Yes, our high school is very different from most here. 4 guidance counsellors serve roughly 1300-1400 students. Freshman classes are 400-500 and graduating seniors are 200-300. Therefore keeping kids IN school and getting them across the stage is the #1 priority, not the college bound kids. I would guess roughly 50 kids go to college each year.
Never heard of Naviance or common data set before I came here. I would have never known to even google for something like the common data set. We were lucky that H stumbled across an old Fiske college book at goodwill. We loved that thing, but had never heard of it before. We used that a lot.
Picking classes? The college bound kids get together and see what everyone else is doing. Then, they drop off their pick lists with guidance. There’s very little interaction. They might see their counsellor if they go to the office and search through the scholarship drawer. I believe mine also went down to let them know that they applied to colleges and to make sure the counsellors did their part. I heard too many stories whose counsellors did not submit material on time.
Definitely no online career stuff or beyond high school plan was done.
Now, my kids have told me about some kind of college guidance person that technically isn’t an employee of the school system. They are recent graduates of a state flagship and I think some of their loans may be forgiven by doing this for a couple of years? But, they tend to help the kids who have no help. And the kids must come to them.
The do have a night where people who want help with FASFA can come. And I once went to a meeting about scholarships and grants. It was all very basic info though.
But at our HS, it is almost all the kids working together and figuring it out themselves, with some support from their parents. Edit: my older S wound up at an often mentioned on CC LAC. Despite it being in state and having driven by it many times over the years, I had never heard of it! We “found” it because a long time teacher is a die hard alum and would take 2-3 students to visit each year. S was one of them.