Is my counselor an Idiot?

jamimom
Sun, 24 Oct 2004 14:30:54 +0000

Unfortunately, some counselors are not as competent as others. And there are bad counselors, just as there are “bad” in any profession. Often times, however, what makes a counselor “bad” is that he is detrimental to YOUR specific situation. I know of overworked counselors at large schools that are most helpful in getting kids into the flagship state schools and some of the local schools but are really not experienced or knowledgeable about any other schools. In cases like that you can still get much mileage from your counselor by writing a letter to him asking for his rep and including info YOU want in your rec. Chances are very good such a counselor will use your letter as a guide in writing the rec letter. It is not always good to have a hands on “good” counselor, particularly if you do not see eye to eye with him.

As for a private counselor, well, it’s like hiring a private anything. Only as good as the match. You can spend a tremendous amount of time and money for little or no benefit. The advantage with hiring a private counselor is that he can pace you through the process at $$ per hour which can help out kids who have trouble doing the stuff themselves. When you are stuck for a period of time with a counselor who is going over the college stuff, you may get it done whereas you could end up eating up an evening that you had scheduled to do this stuff IM-ing your friends and other nonsense. A counselor experienced in elite school admissions can help you not only in pacing the app process but in packaging yourself for the schools. He may also have some useful information for you that you just did not find elsewhere. But I would not expect any counselor to get you into a college; you have to do that yourself.