Not only we did not hire any counselor, we also completely ignored the school GC advice. Again. not only ignore, but D. said later that she actually had to withstand the push from him to apply to certain colleges. She did not apply to any advised by GC. I believe that each family know their kid the best. GC has only so much time for each kid. Despite the fact that my D’s class had only 33 kids, GC still has that many - 33 - to take care of. Two parents have only one applicant (rarely more at the same time) in each application cycle and they know their kid(s) much better than GC. And even with that, I took me 2 years to compile the list of colleges (very few too!). Granted that I did it just for fun and presented to my kid as an option, telling her that she can pitch it if she wants. Not only she loved it, but based on this very successful experience, 4 years later, she asked me to compile a list of the Medical School to apply, while still ignoring the advice of her pre-med advisor at college.
It is very worthwhile and a great fun to do it for your kid. There is so much information currently available on the internet, you should also ask around, ask parents with older kids who were similar caliber HS students. I do not see how any outsider can step in and do the same very detailed type of research that fits specifics of your kid needs. One thing we did not include in our research is ranking / safety / reach. These criteria was totally irrelevant in our case, which may not be the case at all with others. You see how different it is from one kid to another! I bet that any outsider will compile the list of criteria with the ranking being at the top.
We hired a counselor because our son has attended 2 different high schools. First was a boarding school in Connecticut and second is a California public school. He was unhappy at BS and came home after 2 years. Because the schools are so incredibly different - grading scales, weighting vs. not, etc… we decided we needed professional help to determine his list of match schools. Using the current HS’s Naviance system is useless for us. We found a counselor thanks to a CC parent recommendation, and have been very pleased. We started working with him last year. To be clear - he’s definitely not writing my son’s essays! Maybe we’re not paying enough for that part of the service…
My thought is that if your son is already a senior and has a good list of schools (using criteria outlined above), you probably don’t need a counselor. As mentioned above, you can pay someone hourly to review his essays. I do think that’s a good idea, because everyone needs an editor!
If you and your child feel comfortable with the process and his list of schools, don’t worry about what crazy people in Southern California are doing 
From Post 9: ‘I think a counselor can have a lot of value if you have a particularly resistant kid who needs to hear a voice other than yours.’ That sounds reasonable, and one of the few reasons I can think of for a private counselor. For parents who follow CC, and read the guides (Fiske, Princeton) and a few other books on admissions (Sally Springer, Lynn O’Shaughnessy), I doubt it is worth the money. Put that money toward SAT/ACT tutoring if you have it. If a family is wealthy and easily afford a private counselor, maybe go for it, but I have found the whole college search to be interesting and fun.
Most families will do virtually no research and just send their kid to a nearby state school, or private school with low standards and no national recognition (but has a great discount on tuition for everybody). They receive little or no help from public school GC; that was us with our first daughter. GC was just a transcript sender. Never met him/her. Families like that probably could most benefit from a private counselor, and are the least likely to look for one, or even know they exist.
Also, I have heard that private counselors have NO influence on adcoms. Any experience with that?
Should parents ever meet with the school provided college counselor? Is it typical that only DS meet with the counselor one on one? To date, we (parents) have not set up any meetings with him and DS has been taking the initiative to meet with him on his own.
Our school had two scheduled meetings with parents. One was late spring junior year and one was fall senior year. One of the meetings they gave us the questionnaire (aka brag sheet) about your kid that they use to help write recommendations. They also gave us a print out of suggested schools that Naviance spit out. (It wasn’t a bad starting list given that at that point we hadn’t really discussed types of schools, possible majors or anything like that.)
@sleeplessmom1 At our private school wife and I had a long meeting with College counselor January of junior year. I have also had 3 or 4 long conversations since, and D17 met with him last spring to set up schedule. SO for a private school it seems you should be meeting with him. Our school does have 3 full-times counselors for about 110 in each of the Junior and Senior classes.
A totally different experience from D13 who went to a public school and, as I noted above, I have no idea who her counselor was. I know that the counselors had responsibilities for more than college, such as guidance and discipline Fortunately,most of the feedback I seem to hear on CC is a lot more positive for public school counselors.
12k is half what some friends paid. Times 3 kids. Not kidding. And none ended up at a college CC would fawn over. But they were happy with the decision (very wealthy. And btw, very nice kids, now successful.) The point was that they needed help finding the right colleges, the right matches where these ok student/sportsy kids would succeed, and, to some extent, helping form their kids to be ready for college itself. Even though the senior class was small, the GC just couldn’t provide the depth of info or the general grooming. The parents, in effect turned it over to a pro.
Most times, I don’t think you can tell when a pro helped with an app. But I’m not sure how many have that much fairy dust to sprinkle. When you look, many don’t have much- if any- experience in admissions itself (or current experience.) They can’t give a slacker a Harvard quality app. But for some, they can help find the right targets.
Could you do it yourself? I think so. JMO. It’s work, but not rocket science. Don’t feel guilty.
We did not use a private counselor for our first daughter but the advice from CC was invaluable. We really would have been in the dark without this site. She ended up with a nice range of options and I cannot imagine it turning out better for her. Our second daughter is going to be trickier as she may pursue music. Her vocal teacher is sort of like a private counselor but she is coming at it from an arts perspective rather than an academic perspective. If I could find someone who could merge the two, I might be willing to hire a counselor. Otherwise, CC fills that role nicely.
Definitely untrue–any consultant who can’t help kids write essays that look like (great) kids’ essays is a terrible consultant and is unlikely to last long in the industry. (I’ve done a lot of consulting over the years, although I got too busy the last couple years with other things.)
Some kids only get their essays polished and the rest of the writing (anything, even notes in Activities,) doesn’t show the same skill. There’s a giveaway for you. . Marvin, I think it’s a special skill to be able to write like a 17 year old, not everyone has it. But not all consultants actually know what makes a good essay (if we’e talking about elites.)
I don’t mind a kid getting the right sorts of advice and support. I just mind when someone pretends he’s got a magic formula, and it costs big bucks. Some of the marketing on consultant web pages is nuts.
Most consultants (good ones, at least–of course there are shady folks out there), don’t “write” for the kids. Magic formulae, of course, don’t exist, but expertise is seriously helpful, and the idea that kids who use consultants don’t get through top admissions is patently false on its face.
My D’s advisor had absolutely no hand in her essay whatsoever. She did spend a lot of time brainstorming ideas with my D and gave feedback on the rough draft and final result, all of which my D completely ignored. I would say the advisor herself was very professional and clearly knew what she was doing though. An advisor can be most helpful when a kid is not completely pig-headed like mine, haha! Seriously though, if your child is receptive to suggestions from others it will be a more effective arrangement.
I meet with my kids’ counselor once or twice a year. I want to know if everything is on track, and I want the counselor to be aware of what my kid has been doing in high school. When they have a few hundred students, it is unlikely they are going to know everything about your student’s high school career. Other parents may not bother, of course. As your son has a counselor with a manageable caseload, it might not be so necessary. I do think students should make an effort to meet with their counselor, because they can get to know them, and it will certainly help with writing the rec.
^^^^^ Agreed with Lindagaf. An outside advisor can be beneficial when an outside opinion is needed, and student needs to hear mostly the same things parents have been saying, from a different source. keeping in regular contact with school counselor still is most important, as their letter of rec is what colleges will be reading.
Most of what paid consultants do, parents can do themselves if they take the time and learn the sources, CC being one. The parents who are in the dark are not the ones to be hiring an advisor anyhow.
Holy cow @lookingforward. That’s a hefty price tag.
Our HS counselor handles about 250 students each so we hired a private one. Money well spent. She certainly didn’t write the essays for them but did edit them the same way that many HS Gabel English classes where kids dork on their essays and they are edited by the teacher. Remember that the purpose of the essay is not to demonstrate writing skill but rather to give voice to a student to let a university know about a student. A good counselor/ essay coach will help a kid brainstorm ideas amd edit so the kids voice is what is heard
DS’s HS GC had one distinct advantage over a hired gun: she could take a survey of the teachers and get feedback about DS, including teachers who would not be providing LoRs. She had a pretty good picture of who he was, which I have to believe informed her LoR (we never saw any of the LoRs, so I’m making an educated guess). I doubt the teachers and administrators would have been as open with an outside party.
Somewhat related to that, HS GC had a relationship with many colleges, including Yale, my son’s first choice. She and Yale’s regional AO were friendly. I can only guess, but I don’t think it would have been a big plus if DS had a hired advisor, in effect dissing the HS GC. It’s America; you can do what you want, but there are spoken and unspoken consequences, not all positive.
Our advisor never contacted the school counselor. It was never mentioned or suggested. Our school counselor never knew an advisor was involved. They were simply two separate facets of the process.
I would agree with Lindagaf. No need for school staff to know and I doubt they’d pry. When I told D17’s college counselor the schools we were interested in, he didn’t ask, who told you about those schools? He assumed we had done our research (we had), or was too sublime to ask otherwise
IxnayBob is right about the relationships HS GCs have with college AOs. GCs have to be honest and thorough when sending LORs, for reputation and integrity. Hired advisors only have to be beholden to the parents paying the bill. For helping polish essays and helping with college choices, seems they can be of help, depending on the cost.
“any consultant who can’t help kids write essays that look like (great) kids’ essays is a terrible consultant”
Agreed. If you read dozens of essays every year, you know what makes them sound alike and what strikes an adult reader as fresh and creative. If they sound like a middle-aged person wrote them, that’s a problem to fix.
Nobody should be helping kids to write a college essay, period, it is their job! You can help them with lots of other things, not only you can, but you should as parent. Driving them to out of town tours, interviews, compiling the list of colleges, buying them interview clothes, etc…but essay is their own responsibility, in their own words, using whatever skills THEY have, choosing whatever topic is dear to them,not somebody else.