she said i could get into 7 of the 8 schools im applying to with good to great chances. but my gpa isnt as high as expected, my sat scores suck, and my class rank is about 11%.
“are high school counselor’s reliable?” - sometimes, but far from always…
They are way too sympathetic
I need to be completely honest here for a moment. We have two counselors at my school. One of them is great, very informative, and overall helpful. The other one, (i don’t mean to sound rude, but it’s true) takes up space and contributes NOTHING to the counseling process. Guess who I got stuck with as a counselor? … I only talk to the knowledgeable one though, so it’s not too bad for me. In short, some college counselors may know what they’re doing, but others… are a waste of space.
Also, as a whole, I’ve found that counselors tend to “low ball” you because they want to be sure you get in, but sometimes that means that they’ll attempt to push early decision on a student for a school that is at or below his or her profile… smh. It’s unfortunate. Ultimately, I did not listen to them, but it’s something to be weary of.
My counselor actually told me that the probability of me getting into the colleges that I wanted were actually very slim lol but he is said it in a nice and respectful manner so I appreciate his honesty
We have 4. All 4 suck. We had one who got stuff done and helped kids who were actually going to go to college. She retired last year. My counselor is awful. Their job is to get kids to graduation and to the local CC. Ergo, it screws over anyone with any intellectual ability.
It really depends. At my school, I think there are five guidance counselors. Mine is great and quite helpful. I’ve heard okay to good things about three more of them.
The fifth one? A COMPLETE nightmare. I have friends who have her and absolutely hate her. She is not helpful, she pushes students to take classes they don’t want to take, apply to college they would NEVER actually go to (my sister had her and she tried to push my sister to apply to BC when my sister knew she did NOT want to go to school instate. The counselor would not leave my sister alone and constantly bombarded her with “SO have you applied to BC yet?”). I know for a fact that she is actually the school’s grief counselor and not as highly trained for guidance counseling as the others. She is just not helpful and tries to push her students to do what she wants to do and doesn’t listen to them.
I acutally really liked my HS counselor. She helped me through some trying times in my Junior year and wrote me an excellent letter of recommendation for my applications (I just got to read it for the first time a couple months ago, when I opened a 5-year-old transcript that I had stashed).
I shouldn’t have listened to some of her advice, though, she she convinced me not to “look at the price tag” when choosing potential schools. She said the more expensive schools give out better aid. I didn’t apply to a single financial safety school because of that. I know better now.
Counselors do try their best, but as with any one source, they’re not 100% reliable. It’s important to have a good relationship with your guidance counselor, listen to his/her advice, etc., but for any important decisions, I would look for a second opinion. Double check everything with the colleges’ website, with College Confidenial, with the CollegeBoard website.
HopefulHam: That’s the same situation at my school. We have five counselors. I got the head counselor, and she’s amazing. She’s the counselor everyone wants, because she manages to be incredibly supportive and realistic at the same time. (i.e., if you want to apply to all Ivies, she’ll be like ‘you go girl! but why not apply to UCSC as a back up just in case?’. If you want to go to CC, she’s all ‘great choice! Why not just apply to a couple CSUs and a UC, just in case you change your mind?’) Three of the others are good to okay, and one is the counselor everyone hates. Last year, she told my friend’s boyfriend not to bother applying to college because he probably couldn’t get in. (He actually had pretty okay grades and could have gone to a state school, but she didn’t think he should even try, so he just enrolled in CC.)
So, long story short, OP, counselors vary wildly. It depends on who your counselor is. No two counselors are the same.
i think they vary.
and it depends on the kind of stuent you are. with my counselor, if you show that you’re hardworking and you’re really trying to prepare for the college process, she’ll help you a lot. if she knows you’re lazy, she’s less enthusiastic in helping you. but you should try and build a good relationship with yours (it reflects in your reccomendation).
my counselor and i get along great! ( although at first she told me that i had a slim chance at my first choice 
)
my advice: always try to make an appointment with yours and discuss anythign you need assistance with!
i’ve had two very different experiences with school counselors.
my fresh/soph counselor was terrible. she never knew what she was talking about (mostly with choosing classes, and i have some teachers to back me up) and she basically screwed over my junior year schedule (i wanted to take AP Chem, but she said it was in conflict with another class, so i chose the other class instead, but it turned out AP Chem was in a different period the whole time ><). i’m so glad she wasn’t my senior year counselor haha.
my junior/senior year counselor is incredible. very helpful, always does things on time, and always gives me good advice. thanks to him, i probably wouldn’t be where i am today with the admission process.
POINT IS: while counselors can be helpful, always do additional research on your own. never make any decisions solely based off of what school counselors say. while they are right 99% of the time, there are those times when their opinions could be skewed or just completely wrong, and it is up to you to get the right information.
I do not get one until senior year.
We are supposed to get help junior year but our 1 counselor drowns underneath all the stuff she must do.