<p>It may be useful to vent on CC about the inadequacies of your GC, but it is important to realize that come senior year your child really needs the GC to write something coherent and positive about your child. Rather than complain about the guidance department, make them your ally. It helps to politely inform them, but what they really need is to get to know your child. Encourage your kids to be a frequent visitor to guidance. We can get all the info we need from CC and the college websites if we look, what we need from the GC is an excellent snapshot of our kids. Cultivate the relationship.</p>
<p>And at our large public high school, guidance does the best they can, but we have 6 GC's for 1600 kids. And one full-time Guidance secretary. They are trying to guide seniors, handle paperwork, help underclassmen with course selection and problems with teachers, not to mention mental health issues (we do have 2 school psychologists also). Lord knows how they manage to do what they do.</p>
<p>Our guidance dept does put together a notebook each year that has a page for every college that someone the previous year applied to. On that page, it lists each applicants' GPA, SAT score, and whether they were rejected, waitlisted or accepted (no names, just stats). Not exactly a scattergram, but it is helpful.</p>
<p>laris, this is true, of course. I believe I had a very cordial relationship with S's counselor, as did S...once the GC realized that S's acceptances were going to make the school look good. Up until then, the GC did not want to see S when he had a question or concern. Just leave a note. She never blew me off, though, and I was always appropriately (?) grateful for her help. We do know how to play the game.</p>
<p>I am much less concerned about the guidance our S received than that which is available to those with less, ahem, assertive parents. Most parents I know will take as gospel what the GCs tell them, and in our case, that is a shame. I understand that the GCs are strapped; we have 3 1/2 counselors and one administrative asistant for 1600 students. That is a shame, too. But it really does not take that much time to check to see if the information you are dispensing has become out of date in the last 10 years you have been presenting it.</p>
<p>Our school has 5 GCs for approx. 2500 kids. I can't imagine that they have a clue as to who most of the students are. My kids' counselor is new this year, so any relationship my son built with the last one is for naught.</p>
<p>At my sons' public high school, the guidance staff is augmented by a College & Career Center, staffed by a professional college counselor whose salary is paid by the PTSA. Parents are also encouraged to volunteer for the Center. </p>
<p>All of this sounds good on paper, but the reality is that the college counselor is only up to speed on UCs and Cal States, knows very little about LACs or out of state schools, and runs the center with an iron fist. She doesn't let the parent volunteers talk to the students at all - they're just there for filing and checking materials in and out. I found this out when I stopped by the center to check out an SAT prep book, had a nice chat with one of the parent volunteers, suggested she surf over to CC (she enthusiastically said she would) and then found out that whatever she learned here at CC she wouldn't be able to pass on to any student due to the counselor's restrictions. Oh well...I'm trying to get the CC word out as best I can among my friends, who have similar frustrations with the college counselor.</p>
<p>That's really short-sighted of the counselor on multiple levels to not learn kids learn from parents in the community.</p>
<p>Like Chedva's school, our HS does a good job of making information available. They hold a meeting for 9th and 10th grade students and their parents each year to let them know what courses the kids should be taking depending on which types of colleges they plan to apply to, as well as which tests they should take. One problem I noticed when I attended the meeting last year is that very few people showed up - it was mainly parents of kids in the honors classes. I thought the GC who presented did a great job - it was just a shame that more parents weren't there to hear her.</p>
<p>To echo many previous posters, our CGs here seems to be most concerned/aware with the two or three state universities/colleges. As an alternative, I picked up info from various colleges I was familiar with at the last big college fair held in October. When our local colleges set up their display tables on college night, I also set up mine with a poster board labeled "Other Options". I offered names, brief info and contact information on about 20 schools. There was plenty of interest from parents. I'm hoping to add more schools in the future, but at least my few let other parents know there are more options out there. The schools I list are those offering good merit aid or other aid options (WUE program, etc.)</p>
<p>Our GCs are horribly understaffed and overworked, too -- so they require that every student and parent complete a questionnaire so they can get a better picture of each student. If your school does that, take advantage of it. You and your student can help frame the discussion and context of what the GC will say about you in that letter and make it less generic.</p>
<p>We also have Naviance -- very helpful for looking at which schools like our graduates, and which schools consistently win/lose vs. others. Like others have stated some schools with similar GPA/SAT stats and selectivity may love (or hate) your HS. It's good info to have.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree that the end of junior year is too late to begin this process. I'd do it at the end of sophomore year, since for a lot of kids, the difficulty of the work gets kicked up a notch junior year, schools look closely at those junior grades, and they can get tests completed that year. It gives parents a chance to assess their financial realities and begin a discussion about money with their kids <em>before</em> the heat of applications begins.</p>
<p>Our HS is similar to vballmom's. The difference is that the volunteers do work with the kids, but really haven't been given enough training to be effective. Our college counselor does not keep Naviance type of data ("it's in my head" she told me when I asked). And she tends to have a bias towards certain schools that she knows about to the neglect of all the others.</p>
<p>I have offered to volunteer to work with kids at the HS or at the guidance office in some capacity, but unfortunately have been told that it's not allowed in our district at all due to privacy considerations.</p>
<p>What great timing for this post. I have a D who is graduating this year and been incredibly disappointed with the help/infomation I received from her private school and GC (only 40 students graduating) I'm meeting with the new administrator this week to see if maybe we can offer more help to the next classes. I can't even begin to tell anyone how much help CC has been to me. Thank you to all who post. I'm going to pay it forward at my school and try to help some other parents and hopefully the GC with what I have learned. Maybe another parent or student won't have to spend the 100 hours a week like I do on here!</p>
<p>We just had our junior parent meeting this week as well, this meeting and a financial aid parent meeting this December are the only times the GCs call together parents as a group. Got a nicely bound packet with a page full of web site links, but CC wasn't one of them (wonder if I should keep my secret??). Most of the college-specific talk was about the different SUNY's, but that is where most of the students in our school go anyways...also a lot of FastWeb info..</p>
<p>The biggest point that I got out the meeting was to take SATIIs in May instead of June, since the material is "fresher" around AP testing time (makes sense - D was going to take SAT I then). The biggest surprise is that the GC's thought extra recommendations beyond GC and teacher recs would look bad rather than good - anyone else hear this from a GC? We got the same response roshke mentioned about parent volunteering - I have done alumni interviews for 20 years, but they couldn't accept my offer to do mock interviews for students, go figure....</p>
<p>THANKS to all in the thread that mentioned Naviance, what a great tool! Our school probably would not have the resources to get this, but the ability to sign in as a guest on other schools' sites is fantastic!</p>
<p>Our sophomore mtg. was last night and had to chuckle over G.C.'s response to a question about SAT subject tests (which was brought up by a parent and not even addressed in the presentation.) "SAT2 subject tests are only needed at 30-40 schools that are ridiculously hard to get into." At least 10% of our students apply to these schools and 5% get in. I turned to the dad next to me, whose daughter is a freshman at Williams, and asked how she knew about the subject tests. His answer was, "by reading the Williams application." Surprise!</p>
<p>
[quote]
The biggest surprise is that the GC's thought extra recommendations beyond GC and teacher recs would look bad rather than good - anyone else hear this from a GC?
[/quote]
Yes, particularly for state schools. There isn't enough time to read what they require; they're not looking for anything extra. Some schools even say specifically that they won't accept anything extra (like Stanford). Remember the old saw: "The thicker the file, the thicker the applicant."</p>
<p>wow, after reading through this thread, I am grateful that my daughters' gc and the entire department is great. We never had any problems and the staff is knowledgeable and helpful. I will request the gc my older girls had for my youngest when she enters hs. She is wonderful.</p>
<p>Transcripts came home yesterday. I found three errors. They list the courses and have a code for whether the class is Regular, Pre-AP. etc. They had two of my son's AP classes marked as Regular and one marked as "Local Credit" which is what you get for things like Office Aide, Teacher's Aide, etc. Makes me nervous....I hope we have a chance to proof next fall's transcript before they send it out to colleges.</p>
<p>missypie,
While you're checking the transcripts, don't forget to read the school profile that is sent out with the HS packet. Make sure it is up to date and doesn't list AP and Honors classes that aren't offered any more, etc.</p>
<p>missypie nailed it big time. Parents have to have the eyes of eagles (or those of missypie's) to look at everything because no one else is going to look after your child's best interest like you will. GC have a ratio of 315-to-1 in public schools nationwide, and your attitude has to be one of defense. Assume your child is going to fall through the cracks unless YOU are in control of the process. Beware of those schools that have a "policy" about handling yor child's paperwork. To the contrary, have a meeting with the GC's office in the first week after Labor Day of the senior year and announce what your policy is. Keep these folks on their toes, make them wish your child graduates in a hurry, but they'll get the job done if you're on top on them.</p>
<p>Great advice about the meeting right after Labor Day. There are so few times of the year when the GCs have a second to talk to anyone....at first, they are dealing with kids trying to change courses, then seniors needing transcripts and recs, then course selection for the next year, etc. Right after Labor Day would be ahead of the pack of other seniors (many of whom don't take the SAT for the first time until October or even December.) I really think that if even they hired twice as many GCs as they have now, there would not be enough to do a good job.</p>