Good luck. I had similar horrible experiences with my guidance counselor when I attended a large suburban public high school. He only seemed interested in helping students who were applying to top colleges and those he perceived to be competitive (I was apparently perceived to be neither). I did my college research by myself (before the internet), informed by suggestions from trusted teachers who took an interest in me. Neither of my parents attended college, so I was basically on my own.
The college I attended wouldn’t be considered “top tier” by most college rankings. I was able to get admitted without any significant help from my high school guidance counselor. Some colleges will accept a letter of recommendation from a teacher or principal in lieu of a guidance counselor.
I didn’t want our D to undergo a similar experience, so we sacrificed a lot to send her to a private high school where the guidance counselor was exceptional and seemed to take a genuine interest in all of the students that sought to attend college and provide help. The counselor was very helpful in researching scholarship opportunities for students and met with our entire family to discuss college planning.
While I had some really exceptional teachers in my public high school, many aspects of the college preparatory experience I needed were sorely lacking. Neither my parents or I knew I could take private classes outside of school to improve my readiness for the SATs and hopefully get higher test scores, or anything about financial aid.
We know many parents can’t afford to pay for private schools, but we don’t regret the sacrifices we made and our D is currently attending a highly selective LAC. CC fills many of the information gaps, but given the situation of a parent with children in a public high school with an inaccessible, overwhelmed, or non-supportive guidance counselor, I think the idea of hiring a private guidance counselor or college coach makes a lot of sense.
It’s a delicate situation when the child is entering the college admissions cycle, but if the situation is as awful as described, I would consider requesting an appointment with the school principal and requesting the child be reassigned to another guidance counselor.
I would create a time line/check list for the GC, present it very early in the school year and ASK if they can meet that timeline, what you can do to help (reminders, email addresses, envelopes addressed and stamped). I don’t think tea and cakes are required, but courtesy is.
Our counselors were not the best for the non-public or OOS schools. They knew the deadlines for the state schools, and knew the Bright Futures deadlines (which are now different), but their main job was to get kids out of high school, and getting them into college was a far second. I had one who wanted an OOS public and one an instate private that the GCs had little experience with. We had to do it all. We had to get the recommendations sent, get the transcripts sent. The school profiles were part of the transcript package, and we paid $2 and picked up a sealed envelope to send in. If the student was applying to a public school, the transcripts were sent electronically.
We had students from our school go to MIT, Navy, Ithica, Alabama and all the ‘scholarship’ schools that have early deadlines. I’m sure their parents did a lot of footwork too, but the students did get into their schools. We had a lot of military scholarships, and those require documents from the guidance office too.
this post describes nearly exactly what i went through with my counselor (though i had never had any bad exchanges with her). i went through the process (twice) with just myself to figure things out (i’m a first-gen student, so my parents didn’t know what to do or what i needed most if not all of the time, and my counselor had rarely if ever had to deal with kids who use[d] the common app because most of my old school’s students end up going to community college or to our state flagship), and it was beyond stressful. i don’t blame my old counselor for being “clueless” as much as i blame my old school’s lack of cooperation and communication with students and counselors about our options post-graduation.
the best thing i did for myself was meet with her one-on-one and tell her exactly what i needed to be done for all of the schools to which i would be applying. meeting with her as early as i could in the school year helped so much because she actually had the time to listen to what i needed to be done since most students hadn’t asked her for any college-related materials yet.
encourage your child to meet with his/her counselor to establish a game plan of what materials need to be submitted by what day. heck, maybe even make a sheet of deadlines for the counselor if you think that would be helpful. sometimes counselors become super overwhelmed, so cooperation is key.
To clarify some things - our school is in a high poverty district. Last year when I met with my child’s counselor to discuss classes for this year, I mentioned several colleges she was researching. She hadn’t heard of any of the private schools outside of the state, and wasn’t familiar with anyone in the admissions office at one of our very selective state universities. The campus is less than a thirty minute drive from our high school. I did exaggerate a bit about her not knowing anything about college admissions. She knows about the local community college and the large state university. Our school does not have college representatives ever visit. All this is just fact.
My husband and I have graduate degrees and beyond, so we don’t need the kind of help a first generation family would. We do need the counselors to respond to us when we have questions, which might be once or twice a year. We can help our daughter identify schools that would be good matches, safeties, and reaches. I get most of the information about college fairs in our area, scholarships, and other needed tidbits from the neighboring county’s high performing schools (our school’s website isn’t regularly updated). If you live in a well run school system, you have no idea what the rest of us deal with on a daily basis. I support our teachers and volunteer at the school. I’m not a helicopter parent, but I’ll do whatever I can to make sure my children don’t miss opportunities because of the school they attend.
@indiethoughts - here’s how I would tackle it. Find a Common App school with a really early non-binding application deadline. As early as possible. Have your kid apply to this has their first school and make sure the counselors know about the early deadline well in advance, being as nice as you possibly can to them. Then find the schools that your kid actually really wants and plan on applying as early as you can after the dealine for school 1 has passed. Once the counselors have uploaded transcripts and the recommendation for school 1, you are all set for the other schools. If perchance they miss deadline 1, raise holy hell… which will at least get them to do the work in time for colleges #2 and beyond… I would also get a counselor to help on scholarships and school choice, unless you want to do all the legwork.
The counselor really doesn’t have that much to do and at our school much is done by the administrative assistant. Uploading the profile, transcripts and the teacher rec’s is about it. For some schools (here in California Cal State and UC) the g.c. does nothing.
Monitor the status and send gentle reminders of deadline is approaching.
If you are in a high poverty area and you and your spouse both have graduate degrees, the counselors probably correctly believe you will manage just fine on your own and their attention needs to be focused on more pressing needs. Really, this admission process isn’t that difficult. I am certain you will manage it well, and perhaps your questions can be answered by the registrar or those with older students.
As the saying goes, especially when deadlines are looming: don’t be a mild pest or a severe pest, be a moderate pest. All kidding aside, a friendly reminder of deadlines and a thank you with a Starbucks coffee package or fresh croissants can go a long way.
I wasn’t thrilled with my D’s experience with her guidance counselors at her public charter school who insisted she was reaching high enough regardless of our income limits. They were also pretty much useless in her search and the school doesn’t have Naviance either. Pretty ill-informed. I also have friends who are counselors who, honestly, know less than I do about about the college search and everything it entails, after a few years on this board. These are supposedly seasoned counselors. I didnt’ have the money for a paid consultant but I spent hours upon hours, month after month, on this message board to learn everything I could to help us. My time paid off, glad I didn’t rely on the counselors at her school or the friends I thought should know the ins and outs.
I know of a school in a neighboring district which had a less than competent college counseling staff… many situations similar to those described by the OP. After a few kids missed scholarship deadlines and test registration deadlines due to the staff’s negligence, the majority of the senior parents banded together and went to the principal and the district superintendent. They were polite but very firm and as a group they were heard loud and clear. A couple of the parents were absolutely livid and threatened to sue the district. Big changes in staff were made relatively quickly and the entire office staff was replaced over the summer.
This is highly dependent on how the school has set up Naviance or their interaction with the Common App. You can’t assume this. Although you can assume that if the school takes the Common App, at least the counselor recommendation would be done if you did this. That may not alleviate them having to take steps to get them to the right colleges at the right time, though. And at our school, teacher recs were routed via the GC office as well. So different schools do it differently.
I see nothing wrong with a parent asking to sit in on a couple of major appointments with the GC in the fall to set schedules for when things are due and confirm answers to any questions about the school’s steps. But I would be UNFAILINGLY polite and pleasant to the GC no matter what happens. They can screw a kid so easily. People can go on and on about how it is their job, what they get paid to do, etc. But people are people – and when someone is rude or nasty to you, you just aren’t as likely to give their requests as much attention, especially if you are way overworked. This is one area where you really do catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So as much as it may grate on you, hide it.
I also agree that a meeting early in the fall (by appointment) is a very good idea. But the bottom line, as @thumper1 said, is that most of it is going to fall to you. But I think that is true for most schools – even for our kid’s independent private school, I needed to stay right on top of everything, and the GC wasn’t going to care about the cost of schools, making sure my kid got all their testing done on time, etc. No GC is paying that college bill, so you need to own this. And (IMHO) college is too expensive to leave it all to a 17 year old to navigate on their own.
The good news is that you’ve found CC, so you can do most of this yourself.
Thanks to all for more great advice. We’ll get through this. I’ve been preparing for years about how to help my kids with the college application process. I’ll smile my way through it all because I really don’t have a choice. We have college savings, will get no financial aid, and are working with DD to narrow down her list of schools.
I wish I could say that the counselors were busy helping other kids with college preparation who need it more, but I doubt that’s the case. I work with a small group of parents who share scholarship opportunities and general college information with students because the counselors primarily deal with discipline, attendance, and scheduling issues. We’re very blessed that we don’t have to rely on the GC for anything other than basic paperwork, and maybe a recommendation (they do give out brag sheets to be completed by the students). I do feel so bad for the other kids, though.
I’m not sure why folks are giving the OP a hard time or suggesting things like a private counselor. It’s pretty clear that OP knows how to help the student select the right schools and how to put together good applications. What she needs help with are strategies for making sure a GC that isn’t able to focus on the responsibilities she has related to this student are handled properly and timely.
Given what has been said thus far, I would be most worried that the GC recommendation wouldn’t be up to the standards being hoped for. Really the rest are simply bookkeeping items that can be monitored by student and parent. It’s obviously not in one’s interest to alienate the GC - maybe a friendly note acknowledging your appreciation for all her help in this stressful but important time would go a long way.
@RandyErika Bingo! Yes, I’m really only worried about what the counselor might put in a LOR and if she’ll get out the required documents in time. Because we have so many students who are low income with parents who did not go to college, those families have no idea what the counselors should be doing. When families who do know complain, the counselors develop less than favorable attitudes towards us. I just don’t want my child, or any student, to be targeted when parents speak up for what’s right. Thanks for getting it!
Many, many, many kids go to schools with GC who are overwhelmed by all the other stuff they have to do. I thought our GC’s did a pretty good job, but only because the head of the department had been there a long time and knew how to educate the parents. We did the happy dance when my older son’s GC retired at the end of his freshman year. You need to be as nice and helpful as you can. I highly recommend finding a rolling admissions safety that you apply to really early. That will ensure that the GC has a package ready to send out for your kid. Whether they use Naviance or old fashioned photocopiers it doesn’t matter. The letter of recommendation will be written the transcript put together and it will all be ready to go off. Colleges know that things go missing. Student deadlines are mostly written in stone, but most colleges will not ding a student if a high school’s GC sends something out a day or two late.
Your priorities may not be the school’s priorities, but presumably you realized that when you sent her to that school. I’m not sure it is fair to opine about what a counselor “should” be doing in a poor and high need place. Perhaps her time is better spent helping kids get into a community college, or dealing with foster care, or avoiding prison, or rape or suicide or whatever. It sounds like this counselor has far greater worries that your child, so I would do what I could to make things easier for her to prepare the report.
When you work at a school, be it as a teacher, principal, or guidance counselor, you are expected to meet the needs of all of your students, not just the most high-needs ones. As a GC, filling out this kind of paperwork is in your job description. It’s not like application season is unexpected. Application season typically doesn’t overlap with the busy scheduling season either. In the case of this particular school, it seems like fewer students apply to college, which means less paperwork. Having worked in that kind of environment, you can’t sacrifice your duties to all of your charges to the neediest ones. You do what you can, but not at the price of leaving needs of other students unfulfilled. Additionally, if this school wants to improve its numbers, not filling out the required forms for students is not the way to do it.