<p>Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a study done by two Drexel professors based on a survey of 1,700 guidance counselors. </p>
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<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/07/2006071108n.htm[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/07/2006071108n.htm</a></p>
<p>This study does not suprise me in the least.I can tell you first hand from my own D’s experience, despite having SAT scores in the top 1% and having a straight A average, her GC gave her a lot of flack over signing off on her college list to the point where I did have to go up and have a sit down with her. She basically told me to my face that she though D’s list was too top heavy and not to be suprised when april rolled around that she may not have a college to attend in the fall. Around the same time she told D’s affluent white classmate to 'don’t worry, she’ll get into haverford despite barely breaking 1000 on her SATs (old test). Went to see the principle who ended up writing D’s recommendation (great thing about small school, every one knows everybody).</p>
<p>It got to the point that I had to tell her straight out that I had to ave confidence in my child and the education that she had been given in the 6 years she was there (6-12 school). After all has been said and done, I paid the applications fees, let the process play it self out and even if she did get rejected, she would just take a gap year and reapply.</p>
<p>When D was accepted to all 7 schools she applied to I sent her flowers. GC likes to collect magnets and banners from the schools that students were admitted to, at 2 of them D was the first student from her school to be admitted in the history of the school. At another school, she was the first student to be admitted in over 9 years. I gladly gave my D money and told her to purchase the biggest banner and magnet she could find to take back to GC.</p>
<p>I am very interested to hear this.
I try and help students who arent the ones who know that their applications should at least be started by xmas break senior year, but the ones who decide spring break, that they would like to go to college.</p>
<p>Many of them- are african american, and while I am not privvy to confidential information, I assume they are first generation college.
The counselors are decent- but with 400 students per counselor and roughly 100 of those seniors they do get pretty swamped.</p>
<p>I have recommended community colleges to students- but usually not till they ask about them first. In several cases, family issues have been a problem, and they feel like they need to stay closer to home, although generally I try and help them find a residential campus to attend, because I feel that perhaps especially for students who are academic late bloomers, a residential campus will offer more supports to help them be successful, than one with the distractions of commuting.</p>
<p>One of the advantages Ds school has though, is several programs designed to help minorities attend college, and an earlier awareness of college, and the choices that are available, helps students to reach higher than they might otherwise.</p>
<p>Counselors really vary. I don’t recall a counselor in high school ever even asking me what I was going to do after high school, let alone college- and even at my Ds private prep school, the college counselor made suggestions not only to her, but to other students that would have to be placed on a ladder to be a safety.
( If I remember right- her suggestions were an instate community college that had residential housing, if for some reason she didnt decide to attend an instate public that she liked that had an acceptance rate of about 80%- good thing we weren’t paying the big bucks for college counseling- some of the prep school families hired outside help, but I just scoured teh net)
Its a big point of contention in our district to raise standards or not.
I feel, and many others feel, that we help students by giving them more choices, by which I mean, making sure that they have the minimum requirements to attend college- even a community college, without having to take remedial classes.
BUt there are just as many folks who feel that there should be more vocational programs available, so they can hope to find work after high school graduation.
Both sides have their points I htink. BUt while there are many vocational programs at the community colleges, it seems easier for students to enter them after a college ready high school experience, than it is for students who were in a vocational “track” to then switch gears and try to get the classes they need for a 4 year college.</p>
<p>Irealize I am getting off track from the point that counselors seems to be discouraging minorities from higher education,but we have a crisis in education, particulary in urban districts, especially for some minorities, and it keeps me up nights with frustration</p>
<p>lol sybbie</p>
<p>Just wanna say BRAVO Sybbie and D! Love the story.</p>
<p>I have to agree. Guidance Counselors tend to discourage higher education for minority students. </p>
<p>One minute my dd teacher’s are telling me she is going very well, but her GC said she has average grades. In my school district, they tend to focus on the kids with the high GPA’s. She is an LD student with an 2.9 GPA which I don’t think is too bad for her first year of High School. She excels in math but doesn’t do too well in reading. In her resource class, she barely got help because of the number of students. </p>
<p>She had a tough geography teacher who didn’t teach very well. If you disagreed with his views, you were in trouble. I helped her write a paper in this class with the topic being genocide in America. We talked about the IRAQ war and how the president was sending young people, especially minorities to their death. We also talked about New Orleans and the lack of help which lead to death and dismay. He turned around and said this was not genocide and that we had no facts to back up these 2 statements…COME ON! </p>
<p>She will go to college!</p>
<p>i agree jenrik that the iraq war and new orleans are examples of unneeded deaths. but genocide is the systematic murder of a group of people based on their ethnicity. sure, the iraq war is a bad idea, but bush isn’t annihilating minority soldiers for the sake of it. and while their is racism in how we deal with new orleans, the government is not actively killing off black people.</p>
<p>unfortunately, it start even earlier than senior year selections. My S was tutoring a local hispanic girl in middle school math, and she was doing well (B/B+). But, when she got to the end of her Frosh year, the HS GC told her (not recommended) to take home ec instead of Geom, bcos, after all, “everyone here goes to the local community college, and you can take advanced math there.”</p>
<p>A GC at our local public HS recently suggested expensive private colleges to the white middle class daughter of a friend. This child has LOW stats and the privates she can get into are no better and lesser known than the state Us she could attend. No way the family can afford the privates anyway. When they have so many kids to advise, how do they know where to go?</p>
<p>I think many GCs tend to recommend toward the median level of students at the HS regardless of race. this is where they spend all their time and often don’t even know what to recommend to the high aceivers regardless of race. Not only do they not know what to recommend, they don’t even try. Basically, the guidance councelors don’t really ‘guide’ or ‘counsel’ based on the individual situation. This means that if the HS has a disproportionate number of low to mediocre achievers, the kids at the top end cannot depend on them and those who are ill-informed will likely lose out on some opportunity.</p>
<p>emerald: I’m glad to hear you’re giving the students (and the schools) a boost.</p>
<p>I agree with ucdad. my guidance counselor never gave me any suggestions at all actually. we had a 2 minute conference junior year about what colleges I wanted to apply to, most of which we spent talking about how my older brother was doing in college (his was not on my list). Senior year, we had 10 minute “group” conferences with 15-20 students each, which focused on the app process itself.</p>
<p>Very interesting and true article - this is the EXACT case with a young girl I am helping apply to colleges. She is low income, African American, very bright, confident and hard working; so imagine my surprise when she returned from her first meeting with GC who told her that she probably didn’t need to take the SAT since a tech school was where she needed to go?!?!?!?! She wants to be a doctor but the GC told her that she should be a CNA first and then maybe eventually a nurse and then if she really likes it she could try to be a doctor. I was livid. She will be the first person to go to college and the GC has thus far treated her as if she is lucky that she is getting the time of day - instead of encouraging her and helping her figure out how to apply for scholarship, fee waivers, etc. She has gone in to GC once before the end of shool in May with some information about different scholarships I found on the internet and all teh GC asked her was how did she find the time to gather all this information - and AGAIN steered her in the direction of tech school and CC (Not that there is anything wrong with these options for some people, just not this girl)</p>
<p>What really bothers me is some people do not see these racist actions. They deny it happens. </p>
<p>Some people choose to go to CC based on situation. </p>
<p>It should be presented as an option not the final choice. </p>
<p>Someone should start a topic regarding minorities and college placement. I did like the new topic with LD students and college. My daughter is Mexican and has a learning disability.</p>
<p>jenrik:</p>
<p>This problem of very poor GCs that steer people toward mediocrity wasn’t a racist action in the case of my Ds - it’s pervasive throughout the school and at many other schools - especially schools that aren’t the high-end schools. I’m not denying that some GCs may make assumptions based on race (which is racist and shouldn’t happen) but one shouldn’t assume that this lack of providing adequate guidance and counsel is always or even primarily due to racism. When a GC spends a grand total of 2-5 minutes with a student with little of the time spent in true dialogue with the student, there’s no way they can adequately advise them. My D was the top student in her HS and for a considerable time, her GC didn’t even know who she was. The GC eventually knew who she was only after I intervened a few times insisting that my D be permitted to take classes, etc. that the GC stated she couldn’t take. I then further explained to the GC about the requirements for UC colleges and where she could find details about them since the GC didn’t know this basic info - and this was a HS in California. The GC system at many schools is a farce and students of all races are disadvantaged by them. </p>
<p>If the student’s parents aren’t knowledgable enough or involved enough to counter the GCs, their kids can certainly suffer. I would think this would tend to hit URMs worse than others since they may have parents (or a single parent) who either doesn’t know enough to question the system or who are simply not involved much at all with their kid’s education. Fortunately, there are people like MagsMom who will provide some guidance to some of these students.</p>
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<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad,</p>
<p>I appreciate you post but I feel that you are oversimplifying the situation as it happens in to students of color in some schools. I know in my case the scenario you lay out could not be further from the truth.</p>
<p>Let me give you a little back ground about me.</p>
<p>Yes, I am a black single parent, but I have a college dregree, 2 masters degree and a current PhD student. In my paid life, I work for a major coproration where Idevelop education programs and I have spent the past over the past 10 years coaching and counseling people about our company’s tuition aid poilicies and college initiatives & programs ranging from Direct admit programs in continuing education to various graduate programs (Exec. MBA, On-Line Education, PhD). I’ve got a list of phone numbers of admissions directors ranging from the ivies in the area to the local community college because I coordinate and do full blown college fairs in my workplace. I have spend over 20 years coordinating comunity involment programs that provide educational initiatives to underserved populations. </p>
<p>Hell I have even coached an counseled a couple of CC kids about about admissions/ financial aid and programs that they did not know existed. I read and provided feed back on their essays, and provided support to kids I would not even know by face if they walked up to me right now and they will be attending Williams, Amherst, Barnard and Kenyon this fall.</p>
<p>My child has never been in an underperforming school as she attended one of the top NYC public schools in the city for elementary school and the number one public magnet school 6-12. I have been an active participant in the education of my child from the day she was born. I have been an active member of the PTA (Co-chair, Vice President, Treasurer, class parent, parent rep, school leadership team, volunteer you name it), came to school read in the classroom, insteak of simply sending snacks for snack day, I came and gave cooking lessons, I’ve done the whole class trip thing and have never missed an open school night/parent teacher conference from the day my child walked in to school until the day she graduated. </p>
<p>It is not like my GC doesn’t know my kid, as she coordinates their junior year internship where they are required to meet with her, turn in reports and she met with them as groups for 2.5 hours every 6 weeks. She requires a meeting with every student and their parent junior year to talk about college. She requests a brag sheet from every student and one from their parents where she asks a variety of short answer questions about our kids.</p>
<p>In addition, she has every single senior 2 periods a week for senior internship where the first part of the term they do talk about the college process and then they have to come of with their own topic, get 2 teachers (one to collaborate with the other as a second reader) and do a thesis (APA format, footnotes, appendiices the whole nine) as a requirement for graduation.</p>
<p>So if this can happen to an “involved” parent, and am afriad to think about what happens to an univolved one.</p>
<p>As I’ve reported previously, every single semester I taught at the Community College of Philadelphia I had 2-3 students of Ivy caliber. About 90% of them were African-American. I can say that with absolute certainty because Ivy schools (starting with Penn) drooled over them to get them to transfer (which most of them did.) And for every one of these, I had 3-4 who would have done just fine at top 50 LACs or Unis, and another 5 or 6 who would have done just as well at the flagship state university. </p>
<p>In virtually every case, included in the complications of their lives was poor high school college counseling. Now the interesting anecdote (and, it is true, the plural of anecdote is not evidence) is that I had a foster kid, with income lower than many of these AA students, who received a full scholarship to Princeton in engineering. He was certainly no better than the best students in my community college class, but received counseling that raised rather than lowered his aspirations.</p>
<p>sybbie,</p>
<p>It sounds as if your D’s school has a far better GC program than the one my Ds went to but it also sounds like your school was more upscale. Given your background you also are well qualified to advise and are very involved. Like I said, I’m not denying that some GCs may make assumptions purely based on race and if they do, it’s wrong - they shouldn’t do it. On the face of your earlier post comparing the GC experiences of your D to the other white student it does sound like a disparity. I’ll take your word that they were out of line. If it’s more than a one-off at that school, then I would suspect bias which again is wrong.</p>
<p>The only point I was trying to make is the general lack of G and C performed by GCs that can and does affect all races. The GCs should look at the students as individuals and advise accordingly. Even if they have inadequate time, they should be able to at least look at their GPA, courses, class rank, and key school ECs, understand what the reach/match/safeties are according to those attributes, and advise accordingly. Ideally they should even be aware of colleges that are ‘looking for’ URMs or people with other particular atributes and may give a better deal and take that into account as well. The bottom line is that I think the GC should be the kid’s advocate and should be knowledgable of the options available. I don’t think this generally happens at many high schools across the country. Some of the responses on this and other threads seem to bear this out.</p>
<p>Luckily, your kid has you to provide the appropriate guidance.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I think the problem starts earlier. There are many, many opportunities available for kids in high school. These include scholarships, summer activities and many other special programs (here there is a special environmental group, youth council, world issues conference, etc). </p>
<p>Guidance counselors play a major role in selecting/nominating who goes to these events and in getting the information out to students who might participate.</p>
<p>With many of these programs free/very low-cost and many with financial aid available, I am overwhelmed by the lack of minorities (especially low-income minorities) that participate in these programs. When I talk to students about this, many say they never heard anything about them – while white, middle to upper class students at the same school (with similar stats) attend many of these programs.</p>
<p>It seems that unless the program is directed at minorities (and there are many excellent programs) some GCs have the same problem in this area as in recommending colleges.</p>
<p>Some years ago the NYT ran a fascinating series on GCs, one from a private school, one from an affluent suburban school and one from an inner-city school. The private school GC had very little knowledge about scholarships–he did not need to know much, given his constituency. His case load was also in the vicinity of 30-40. The suburban GC had a wider range of schools he recommended to his students (caseload of about 150). The inner-city GC’s main concern was to get the kids into schools they could afford. He knew far more about different sources of scholarship and community colleges than about reach schools. His case-load was about 500+ students. You don’t need to have deliberate discrimination to have students with similar profiles being steered toward very different kinds of colleges.</p>
<p>“You don’t need to have deliberate discrimination to have students with similar profiles being steered toward very different kinds of colleges.”</p>
<p>It would be much better for the students if it was deliberate. Right now, what information they get masquerades as “objective”. (Systemic racism is almost always more difficult to deal with, especially when the majority of folks don’t even notice it is there.)</p>