Is my college advisor insane?

Applying to College
1

<p>This is a section from another post I made, in College Search, I came up with my current college list in reaction to this:</p>

<p>At my school you are not allowed to meet with the college counslars until 11th-there are only two. But once you start-it is a very intensive process, over the summer they come up with your college list based on conversations and chances. Then they send it to you, this is what they sent me:</p>

<p>(written and copied from the letter-this is what my college counslar stated)
I’m going to be a little conservative in identifying the chances by each individual college-- but I would have some confidence that unless things were to be really different in the coming year that you should expect to receive at least 3 offers of admission with some opportunity for one or more additional offers. Five offers would not surprise me–but I feel confident that at least three should happen, especially if you have a solid year.</p>

<p>Bates - If you were to apply Regular Decision without test scores, I think you would have slightly less than a 50/50 shot. So, better than their admit rate would suggest but as you note it is a reach (although one that I like).</p>

<p>Earlham - If you were to apply Early Action, I think you would have a better than 50/50 shot, probably in the 70% range.</p>

<p>Goucher - If you were to apply Early Action, I think you would have a better than 50/50 shot, probably in the 80% range.</p>

<p>Lawrence - If you were to apply Early Action without test scores, I think you would have a 50/50 shot. Again, this is a better shot than their admit rate might indicate.</p>

<p>Wheaton College - If you were to apply Regular Decision, I think you would have a 50/50 shot. This is about what their admit rate suggests. I think you would get a slight bump from being out of their geographic region.</p>

<p>Whitman College - If you were to apply Regular Decision, I think you would have slightly less than a 50/50 shot. If you were to visit, I think that your opportunity for admission would increase some (but still be solid without).</p>

<p>Mount Holyoke - If you were to apply Regular Decision, I think you would have somewhere between a 25% and 50% chance of admission. If you applied Early Decision, that would go up some but probably still somewhere between 25% and 50%.</p>

<p>There was also Beloit which they forgot-but anyway…my point is</p>

<p>How in the world can these chances be true?</p>

<p>!) My college counslar is on drugs
2) My college counslar has a secret ambition to make me miserable and cause me to not get into any schools.
3) My college counslar does not know anything-I highly doubt that he was a admissions officer at Kenyon.</p>

<p>I just don’t get it, I mean this is just a conservative evulation, but compared to what I have seen thiese chances are especially high for a person with a 3.38 and a 25. I just did’nt know what to believe so I came up with a different list of schools.</p>

<p>I am just confused can anyone help?</p>

2

<p>Put up a full chances post on the ‘what are my chances’ thread to see what the rest of this forums believes about your chances. However, if your college counselor is just doing his job, then you may want to trust him more than anything any anonymous forum poster.</p>

3

<p>Forget posting on here. Just look at the admitted student stats for these schools on either the College Board web site or US News and World College Ranking report. Then compare them to your stats. </p>

<p>I guess the counselor is also assuming you can afford to pay full price?</p>

4

<p>Weenie-I have looked here and also admitted student stats for those schools.
For example
Earlham
ACT Score-26
GPA-3.58,
I would consider this school a reach but he says it is a low match.</p>

<p>Or better yet
Mt.Holyoke
Act-27-30
GPA-3.6-8
He says I have an actual chance here-no one in their right mind would suggest I apply there.</p>

<p>I know compared to standards on CC, these schools are all easy to get into but they seem all like extreme reaches-I just don’t get it why he is setting me up for failure?</p>

5

<p>Maybe he has more confidence in you than you do in yourself…</p>

6

<p>It’s just a mental strategy college counselors employ to get you motivated to increase your own chances. At least those chances are workable.</p>

7

<p>Well, it is kind of late. i’ll be a senior in a month or so.</p>

8

<p>My school’s college counselor told one of my guy friends that he should apply to MIT. Umm… no… he had about a 2.0 GPA, absolutely hates math and science (wants to be an artist), and he can’t stand nerdy people. Not exactly a good fit. lol</p>

9

<p>cowtipper1-he could have meant Mississipi Instuitute of technology (spelling bad I know)-Malcolm in the Middle. </p>

<p>My problem is though just that I believe my counslar knows me, and yes i would probably love to go to these schools but people in my position should not applying to these types of schools. I would probably end up with one or two school acceptances. I need around five to compare and contrast scholarship and finacial aide. In reaction to what my counslar said I made up a new list</p>

<p>Lawerence
Goucher
Beloit
Rockford
College of Lake County
Loyola University of Chicago
University of Evansville
Carroll College</p>

<p>I mean I just do not get it. Maybe it has to do with more than half of my grade carrying a GPA less than a 3.00. I know from seniors last year who had a round a 2.4 but got in at schools like Ripon, Kalamazo. Lewis and Clark,nad Malacaster. And they were not URM with any tramatic experiences, nor legacies.</p>

10

<p>I would be careful. Your counselor is not the one that is going to get stuck with few choices at the end. (I’m not saying you will either - but if that were to happen.) Counselors have a vested interest ingetting kids into reach schools - but again, it’s not their problem how you’ll pay for them (if you don’t get merit aid for instance) or if you end up at state U.</p>

<p>So, do good due-diligence and MAKE SURE than when you’re all done with applications you’ve got several schools that you know you are very likely to get into, that you can afford, and that you’ll be happy at!</p>

11

<p>weenie - Can you explain this to me? I am not that familiar with the GC role , but I am curious about your comment. My d’s g/c seemd to want her to apply to several schools that were “reach” schools , even though she was very happy with her list. The schools he suggested would all have been more money than we had budgeted and she wasn’t even really interested. I found it odd- but I guess it looks better for the school to have more students going to “prestige” schools? In the end she opted to stick with her list and I think he was somewhat “perturbed” LOL Now we are going through the same thing with d2 ( same G/c). Maybe they don’t get that finances are a factor for some of us?</p>

12

<p>PA Mom:
I think all your points are true. I sometimes see GCs recommending ridiculous choices for kids, and all I can figure is that they are looking for bragging rights. More likely, they just don’t know what they’re doing. (Of course, most kids will get NO guidance counseling what-so-ever, so maybe a list of reachs is better than nothing!) </p>

<p>Frankly, I will never understand how GCs can make ANY suggestions at all without some conversation with families about finances. I mean waht percent of kids can just apply willy-nilly and not look at what it might cost?! </p>

<p>And here’s what I see happening a lot - GC suggests a bunch of very expensive, reachy schools (where the kid won’t qualify for merit money) and then they tack on a random state school for a safety. Even if the kid gets into all the schools, next thing you know the kid really only has ONE choice, because it’s the only one the family will/can pay for, whereas maybe if they had applied to slightly lower ranked but similar schools the kid would have landed a nice merit package and been able to make it happen.</p>

<p>Anyway, families who are truly involved in the process will most often have more and better choices than families who abdicate fully to a GC. (Although I guess that’s true with all childrearing stuff, isn’t it?)</p>

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<p>Thanks weenie.
In our family we started narrowing down schools before the first college conference with the GC. When my d’s went in with a list of schools that they were interested in as well as a clear idea of criteria, he probably was surprised that their lists did not have any “reaches”. The real reason was that few of the “reaches” fit their criteria and the few that did were way too expensive. They decided that they did not like the expensive ones any better than the others so deleted them.
This past spring when d2 went in to see him, he looked at her list and asked how she came up with such a list of reasonably priced schools - he was surprised. She just told him that she and her family did their research. LOL
FYI - we had saved for college and therefore did not qualify for any need based aid. The whole argument that some of the more expensive schools would be affordable with aid would not have applied - our efc due to savings was way too high. Not complaining - but I doubt if the GC considers that.</p>

14

<p>Our GC told me I wouldn’t get in to UVa or Vandy and I shouldn’t waste my time. But those were my top 2 choices and guess what. I applied to both of those schools and got in. She also screwed me up for NHS, by missing my PSAT scores by 5 points and no one told me and by the time I found out, my senior year it was to late.</p>