Do yourself a favor and get a sense of the quality of advising in your kids’ school before you pay for outside help. Our HS is a very competitive HS in Colorado, with about 90+% of grads going on to four-year college or university – so maybe similar to your school? Our guidance department is outstanding, and they have a college advising system and roadmap that serves most people’s needs because there is high demand for those services. We’ve got individual advising, aids like Naviance, workshops for students and parents on all phases of the application process, proofreading and advising for college essays from our English teachers, workshops for various college application niches (military academies, athletes, very selective schools), a college application boot camp for rising seniors… What we didn’t get from the school, we were able to learn through our own research and sites like this one (CC is especially helpful for insights into forming a college list, even if you don’t do a chance-me thread for your own kid).
So – it’s true that a lot has changed since our generation was applying to college, and there is a lot to learn, and if you feel like you need the extra individualized service, go ahead and pay for it. But you might want to be wary of companies that promise too much, and you might want to see if the services you already have available to you are sufficient.
I believe we are in the same/neighboring district as they are. I don’t believe the counseling is particularly good, if it exists at all. (My kids are lucky enough to be in a similar situation as @gardenstategal) I am surprised however that they engaged the counselor for their third go - I feel like they add little value at that point.
First, my kids are all now through college or just starting college, so too late for us. My only post above was about my experience, not a question as a potential user. And someone replied asking if my kid went to BS to which I replied, and that’s what you responded to.
As I noted above, I only used someone for the last of 3 kids and not because I thought they would be able to offer better advise or improve outcomes, but because child #3 was discounted things said by his parents and we wanted him to hear some of the same messages from the third party he perceived as expert. As noted, it more or less worked (though the expert didn’t steer him to more matches as we had asked). Only cost us a few hours in Fall of senior year.
I’ve been on here for about 8 years and am very experienced in Naviance, so our baseline was good. Our HS has one counselor who does college stuff for >400 graduating kids a year so each family gets one 30 minute appointment in the four year process, plus she was good above responding to occasional email questions.
Good points. The professional organizations do have educational and experience requirements to join them, so look for counselors who are part of IECA, NACAC and/or HECA. Counselors in these orgs also have to agree to a myriad of ethical rules. I agree it’s a red flag if they aren’t in any professional org.
Again, we had an extremely narrow target objective for using one on #3 only. The other two were open to listening. #3 discounted anything we said and had put together a list with one safety, no true matches (though he thought of some of them as matches, without appreciating that was only true in ED which he wasn’t doing) and a bunch of reaches. He also had an extremely strong EC but was planning to downplay it because he had decided he wanted to focus on STEM and only wanted to note his very recent activities in that area. The purpose was to have him speak with someone he perceived as expert. After one meeting he came back with the brilliant idea to emphasis his EC in applications. (What a great idea – never would have thought of that ). So that part of the strategy worked, and I believe it likely impacted some of the high reach acceptances. The other goal about more matches did not work because the consultant only convinced him to add more reaches, but since the first part worked, and since I eventually encouraged him to apply to the match UCs (OOS). (He was interested in Berkeley and I pointed out that there was no incremental work to add the others – this also worked out very well, though in the end he didn’t go to any of them.)
That said, unlike us, a lot of people in his peer group have private counselors, usually by Freshman or Sophomore year, sometimes by 8th grade. The parents pay thousands for packages and these consultants influence their HS class and activity choices, summer plans and eventually their application list and essays.
I get that! Kids can be so stubborn. I can relate to your struggle. It is not so much that mine wants to downplay his accomplishments, but that he sees himself as completely ordinary (why would I write about that? It’s no big deal). Sigh.
). So that part of the strategy worked, and I believe it likely impacted some of the high reach acceptances. The other goal about more matches did not work because the consultant only convinced him to add more reaches, but since the first part worked, and since I eventually encouraged him to apply to the match UCs (OOS). (He was interested in Berkeley and I pointed out that there was no incremental work to add the others – this also worked out very well, though in the end he didn’t go to any of them.)