they distribute students between the guidance counselors (no guidance counselor ever has all seniors).</p>
<p>I am constantly telling parents what a gift we have at our school(private). We have three full-time counselors and a full-time support person for an Upper School of 330 students. It allows the students to have great guidance while also allowing them to take over the process because parents don’t feel the need to become an expert in college admissions. We have a class in the second semester of the Junior year where they write essays, fill out the common app, discuss college size, etc. Everything for admissions is packaged at the school and sent to the colleges. It’s an incredible gift.</p>
<p>Our schools have guidance counselors and for the “gifted” kids, Advanced Educational Services facilitators. Most GCs gear kids for the local university or community college and haven’t much of a clue of any other colleges and their offerings. Even the AES facilitators know next to nothing for the most part, with the rare exception. There are individuals within the program who do go above and beyond and their results show this: kids getting into top schools throughout the nation with great FA, often full rides (we live in a low/moderate income area with a huge number of URMs) for talented kids. But she is a VERY rare individual. I like the ASPIRE program mentioned earlier. Lets knowledgeable parents and other non school employed individuals fill in the gaps (often large holes).</p>
<p>Counseling is another reason to go the prep school route. At Northfield Mount Hermon each faculty member is assigned 7 or 8 students to be general advisers. They meet at least week and the “DLs” act as the go-between for the parents and the school. </p>
<p>Students are also encouraged to latch on to some other adult as a mentor.</p>
<p>The College Counseling office has 8 professions plus administrative staff for a graduating class of around 120.</p>
<p>My school is pretty bad, I think we have around 3000 students with 5 counselors? And we have the best non magnet school in our county. All well</p>
<p>I always get “the overinvolved parent” eye roll.
But it will be over soon.</p>
<p>I think our GC changed her mind about my “meddling” when I gave her a typed list of my son’s schools he is applying to, sorted into groups of which ones need the common app, which need only transcripts, which needed a counselor rec. etc.</p>
<p>And I also was able to e-mail her the common app that she could fill out on her computer (she was going to hand write them all since this school cannot send transcripts online - no clue why - and all her forms had to be sent the same way) This saved her a ton of time. And naturally, we provided adressed stamped envelopes for every school, also grouped according to what was needed in them.</p>
<p>She was able to turn around and send all my son’s stuff out within a week. This went a ways to garnering some good feelings, as when my son decided to try for Stanford afterall, she was happy to send it right out that day, and when another school called us to say they needed everything faxed THAT day for son to be eligible for a scholarship, she faxed it PLUS lit a fire under the teacher whose rec was not yet completed.</p>
<p>So, moral is, be nice to your GC. They can make an already painful process more painful or they can make it easier (if you make it easier for them)</p>
<p>I go to a public school with 1800 students and I think we have 9 guidance counselors… so I guess we’re lucky</p>
<p>my counsellor gave me a blank look when i told her about common app.</p>
<p>nuff said.</p>
<p>I got a private school, and we’ve got about 150 people in the high school. We’ve got one guidance counselor, and one college counselor, so we’re pretty lucky, I guess. It’s really nice, though, as our college counselor handles everything and is really nice about it too. She’s really dedicated to getting us into college…</p>
<p>Haha, my school was 128 seniors and 3 counselors. I feel sorry for some of you guys.</p>
<p>1263 students</p>
<p>3 guidance counselors
1 counselor for those who want vocational careers
1 counselor for conflict resolution</p>
<p>Public magnet here, with 3 guidance counselors and 1 college counselor for 1000 students (250/grade). The college counselor is always swamped, but she’s great and well-informed.</p>
<p>Our public HS enrolls about 2100 in four grades. There are four regular GCs, one GC for at risk students, a college/career counselor who also has a part-time staffer working for her.</p>
<p>As expected, on the college front, their primary interest and knowledge base is with the CA community college, CSU and UC system. Each year, we get a handful of students into the HYPMS type schools, in addition to Cal and UCLA.</p>
<p>We have 5 counselor…I think haha
They’re each in charge of like 200-300 students
I saw my counselor briefly yesterday and she looked SO tired. I don’t think she even knows my name yet but I felt really bad for her. Must be all the senior college stuff…</p>
<p>The GCs at my D’s high school each handle about 250 students. That doesn’t sound bad compared to some of what I’m reading, but I still think it’s too much. My D has never met one on one with her counselor, and my only interaction with him was to ask for a teacher change before school started (which he graciously arranged). She’s only a freshman, but at this rate, I wonder how he’ll be able to write a recommendation that is at all meaningful when she gets to be a senior.</p>
<p>^ The key is to be proactive as a student. I first met formally with my college counselor in spring of sophomore year; you certainly don’t need to start that early, but you do need to initiate the process instead of waiting for contact from the counselor.</p>