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<p>Well, I, for one, am greatly bothered by this and have been for a long time. My kids go to a public school where one college counselor serves over 3,000 kids. Budget cuts cost her the part-time aide she had. She has other responsibilities besides college counseling. It bothers me a great deal that the top private school in our area gets way more kids into HYPS than our school does because I know the quality of applicants is about the same. They just have an incredible ratio of college counselors to students, they can afford to send their counselors to campuses all over the country and I know those counselors have the time to cultivate relationships with adcoms while our counselor can barely keep up with the basics. Of course it makes a difference and our school is full of top-flight URM kids as well as non URM kids and the playing field is not even with private schools. </p>
<p>My daughter, who graduated from Yale, has told me on many occasions that she is absolutely certain that if she had not had me to help her navigate the college application process, she never would have gotten in, because no one at her school would have had the time to help her figure out the private college application process.</p>