<p>My D is a junior and we have our first meeting with her GC this week. From all you seasoned seniors and parents, what questions should we ask on this first meeting?</p>
<p>I'll start:
1. Find out how the process works at her school - does GC package the applications and mail them (receiving the recomms. from teachers your D selects and packaging that w her letter, school profile etc.)? or does it work some other way?
2. If you don't already know, what is the schedule of info sessions for parents if there are any (our school had a "college search" session, a "putting together the app" session, a "fin aid" session, etc.)
3. What are her ideas on how your D should put together her college list - criteria, resource books available in Guidance office, logs of where previous students from D's school have gone and what their stats were...)
4. Most important (if it's a good GC): discuss your D's ideas of a college for her - size, geography, atmosphere, important majors, important activities(sports, peformance arts...), cost factors, financial aid profile, merit aid profile. What are GC's recomms of possibles for her?
5. Second most important: D and GC strategize re which teachers will be her best recommenders. What materials should D provide to these teachers to help them? (at S' hs, he gave those teachers the rec forms at end of jr. year - gives them time to do a good job)
6. (Again if you don't already know): do colleges make visits to her hs? what are the arrangements for students participating in those? if colleges do not visit the hs, are there college fairs in the area?</p>
<p>Of course, you will be asking all of these qx here on cc and you'll let us know where you get the better answers :D!</p>
<p>Echosensei:</p>
<p>Jmmom's has some great tips.
If I remember correctly, your D has already taken some standardized tests, am I right?
Take along a copy of your D's resume. It should show all the courses she has taken and her grades. It should also show all her ECs and awards, as applicable. This will be a handy reference asyou talk things over with the GC who may not know what your D does outside of school. Ask the GC how the grades are weighted at the school, whether the school ranks and on what basis. Your D should have a rough rank by now, end of junior year. Using this information, plus financial information, ask the GC to recommend reaches/matches/safeties (see jmmom #4).
Ask about the school's policy regarding absences for college visits.</p>
<p>echosensei, no advice from me except to say that you might want to take a look at this thread <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=39922&page=1&pp=20%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=39922&page=1&pp=20</a> about which Guidance Dept's have the best websites for the college application, etc. scene.</p>
<p>Has s/he asked YOU any questions? Our kids' school has GCs and separate college counseling. The CC has a group meeting with junior parents, then sends home a packet to be completed by applicant and parents - including brag sheet and a parent form where you, the parents write several essay type answers about your child - this gives her leads on interesting info about your child that is not reflected in the formal records or brag sheet. When these materials are returned, she is open to scheduling meetings with students and one on one with parents - joint meetings are done senior year. A lot of this junior meeting is to feel out the parents on issues of expectations, finances, reality check! Often those 3 things don't jive, and I think that must be one of the more unpleasant aspects of her job. I especially appreciated the way she tactfully went over "the money thing".
Jmmom and Marite give excellent advice.</p>
<p>very helpful post, jmmom! A few questions: do you get separate rec forms from each college or is there one form every college uses? Is giving them to the teacher at the end of junior year done a lot? And any advice on choosing which teachers?</p>
<p>I believe that every college has its version of the rec forms; there is also a version on commonapp. However, they are very similar. Our school has its own version which they know from experience is accepted at all the schools (I really don't think there are any exceptions to that, but not 1000% sure).</p>
<p>It would really be too much to expect each teacher to write his/her rec on 8-22 different forms for each student.</p>
<p>On choosing teachers: you want it to be [ul][<em>]a teacher who knows you well; even better knows you outside of class[</em>]since both of the above may not be possible, other posters have given great ideas on other threads re providing teachers a resume and highlights about yourself and about what you would like the college to know, and what type of college/programs you will be pursuing[<em>]our school likes one from the humanities and one from math/science, but [</em>]if you are planning already to specialize in college, choose based on that (I'm sure the advice would be more specific if you are planning MT or something like that [*]if possible, strategize with your GC who may know which teachers do a really good job on recs [/ul]</p>