<p>Sybbie that is a great story–good for you and lucky for your student. We have 5 GCs for 1100 kids (250-275 per grade), and D’s has always been helpful and available. (He completely reworked her schedule on Labor Day this year…one example.) D is a sophomore, has met privately with him at least twice, and she and I went in for a conference a few months ago to talk about college planning-- I guess we’re luckier than I realized.</p>
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<p>Blossom, thank you, thank you thank you. What you wrote is a typical day in NYC day high school and we have no dedicated college counselors. Just wrote a letter Friday for a student who got arrested in order for him to be ROR. Student back in school today, now needs to make up work for the 8 school days he was in jail. </p>
<p>Today -I was screamed on social worker as why my student (a teen mom) could not get the seat she was promised at the lyfe program (in school day care for students with children under 3)</p>
<p>mediated a group of kids to stop a fight</p>
<p>had to talk to ACS worker concerning the sexual abuse of one of my students</p>
<p>program students for next year</p>
<p>begged an admissions officer to place my student back in the EOP program so that her $1500 in book money can be reinstated for the fall. Student was accepted, went for the visit, decided to go, and never formally told the admissions people that she would be attending. Got an e-mail saying that she was out of the EOP program because she declined admission, child came crying into my office wailing. </p>
<p>I don’t even want to address the break-ups over the weekend one resulting in changing a young woman’s program 3 weeks before the end of term because the ex boyfriend is making her life hellish in class (he’s getting suspended)</p>
<p>and how many young women are lamenting because they don’t have a date to prom this friday. </p>
<p>Committed 2 pairs of my daughter’s strappy just have to have these worn one time sandals to 2 young women who do not have shoes for prom (got dresses from the cinderella project) and teachers donate money to purchase tickets for students who cannot afford prom.</p>
<p>Did I mention that CUNY now has a waitlist?</p>
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<p>IF the only thing that your GCs have to do is expedite transcripts, then they have a cake walk of a job.</p>
<p>Since one of a GC’s (many!) responsibilities is writing college recs, I’d suggest meeting with him/her sometime late during junior year if the student’s primary interest or EC is off the school’s radar. This might mean church work, volunteer activities for non-school groups, an individual sport (gymnastics, figure skating, equestrian events, martial arts), dance, a significant job or family obligation. If the GC doesn’t know the extent of a student’s non-school activities, the rec can’t accurately reflect the student as an individual. (And I wouldn’t expect a hs GC to pour several hours into constructing just the perfect rec for each student, of course.) The rec will present a more complete picture of the student if the GC knows that the student works many hours a week at the family business, or is in a demanding pre-professional dance program.</p>
<p>It’s unfortunate when parents aren’t aware of the full scope of all GCs do, because it leads to unrealistic expectations. There are professional college counselors out there who can suggest a good list, fine-tune it, track the latest FAFSA and Profile changes, and keep tabs on deadlines for scholarship applications. And it’s possible to do an excellent job of this as a student-parent team, as well. I would never consider these to be among a GC’s basic responsibilities, though I’d be grateful if he or she offered suggestions in any of these areas.</p>
<p>There was a helpful thread on this issue last year: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/763463-how-get-know-guidance-counselor.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/763463-how-get-know-guidance-counselor.html</a></p>
<p>Our GC is one of 4 for a class of 150ish, private school.
No hardships, pregnancies etc here–and if there were–the parents handle it…and no one hears about it.</p>
<p>These GCs have to help kids of various abilities/commitment to find the right match…
Most will not qualify for fin-aid…
we however will need fin-aid for our student.</p>
<p>The GCs are for the Srs (get the new crop of jrs mid-yr but do little if anything as we have seen so far…
as the kid pick their schedules and turn in forms based on already established academic goals…)</p>
<p>They have Naviance, and well established school profile etc
and such
–plenty of tools…
and maybe 40 kids…to get through the college apps process…</p>
<p>Jrs attend “seminars” about the process over the course of Jr yr spring
…which added little to what we learned here at CC…and doing our own research, reading The Gatekeepers, The Admissions Mystique etc…</p>
<p>I am not talking about being a helicopter or demanding…I am wondering what value added is there when I am not sure the GC has a clue about our student
I want to let the GC do the job and know that our student will be “heard”…
Why do the questionaires etc if they aren’t read?
The rec letter is too important to be done half-way.</p>
<p>Thanks for everyones thougths</p>
<p>Have a “transition” appt with the GC and the previous academic advisor…</p>
<p>I am going to read through this thread and jot a few notes to myself so that when we meet I will be able to glean what I need to know.
Don’t want this to be adversarial…this is about our student not me, just want top know where the roles lie and what can be reasonably expected and what we should expect to handle ourselves…</p>
<p>I do think if they aren’t opening Naviance to the student/families easily that I DON"T want our students test scores and stats included in the database</p>
<p>I think that’s a great approach to take. It definitely shouldn’t be adversarial, but I think it’s reasonable to know what to expect in the coming year. Just from skimming this thread it seems that schools and parents have differing expectations for and from GCs, so good to go right to the source.</p>
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That seems pretty selfish.</p>
<p>^ Riddle me this…are the stats not anonymous? Is it because the school is smaller that they feel people will be able to figure out who their student is? Kids share this information pretty readily… It’s usually not a mystery. I know the SAT scores and GPAs of most of my sons friends simply because HE has told me in conversations.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why Naviance wouldn’t be open to families-- what’s the point without that? And I do think fogfog is entitled to some real help from GC-- but I expect you’ll get it.</p>
<p>What would “real help” from GC look like? If I would like to save GC’s for things that are absolutely necessary, what would they be?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think of “saving” the gc but of being proactive, and doing plenty of your own research and legwork so he/she has less to do. Ours has given great advice about SAT scheduling and prep, building a rigorous course schedule that follows D’s interests, keeping a resume through all 4 years, etc. D always goes to him with a schedule question, and their brief talks are allowing him to get to know her, so he’ll be able to help more later on. None of this is taking a lot of his time, but it’s building a relationship that I think will be beneficial to both of them. (He really does want to see his students do well, and to feel he’s helped them.) D has particular interests that he hasn’t worked with that often, so we’ll be bringing a lot of our own info to the search, but he’ll be bringing his breadth of experience. He has seemed to be thrilled that we’re at work on it. Lots of families don’t know where to begin, and so…they don’t really begin. Those are the ones that take more effort for him.</p>
<p>My D’s school has two GC’s. Not sure how they divide it up. About 50 kids each mostly starting in mid junior year. Would they know individual kids well enough to write rec?</p>
<p>…keeping a resume through all 4 years… What do you mean by this? My D is considering to trim some outside EC’s to get involved more at school. Is that a bad idea admission-wise?</p>
<p>keeping a resume-- just keeping track of all they do, informally, so it’s easier to get it together later. I think it’s fine to trim EC’s she doesn’t feel strongly about-- but what she loves she should continue with. (Not to say the obvious!) But they forget about things-- some of her photographs were used on an author’s website and she’d been asked to take some photos for an environmental newsletter-- very small stuff, but it shows something about the kid that the gc, and the colleges, can learn from.</p>
<p>I don’t think its selfish to keep my kids stats out–its our choice on privacey…
AND when the school does not make the Naviance open to the families/kids…
with years of data in–and lots of apps…then its the school thats using the kids pirvate data and thats wrong.</p>
<p>Considering other privates in the area even have the ability to let me in as a guest from the internet–I can’t see into my kids Naviance at the private hs we pay for???..why would I want our student’s stats to build their data base if they won’t help us know whats what…</p>
<p>Frankly–there is no reason for them to have the scores anyway–as those are reported directly–and the school does not get a report…</p>
<p>They have a tool and do not share it–so why would I want to help them build their data base–it doesn’t change the school profile at all…that lists GPA and where kids applied/were admitted.</p>
<p>I see. Thank you.</p>
<p>fogfog - S2 refuses to share his ACT/SAT scores with his high school. GC says she HAS to have them, but will not give him a reason why. He is still angry at her for making us fight to allow him to take both French and German at the same time and for screwing him over on career day. (He said his interests were architecture and law. She assigned him to the postal clerk and the warehouse manager) If my son wants to have this little streak of independence, so be it!</p>
<p>fogfog- I misunderstood. I would tend to agree that if a tool is not being made available to you, why would you give them something that would help them?</p>
<p>Our students scores are pulled automatically, we have always had access to Naviance, so it never crossed my mind that anyone could and/or would pull their students information, thus my response above. I will have to cry ignorance as to how a private school handles these things and apologize for not considering that it may be different (ie. the parents provide/give permission for scores to be published).</p>
<p>We didn’t formally share ACT scores with the school because the school puts them on the transcript, and we weren’t sure if we wanted that.</p>
<p>fogfog, your child can look at Naviance in the office right? I think your school is being overly cautious about privacy concerns, but the more information the GC has the better advice they’ll be able to give your child and other kids. </p>
<p>The first year our school had Naviance, they put in 2 years of data and there were still quite a few schools that they withheld scattergrams for a number of schools for privacty reasons because there weren’t enough data points. We have 3000+ students. At a small private school it’s much more obvious who is who. In your shoes I’d get together with some other parents and lobby the GC to make Naviance available to everyone. They may not be aware that what they are doing is unusual.</p>
<p>I understand not wanting to share scores with schools that illegally put them on transcripts. Again that’s something I’d take up with the school with a group of parents - perhaps the PTA, with score choice more common this is a no brainer. They shouldn’t be doing it.</p>
<p>mathmom- so I understand correctly, putting their scores on their transcripts is illegal?<br>
I have asked S2’s GC about this when I read about it here some time ago. She said they are sent automatically and added to the transcripts. These are ‘soft scores’ and not considered by the colleges. You still have to submit official scores. This is the information I was given.
Thank you!!</p>