This evening at the local convenience store I was talking to the clerk about his educational plans (He started working right out of HS but plans to start taking CC courses in the fall. I think he’s a pretty smart guy. His favorite subjects were History, Physics, and Algebra. He’s interested in politics.) I said that that’s a smart way to start, since he can take gen eds and he isn’t sure yet what he’d want to major in. (We’ve had this conversation before. He’s a great guy, and I want to encourage him. ) A woman who looked to be in her late 30s joined the conversation. She told me that the HS in her town had advised her that if your income was low, it was a good idea to start at the local CC. (Apparently her FAFSA EFC was $5K.)
She told me that he kid was very smart, and could have graduated from HS–where he was never challenged–at 15, but he decided to stay in HS and take college courses (probably some kind of dual enrollment at the local branch of the U Maine system or online) because he didn’t want to go to college at that age, and didn’t want to take time off. He was third in his class. She was under the impression that “you had to know people” to get into Bowdoin. She seemed like someone that was likely a teen mother, single, very nice but unsophisticated in these matters.
She said that she tried to persuade her S to go to SMCC, but he insisted on Orono. (Thank doG!) I told her that I thought it would have been ridiculous for a kid like hers to be taking classes at SMCC, where most of the students are either people who couldn’t hack it in HS or non-traditional students like our mutual friend. Who would tell a kid who was third in the class and had already been taking college courses to go to our very undistinguished CC? (This is NOT like a CA CC that offers things like multivariable calculus where smart kids who outgrew their HS take courses.)
I told her about NPCs, and that often the most selective schools have the best FA, and that it was cheaper for my kid to go to Dartmouth than it would have been for him to go to Orono. She had no idea.
What the hell kind of advice are people getting out there? This drives me crazy.
The ratio of guidance counselors to students nationwide in public schools is 480 to 1. In poorer districts there may be no guidance counseling at all. An awful lot of smart kids miss out on a college education because of the lack of competent guidance counseling. To be fair to the guidance counselors, with a case load of 480 to one you would be very lucky to be able to spend more than an hour a year with a student and many students do not seek guidance
That is true, but the HS in question has senior classes about half that size, at most.
It really is a question of unsophisticated parents and inadequate resources, but one would think that SOMEONE would sit down with the kid who was third in the class and review his list. If he even had a list.
The guidance counselor told her to just go to UT Austin and get a finance or business degree because she wasn’t going to get a job with a biochem degree with a psychology minor.
Hint, she wants to go to med school.
The guidance counselor still said that business or finance was a better option…
I find myself writing down the information for College Confidential and handing it to all kinds of people that I end up in those conversations with. Someone needs to work on the branding, though, because the word “confidential” is intimidating to some people. I tell them: it is free, there is an incredible amount of information available, but just stay away from the “chances” threads.
This problem hasn’t changed over the many years. As a HS student many years ago my guidance counselor (a former shop teacher) said:
economics and accounting are the exact same major (they are not, they are not even in the same program as economics is a liberal arts major and accounting is a b-school major) and;
He also suggested I go to the local community college so I don’t waste money (I went to Wharton instead).
Fortunately, I had learned the importance of doing my own research before we met.
Counting myself lucky that my college counselors (had to switch junior year) were both very knowledgeable and easy to get along with. They really encouraged me to pursue my dreams!
I’m sorry that so many can be incompetent Even so, I made sure to do my own research.
At my kids’ big high school counselors were well meaning but overwhelmed: just too many kids. 90% of their time was devoted to problem kids, and kids with highly demanding. involved parents. The rest of the students got very little guidance, or even time.
At the salon a few weeks ago, a mom next to me told me that her daughter was just going to start out at the smaller university near us, and then think about transferring. All I could think about was some of hoops that you have to jump through to transfer to a Florida university, and was she aware of those? And was she aware that transfers don’t have quite the scholarship opportunities (generally speaking)?
I wouldn’t have cared but she did seem somewhat adamant about a transfer happening within a year or so.
I didn’t go into any of it because I didn’t want to sound nosy or obnoxious. But still I couldn’t help wondering where she was getting this advice.
Any parent who relies on guidance counselors, and puts their kid’s college future in the hands of some stranger like a guidance counselor, is seriously delinquent.
When you have a single parent who likely did not go to college themselves, you simply can’t call the person “delinquent” if they aren’t up on the nuances of college admissions and finances.
I told this woman that it is the most exclusive private colleges that have the best FA–if you can get in. I didn’t mention that it was too late for her S, who perhaps could have gotten into a real “meets need” school. That would just make her feel bad. At least her S is enjoying U Maine Orono, is not wasting his time at CC, and she can come up with the EFC.
This makes me wonder whether it is possible to volunteer as a college counselor.
Our school district’s guidance counselors are overwhelmed with disciplinary issues. I worked with one guidance counselor whose own understanding of how aid works was clueless, so it’s probably good that she isn’t “guiding” students on college costs. What the district does have is a person who is supposed to be the college coordinator … she is supposed to counsel kids about college. Basically, kids come in & do Career Cruising on the computer (and play on the internet). If they were smart about it, they would have this employee learn how financial aid works so she could actually help kids get to college.
@Consolation There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about volunteer “pushy moms” who help kids with college apps. I think it was a Community College program and not high school. You might search for it but it is a volunteer opportunity.
I am cringing right now in the UT forum reading posts from kids who applied only to UT and A&M and did not get into UT are NOW deciding that A&M is a bad fit and they are broken hearted and trying to figure out what to do. You only applied to two schools of which one is nationally known for taking 75 percent of its class out of the top 7-8 percent of the high school class? Where are the parents and the GCs?
The high school my kids went to did have a volunteer parent who mostly helped with naviance. I think her kids had graduated a few years before. She was part of the ‘College Financial Aid’ night. The GC’s mostly knew about the state universities and the deadlines for Bright Futures. They never mentioned that the state gives $3000 to residents who attend private schools in Florida, so I don’t think they knew about it. (Another parent told me, but she was absolutely sure it was $20k. Only off by a little).
They had a senior class of 430. About 100 of those were not going to college. About 50 were going OOS. The GCs spent their resources serving the largest number of students, those going to instate public schools.
I’m sure you school would like a volunteer as long as you meet the requirements, like completing a background check.
Seems like a variant of the common mistake of applying to a “safety” that one does not particularly like and then realizing that one may actually get admitted only to the “safety”. (However, some students and parents seem to judge a school’s worth on its selectivity and exclusivity, so that any school that can be a “safety” is “beneath” them.)
[QUOTE]
" I thought it would have been ridiculous for a kid like hers to be taking classes at SMCC, where most of the students are either people who couldn’t hack it in HS or non-traditional students like our mutual friend. "
Or the idea that he would be " wasting his time at CC" ??
Has that been YOUR experience at SMCC?
I would love to see the statistics up which you based your comments.
I do think you are being a little hard on this mom. Not everyone has the same resources around them, whether it is other people who know or exposure to such environments and information.
I saw this a good bit with my student interns. Several genius kids, I mean off the charts kids, whose parents, family and friends were advising them to do things that were way below what they could be doing. This was simply because the family and social circle just did not have that vision and expectation because no one else around them had such exposure.
One kid in particular, an absolute math whiz who got business principles very easily, was being guided into actuarial science and other things like that. Sure, that is great, but this kid was way beyond that. I counseled him and showed him the world of high-end banking and investing where numbers and business vision are everything. He loved it. Bottom line, he is now poised to make more this one year than he would of in a lifetime as an actuary and has more free time than he can believe. His parents and the friends he grew up with just did not see such a world as accessible to them, as that was for the really smart people - not recognizing their son was one of those really smart people.
@consolation Please do considering volunteering. If the local HS will not have you, consider youth organizations or a a local religious organization that hosts a college night. Knowledge is power and so many people simply do not know the ins and outs of the college application/admission/scholarship process. Too many students are going it alone.
I know two guidance counselors that should go into a different field ~ my D’s high school counselor and one of my best friends. I am amazed at how little both know about the college process. I have hinted to both that maybe they should spend some time on this site lol. I spent the better part of a year having varying points being challenged by both of them (happy to say, thanks to this site and others like it, I was right on every one of them lol). D’s school counselor was a young girl, no kids, so no personal experience. My good friend, a high school guidance counselor for almost 20 years, however has sent two kids to college and made some very rookie mistakes. She’ll be paying parent plus loans for years to come for a straight A high school student to go to an out of state public university, change majors several times, do no interns, and will basically graduate this May, move back home, and start working at an entry level position. A better college choice would certainly have led to a better outcome in her case. For both of them.
) A woman who looked to be in her late 30s joined the conversation. She told me that the HS in her town had advised her that if your income was low, it was a good idea to start at the local CC. (Apparently her FAFSA EFC was $5K.)
Even so, I made sure to do my own research.