I am just curious about the support experiences from your high school in general.
Things like:
Advising on what colleges to apply to. Advising on the college application process in general.
Securing Letters of Recommendation.
Submitting documents to schools in a timely manner.
Support when something went wrong.
I always love hearing both success stories and horror stories for the learning value that they provide.
Our students get a 20 minute meeting with their guidance counselor (each has 400 students), and counselors do not recommend any schools, just show how to use naviance. My kids asked for recommendations spring if junior year, had no issues, and no problems with getting the school submitting information. ETA, each counselor has 400 students, not 100.
Likely depends on the school.
Both our kids at a top school district, large publics - nothing to all that.
Perhaps if you ask.
They had a parent/student presentation one night where they tell you to fill out FAFSA, tell you how to qualify for the state scholarship (service), list all the state schools, and that’s about it.
I’m sure if you’re at a private school, it’s different.
I don’t think most public schools have college counseling - they have guidance counselors who 1% of the time dip their toe into the college thing.
But if you seek support, perhaps they can offer some.
#2 / #3 is more the student supporting the counselor - constantly reminding them - as the counselors last minute these.
Our counselors do a good job getting to know each student and start to meet with them every two weeks or so starting in March of Junior year. Before the summer they discuss Senior Yr courses to ensure appropriate rigor and best options for LOR. The students make the request but from there on the CC sets a timeline for the teachers and manages that. LOR go to the CC - teachers do not send them directly.
They set a good timeline for the students, who are supposed to come back from summer with a working draft for their essay. At the end of the day it’s on the student but they regularly check in and make sure things are moving along. They communicate with parents as needed and for the most part are responsive to parents questions and concerns.
The logistical aspects are not an issue. They are experienced and aware of timelines.
Not sure what you mean by “something goes wrong” but they will advocate for a student on a WL if the student will commit to enrolling if accepted. They don’t want to burn bridges, which is fair.
Ultimately though, it’s on the student to do their research. Sometimes families rely on the CC too much and get frustrated when the CC doesn’t go “you are brilliant - you should apply to Harvard.” In my view they are a really good resource. A place for you to bring and discuss your thoughts, not do your job for you. We are extremely grateful for their guidance and support.
Your questions are very school dependent! But here are our experiences from 2003 and 2006…and I think things have gotten better.
1. Advising on what colleges to apply to. Advising on the college application process in general.
Our kids were applying either to majors (music performance) or colleges very far out of region. Our school counselors knew very little about either, but there were other resources available.
2. Securing Letters of Recommendation.
Very easy. Our school asked kids to make these requests before their junior year ended.
3. Submitting documents to schools in a timely manner.
No problem at all. Our school actually had a registrar who took care of all of this…this was in addition to the school counselor. There was also a very clear sheet on what needed to be submitted to each college, and by when.
4. Support when something went wrong.
One set of transcripts was not received by one college. This was easily corrected and quickly.
Small high school with about 200 students per class. Each school counselor handled one grade…so 200 students.
My D was at a private college prep catholic school. The advising was great and started in 9th grade. There were all kinds of seminars, one on one meetings with students and parents, tons on the financial aid process (the school was part of the voucher program so many low income, first gen, URM families), info on how to build a college list, sponsored college fairs, and time lines for LORs, testing, etc…
Common app essays were written/revised/edited in English class at the end of junior year. Test prep was integrated into the math and English curriculum and free prep classes run by teachers were offered before school.
Advising has been expanded since my D graduated and now the school takes the additional step of bringing in all rising seniors to campus when the common app first opens. That way everyone sets up their accounts with the GCs present to answer questions and trouble shoot. They advise having the bulk of the app done before school even starts.
IMO, the best thing the department did was make sure everyone had at least one affordable, safety option. They were also a great resource for where to apply for big merit awards. They were experts on the in-state options.
They really knew the kids (only 200-250 per class), worked with their teachers, and helped identify the students’ strengths and uniqueness. They nominated the high achievers for regional/state/national awards as well.
The one thing they didn’t do, that I’ve seen at more expensive private schools, is curate the college lists and make sure that there wasn’t too much overlap/competition between students. They had the kids give them their lists to make sure it was balanced but didn’t recommend schools unless merit was needed. (And again, usually they focused on in state options or the big auto merit schools). They weren’t worried about getting kids into the T10s but getting kids into affordable schools where they could be successful.
And even with all that support and guidance, there were still students and parents who blew off the GC’s advice, overshot the list, and were disappointed with outcomes when they landed at that one safety.
99% of D’s class went on to 4 year college. The other 1% went into the military (in her year it was to the service academies).
There have been stories in the past about difficulty getting letters of recommendation, such as this thread: Teacher told S24 to write his own letter of recommendation [and other teachers are refusing or rationing letters of recommendation] .
Large public school. 1800 or so students. Very diverse.
No advising on colleges from counselor. One 10 minute meeting via Zoom with parents early in junior year. More focused on what classes needed to graduate and Hope scholarship eligibility. There is a person at the school who will help with what colleges to apply to, but I don’t feel that it’s well advertised, and we didn’t feel like we needed that. Neither person knows my kids very well, if at all.
Pretty easy. S23 waited a bit too late to ask a a favorite teacher and was turned down because that teacher’s dance card was full. He was able to get another teacher and it worked out well.
All documents were submitted in a timely manner. I might have liked them to be submitted sooner, but everything was in by the deadline, so I can’t complain.
N/A
Public high-school, ranked at the bottom of the state. Freshman class sizes are typically between 400-500 students. Roughly 200-250 diplomas are received each year. Total school size is 1300. I’d guess roughly 40-50 kids per year go to a 4 year college. Not sure how many go to CC. Some, but not many.
1. Advising on what colleges to apply to. Advising on the college application process in general.
Guidance is focused on getting kids to come to school and graduate. College bound kids are left to fend for themselves. No Naviance or anything like that. Where to apply and how everything works is generally left to the kids themselves. I did attend a presentation about FASFA and paying for college. It was VERY generic and bare bones.
2. Securing Letters of Recommendation.
I’m not sure how the kids figure it out. Maybe the teachers say something in class. But a lot of word of mouth from kids who have older siblings. There is definitely no deadline. Fortunately, with so few kids going to college, this isn’t a problem.
3. Submitting documents to schools in a timely manner.
I’ve heard LOTS of horror stories about our guidance office over the years. Parents usually had to get involved after colleges started to threaten rescinding offers. Fortunately, everything for mine went fine.
4. Support when something went wrong.
None. I have plenty of horror stories from our guidance office. You were lucky if they put you in more than 1-2 classes per year and the rest study hall… If the kids had enough classes to graduate with a basic diploma, that was fine with them. Our students have to be proactive from the get go. If guidance doesn’t respond to them, then parents have to step up. And if they don’t step up with parents, sometimes principals/superintendents have to be included.
Large public, good (not tippy top) district.
Advising on what colleges to apply to. Advising on the college application process in general.
-Process in general was explained OK. There was no, to my knowledge, automatic discussion of what colleges to apply to, or advising on majors or anything like that. Perhaps if you ask for extra help, but not sure how much time they have.
Securing Letters of Recommendation.
This was a clear process and generally easy. Some teachers only do a few, though, so getting first choice isn’t always possible. Counselors and teachers seem to know what they are doing in terms of what to put in them (based on forms we filled out)
Submitting documents to schools in a timely manner.
TBD but I have heard this works smoothly. The teacher LoR are already all sent for schools.
Support when something went wrong.
knock wood, N/A
The counselors have had 2 parent nights (with Q&A) about college process and 1 on FA. They were ok, but not always perfectly accurate…
The kids have 1 or 2, 1:1s for about 15 minutes with counselor (one in spring, one in fall) which are really making sure they understand basics. Also 1, block-long small group session which went over logistics of common app. Open hours 4x this month for seniors.
At our feederish private HS, there is a well-resourced, well-staffed college counseling office that is separate from the academic counseling system. The counselors usually have experience doing admissions for colleges.
They start off just offering some general information and hosting some broad information sessions. In the middle of junior year, each kid is assigned to a specific counselor, but they keep doing some group events as well. The initial one-on-one meetings are just the kid and the counselor, and then they start offering to have some family meetings as well. But mostly it is about the kid, and they can schedule their own appointments or just drop by the office.
They provide lots of guidance on timelines, testing plans, need-based aid, merit scholarship opportunities, recommendations, essays, interview prep, and so on. But the initial focus is on developing a highly customized application list, and they will discuss options with the kids, suggest possible visit plans, and so on. They use College Kickstart as the initial platform for exploring options, roughly categorizing schools as Likely, Reach, and Target, and getting kids familiar with what a good list might look like. Eventually they transition over to SCOIR for the actual application phase.
The spring of your junior year they will encourage you to line up your recommenders.
We have a high faculty to student ratio and different kids like different teachers, so usually it is not a problem getting the recommendations you want as long as you ask early enough and they think they would be able to give you a good recommendation. They will encourage you to work on some drafts of your main Common App essay over the summer.
The college search process usually continues into senior year. People are still visiting, there is a college fair, reps visit, and so on. However, some early apps (like, say, to Pitt) are also happening.
Once you decide to apply, you let them know in SCOIR in a timely fashion, including if you are applying by a certain early deadline, and they handle all the paper pushing they are responsible for doing. They will also read and comment on essays and activity descriptions, and can also bring in faculty to help. As long as you keep them informed of your application plans, they will make sure it gets done. They do get busy, though, particularly in the season between the ED1/REA/SCEA decision notifications and ED2/RD application deadlines, when lots of kids seem to end up scrambling a bit (although they do try to prepare kids for that period).
We felt EXTREMELY well taken care of. Of course there were many things we still had to do and think about as parents, but we felt both the guidance and administrative support our S24 got was excellent.
My sense is when it does not go as well, it is usually because the parents do not track along smoothly with the program. Maybe sometimes they do not because they do not have a lot of time and energy they want to devote to college stuff. I gather sometimes, though, they do not agree with what the college counseling office seems to be suggesting would be a good approach for their kid, so they do something different. And I think the college counselors can in fact sometimes be pretty blunt about explaining why it doesn’t make sense for this kid to apply to a certain college when the parents might believe otherwise.
But it is not like they will not give those kids all the necessary administrative support anyway. But there can be some tension and discontent parents.
I think those are definitely the minority, though. Most parents I talked with were also happy with the process.
Large Public, decent but not magnet
College Advising Almost non-existent. 1 counselor per 3/400 kids. Their focus was to get them graduated and out of trouble. Most kids in our HS going to college went to CC or the local state U with some going to the flagship. Maybe 1 or 2 a year went out of state to a T20. We got it that the counselor resources were limited and needed to be focused on the issues affecting the most students. For D, we hired a local consultant just to help us through the process and help with our list. For S, we just did it ourselves.
LoRs Relatively organized. Seniors got a prep list, including a form to fill out activities and accomplishments to give to LoR writers.
Submitting Docs Timely, no issues for us.
Support NA for us
Large, diverse public (~3000 students), respectable but not exceptional.
College Advising: Basically none. 1 counselor per ~400 kids, focused on class schedules and social/behavioral issues. Most common next step for students is local junior college, but 25-30% or so of each class will go to a 4-year school, and a small handful will be competitive at T20 level (though unhooked HYPSM admits are unheard of). It is theoretically possible to meet with your assigned counselor for college advising purposes, but the online appointment system is often down, and the counselors have little or no useful information anyway. There is a designated “college counselor” whose primary function seems to be emailing everyone the deadlines to apply to local colleges. I reached out to the college counselor when D22 was a junior to inquire about any resources that might be available to help kids looking at more selective schools, and she politely told me, “Good luck with that.” So with the help of CC and YCBK and countless other resources, I essentially turned myself into a college counselor.
LoR: No guidance provided, but the teachers were generally responsive and helpful when approached, and the counseling staff collected and uploaded everything in a timely fashion, so I can’t complain. But students have to be proactive - there is no one out there reminding you to solicit recommendations or explaining how/why this should be done.
Submitting documents: Everything was submitted on time through Naviance.
Support: Thankfully, we had no major problems going through the process with D22, who tends to be proactive and on top of everything. We’ll see how it goes with D26 and D29.
I think this is a key difference from public schools. Our college counselors are 100% focused on the college process. And each only handles 35-40 students at a time.
Absolutely. At our HS they will also provide a little bit of advice on senior year course selection. But otherwise they are entirely focused on the college admissions side of things, and indeed are only directly assigned to a student for the period from mid-junior year to whenever they accept an offer. It definitely makes a big difference in what it is like when you are in that period and their attention is not split in a lot of different directions by students in a lot of different circumstances, and of course means just fewer students at any given time per college counselor.
Of course this is not a low-cost approach, but that’s part of what they offer.
I consider this “college support.” Our students set their courses with their Academic Advisors but the CC will review selection with a student and teak it. “I know you love Bio but you are applying to Engineering so AP Physics might be a better choice” or “Let’s add a History elective to show depth in that area” that kind of stuff. This advice is in context of the college goals already discussed.
Same.
Large public magnet school.
1. Advising on what colleges to apply to. Advising on the college application process in general.
Counselor showed kids how to use Naviance spring of junior year & recommended kids identify likelies, targets, & reaches to research. Guidance office organized visits to local schools of varying selectivity. My kid’s counselor gave his list the thumbs up last week & suggested a couple of schools to add (kid refused), but no other help crafting a targeted list.
2. Securing Letters of Recommendation.
Easy. Junior spring they had a weekly junior advisory & were told to ask teachers for recs before school ended, advised to ask one STEM & one humanities teacher. Up to kids to remind the teachers.
3. Submitting documents to schools in a timely manner.
Done. My kid’s Naviance is synced to the common app; we can see that his counselor has already submitted the school profile/counselor’s recommendation/transcript, and one of his teacher recommenders has submitted.
4. Support when something went wrong.
From guidance, great so far. Our school hadn’t had an National Merit semifinalist in several years, and this year there were 2 (my kid was one). School principal didn’t notify the kids & was not at all helpful in completing the school’s part of the scholarship application. Kid’s guidance counselor was unfailingly supportive & finally got the login from the principal & completed/submitted the NMSF application on the day it was due.
Nothing beyond a 10 minute meeting Junior year. This is at a large public high school where guidance counselors cover about 400 students each.
I realize how fortunate this is - Our kids independent school starts with a presentation at the start of 9th grade on back to school night with parents and a separate presentation to the students. Clearly outlines a few different academic paths - but school requires 4 years of all cores except 3.5 of history - so can’t veer too much. It takes on the tone of if you want options then take school seriously - the school has the resources to help you and use them.
Another meeting following same format at the start of 10th grade. Also, I remember counselors really speaking to acceptance rates - you got into Yale when it had a 40% acceptance rate and that is not reality anymore. NYU received 8,000 apps X year and now they receive 90k etc.
Counselor assigned Spring of sophomore year - 3 full time college counselors and 1 assistant for approx 100+ kids per grade. Always an open door (well with an appt) to speak to
anyone in the office if questions.
Private parent meeting at the start of grade 11, several forms/info to provide to counselors, all family meeting follows in the early Spring. All junior class meeting at some point and break out groups to read mock
apps and score on a matrix.
Test prep and essay assistance offered in the summer between jr and sr year plus several college reps attend an essay workshop and provide feedback. Kids ask for rec letters by end of Jr year. Parents provide “brag sheet” for counselor rec letter background.
Juniors can attend a limited number of rep visits during class hours and no limit the Fall of sr year.
Senior year - all family/sr class presentation and includes several college reps on a panel. Kids have a timeline for all elements of the app, lists are finalized etc - school uses Scoir and started a few years ago with the one that grades your list - can’t remember the name. Kids can opt to submit essays with or without parent review. Large % of class applies to an ED/EA school plus state flagship.
Even with this amazing support, the counselors told me that some parents still hire a private counselor and it is not uncommon to have a few students with parents that never engage at all !