@bjkmom “To be honest, a lot of the people here can offer you some pretty good advice. Throw in a guidance counselor who knows his/her stuff, and you should be good to go for free.”
Unfortunately if you go to a public high school, it’s highly likely that the school counselor has to support 300-400 kids making it very difficult to get much individual attention.
For example, D20 goes to a very good public HS but if you look at her CC recommended course load for junior and senior years she was “missing” some important classes and EC’s to be competitive for her top schools UCB and UCLA. One example is the UCs require 2 years of language and recommend 3 years. When we went to a private counselor she reviewed D’s entire HS transcript and recommended a 4th year of language as many of the 100K plus applicants will have it. In addition, the private counselor wants D20 to take AP calculus BC (when she was considering AP calculus AB or AP Stats). These subtle differences course selection can be important deciding factors come admission time.
In addition, D was “missing” some important ECs and the private counselor set-up a “game plan” over the next 18 months for D to get those ECs completed. The last important point is that D20 is hearing this advice from a professional 3rd party adult who is not her parents so she is more likely to heed this advice and not roll her eyes at us. lol.
As I mentioned above, go to a initial consultation (maybe some will waive the first appointment fees) and ask lots of questions and take good notes. After that you can decide if you need the professional advice. We plan on using our private counselor sporadically (maybe 6 -8 hours) over the next 1.5 years. I understand some families can’t afford it, so its not an option, but if your family has the ability to pay for a good private counselor, I think the information is invaluable if applying to competitive colleges.