Guidance Counselors

shennie
Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:07:59 +0000

I think that some of you might have some pretty high expectations of your counselors. I am a middle school counselor, so I am not involved in college applications. However, most high school couselors, as has been noted, have large and varied case loads. There are also a huge number of colleges and college programs. How is any counselor supposed to know the engineering program that would be best for your 3.5 student, the performing arts programs the talented violinist next door should apply to, and what programs would be best for the kid who wants to be an auto mechanic? We know what we are familiar with. Usually that means we know a lot about local schools, state schools and the schools that the vast majority of our students apply to. You want to apply to schools outside my sphere? That is great, I will help you all I can but don’t expect me to know all that much.

I am also sometimes hesitant to suggest private schools to parents because I don’t have a clue what the financial situation is. Should counselors encourage kids to apply to high priced privates when they have no idea if the parents can afford them or are willing to pay for them?

When my oldest was applying to music performance programs his counselor was very upfront that she wouldn’t be able to help us much. It wasn’t something that she knew much about. She had much more knowledge with our younger son who took a more traditional route.

As far as the counselor recommendation goes, I think that it is mostly for the college to learn about how your high school works, how the school thinks your child compares to others in the school statistically, and chance for the counselor to mention any circumstances that might have affected GPA or test scores. It is a way to have someone from a more administrative area verify the application.