Hi all - happy to receive any advice and recommendations, if that’s permissible within the rules of the community? Dc1 and Dc2 now successfully admitted to college (phew!), thinking about lining up a college application consultant/advisor for dc3 who’s our first BS kid. Our prior advisor doesn’t have any track record with BS students, so wondering if anyone has worked with someone that they would recommend? Or is this just something that is not done in BS unlike NYC publics and privates? Thanks in advance!
What year is your kid? Most BS provide extensive college counseling starting junior year, so unless it’s a non-traditional kind of application, there usually isn’t a need.
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Recommendations/suggestions for a specific counseling individual or group are not allowed, no. But the community may provide you with some guidance if needed
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Thanks - counseling with private day schools in the city was that the counseling was not as attentive as we would have wanted, so we supplemented. The advice we’d been given and taken advantage of was starting that earlier on (start of sophomore year) to help with charting a path towards the college application process - thinking through intended majors, how to use summers to greatest advantage, etc. Perhaps this isn’t done in BS communities? New to this world 
Not so much because they spend so much time on it junior year. They will probably have an entire class on it and meet regularly with their counselor. It’s a different relationship because everyone working with them will know them so well, both in and out of the classroom. Way more than a hired consultant who has never met them before.
First semester junior year, S23s class had them randomly pick 5 schools and gather information from the websites about majors, requirements, housing, clubs, athletics, merit, etc., to both learn how to find the information and to see how different schools could be. I liked that they had them do random schools, so they weren’t researching schools that they had their hearts set on because they sounded prestigious. It made it easier to think about which of those characteristics were important to them, rather than reading what their “dream school” had and comparing everything else to that. They also took a bunch of surveys, created lists of must-haves/ would be nice/ no-gos, researched majors, and then started crafting lists with their CCs of schools to further research. They also had parents create a list independently of what was important to them and possible schools to look at, along with setting a budget that they were respectful of.
Second semester, students met on a regular basis with their CCs to continuously refine their lists, work on their applications, and plan visits. I feel like S23 was incredibly well prepared and ready to send applications in as soon as they opened over the summer. His CC also met with him right up until he made his choice to make sure he understood all of his options. For me, the payoff wasn’t only that he was accepted at all the schools he applied to, but that he found the right fit for both his college and his major.
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As @vwlizard says, there’s really no need, depending on your BS. Some start the process in 10th grade, but I imagine all are pretty robust and are informed through a close relationship with your kid.
Part of the value proposition.
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Thirding no need for a counselor.
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We know some families who have used them. They are families of significant means where the consultants were expensive and exceedingly involved in the college prep and app process - helping to craft and create ECs, “editing” essays, arranging tutors for courses and SAT prep. In some cases, ethical lines appeared to be crossed. These families were pretty guarded about the consultants’ identities.
Yeah, we’re not uber-wealthy, and certainly not looking for varsity-blues type stuff. We ended up spending about $10k on each of our older kids’ counselors and felt like we got a lot of value, by way of context - helped think through college list, prioritizing different summer activities/extracurriculars, advised her to start a blog, stuff like that. Who knows if it was important or made a difference.
I don’t think you are going to get any BS college counselor to advise a kid to start a blog or to do one EC over another for the sake of admissions. But, that’s kind of the beauty of it. They go by who your kid really is and find them them right fit. You want your kid to thrive, and they get plenty of opportunities to see what type of environment that would be for your kid.
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Fourthing no need for someone outside the school.
The CC DS was assigned at BS was amazing – she was able to get input from his coaches on where he night play, was able to talk to teachers – including those writing recs – knew his friends and what kind of vibe he’d probably like, etc. Iow, she had much better insight than an independent advisor and didn’t cost us anything extra.
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Bingo.
The CC’s actually know your kid and have direct insight from coaches, teachers, Advisors and House Counselors they deal with directly. You’re not going to do better than that with a consultant. Curated summer jobs and blogs, etc., might seem performative even if they worked for you with the older kids (and as is often said here, no one knows why they got in, so this may or may not be money well spent).
Between their relationships with the colleges and their ability to provide advice that would lead to a more authentic representation of your kid in the apps (and potentially better long term outcomes), I’d stick with the school counselors. You’re kinda paying for it already.
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