<p>Anybody have any positive stories about school counselors?</p>
<p>No negative stories - I know there’s plenty of those out there - but I’m trying to figure out what makes good ones tick.</p>
<p>I like our son’s counselor. She listens to him. She calls us up if there are scheduling problems instead of waiting to solve them on the first day of school She lets my son sit at her computer and work out schedules that give him the least number of conflicts. She’s friendly and knows a bit about him even though she has 250 students. I don’t know how effective or knowlegable she is, but she’s got a good heart.</p>
<p>I think the good ones really try to get to know each kid & find out how to address the specific needs of the individual student/family. For us, my S had a great grade level counselor that knew he most wanted to be left alone, which she did & got the school to do.<br>
The college counselor was informed by S & us that merit aid was very important & every meeting would review the schools likely to provide merit aid for my S (at our joint request). He was very encouraging and supportive and gave concise answers to questions we’d ask–whether to send AP scores (no need), whether to designate 1st choice NM school (optional w/ pros & cons), etc.
I think it really helps if the family, student & counselor have clear ideas about the roles of each in the college search & app process so there are no misunderstandings or hard feelings later.<br>
A friend is pretty upset with the same HS & counselor because their VAL child believed she’d get sufficient merit + need aid to attend whatever school she wanted (& she got in at most schools). Unfortunately, family’s idea of need & Us idea were vastly different. My S doesn’t understand why she & her family didn’t get the message about how tough it is to get aid & how you have to tailor your search if $$$ is a consideration.</p>
<p>IMO, DS appreciated the following about the GC he continues to admire and visit, even now as a sophomore in college:</p>
<ol>
<li> entirely discreet and trustworthy</li>
<li> nonjudgmental but willing and able to be constructively critical when her opinion is sought </li>
<li> independence and integrity, not just a mouthpiece for the administration</li>
</ol>
<p>I really like what my S’s public hs does–they have 1 GC for each grade (approx 500 students in each grade) but for the top students (about the top 10% of the class), the Gifted/Talented teacher serves as the GC and does all their GC recommendations. She has known most of these kids since they were in 7th grade (small district with only 1 Jr High and 1 Sr High and she is the G/T teacher at both) and probably knows their overall strengths/ weaknesses, character, etc better than anyone else. Although there are no G/T classes per se (other than honors, AP/IB) the G/T teacher meets with the G/T students at least weekly often over lunch hours or weekly pull-outs from classes on a rotating schedule, and most of the focus is college-related; she helps them come up with their college lists, helps with applications, coordinates college fairs, etc. This is a tremendous asset that helps prepare these students for college, esp since these are students who are often applying out of state or to more selective schools and oten need more guidance and direction than your normal GC can provide.</p>
<p>My S’s small private high school had “contact teachers” instead of having a GC. Each teacher/staff member has assigned a small group of students (5-8?) that they met with on a regular basis through out the year. The contact teacher was available to assist students with any problems that arose & also met with students to discuss any important changes at school through out the year.<br>
For the college application process the school has a fabulous college counselor. She gave “college application process” presentations at the end of sophmore year & junior year to both students and parents. During the junior year she surveyed each student and then provided them with a list of colleges they might be interested in(I believe the original list she made for my son had about 20 schools on it - he narrowed it down to 8). She also started the juniors off with a wonderful notebook full of information and suggestions on how to keep track of the application process as well as a general schedule. She kept track of teacher recommendations and made sure the teachers completed them on time. She also checked in with students on a regular basis to make sure the applications were coming along, helped with brainstorming essay topics and proof reading of essays, suggested scholarships, etc. After all the acceptances were in, she was wonderful helping my son sort out which school he should choose. She was truly amazing and I don’t know how we would have made it through the process without her!!</p>
<p>My college counselor was pretty amazing (small private HS, so we only had one for the whole school). She invited speakers to come talk to us about the admissions process around late 10th - early 11th grade, coordinated huge college fairs, and sat down and met individually with students and parents about prospective colleges to apply to in spring of junior year, to form a list. She offered constructive criticism, and if a school was truly a super-reach, she wouldn’t hesitate to tell you. Senior year, she helped us make a timeline of when we needed to get each app in to her to spread them out over the fall - she proofread each of our applications before sending it off in one big envelope with her rec and the teachers’ recs. Then, when decisions came in and I had a big decision to make (big cheap public, small cheap mid-tier private, or small expensive higher-tier private), she tried her best to help me out…it was a hard choice…</p>
<p>Plus, she knew many of the adcoms at local colleges because she’d been around for a while. She won several awards for her excellent counseling and she was the best.</p>
<p>I am drooling with envy here…</p>
<p>Our public school has an incredible counseling department. Kids are assigned a dean when they come to the HS who stays with them through 4 years. Each dean has a total caseload of about 125 students which works out to about 45 seniors each. The deans work out the scheduling with each student each spring and coordinate the college admissions process in the junior and senior years. It starts with a meeting with the juniors where they distribute the junior autobiography which the students fill out and return before the initial parent/student college meeting with the counselor. It asks the kids to reflect on who they are, what they’re interested in, what they might be looking for in a college (location, size, programs etc.), what they’ve done in terms of EC’s, how they’ve spent their summers etc. The counselor also schedules “junior groups” for about 5 weeks in Jan. and Feb. of junior year. The groups cover things like use of Naviance, how to research schools on-line, how to interview and culminates with a mock “Admissions Office” scenario where the kids are presented with mock applications and asked to evaluate the candidates and decide whether to admit, defer or deny. During the initial parent/sudent/dean meeting a tentative college list is discussed, suggested testing is reviewed, the senior schedule is set-up and any questions can be answered. Sometime in late summer the dean asks the parents to submit a “Parent Feedback Form” to provide any information the parent thinks helpful to the Dean in writing the counselor recommendation. My D’s dean actually called in August to ask some questions regarding some information she was considering discussing in the recommendation. In the fall the counselor again meets with the parents and students to discuss any visits that have been made, impressions and changes to the college list, results of testing and impact on college list etc. Discussions of possible ED/EA applications are also held, with reasonable advice given regarding the making of these decisions. Our D’s dean has also had her e-mail essays for review and provided detailed feedback. Our school also hosts about 200 college rep visits each fall and the deans are hosts to the college reps and moderate the in-school info sessions. Students are allowed passes from class (within reason) to attend these sessions. And when they’re not working with the seniors (and the rest of their underclass students) our deans are out visiting colleges so as to be familiar with what the schools are looking for and what they can offer our students. It’s about as good as you can get without going to a private counselor.</p>
<p>S1 and S2 had different GCs who did different things but both were excellent.</p>
<p>Both had the same GC all through high school. They were in charge of class selection and scheduling and college advising. (there were separate dean of students to deal with discipline issues, student activities, and the like). They had a caseload of about 150-200 each and worked in pairs so they were able to rely on each other’s experience. S1’s GC tried to persuade S to take AP-Calc and AP sciences but S refused. Gc did not hold it against him and made sure he got into classes that had the best teachers. She identified LACs that would be a good fit for S, grouping them into reaches, matches and safety (0ne). S1 was accepted at all the matches and safety, waitlisted at one reach and rejected at others, totally matching the GC’s predictions.
With S2, we did all the college research ourselves but the GC worked very hard devising an appropriate schedule of classes for S. </p>
<p>We heard that some students at the same school were not quite so fortunate with their own GCs.</p>
<p>Rave reviews for my S’s GC, and for the entire GC staff at my S’s HS (TJHSST)…like other posters, I liked that S had the same GC all four years, that she helped him w/HS scheduling and planning. She got to know “her” kids (actually, that’s a hallmark of the TJ GC staff…each GC knows “his/her” kids–and speaks of them as us parents do about our kids (and/or the kids we coach/mentor or otherwise “adopt” into our extended families)…</p>
<p>She was a huge help with the hardest part (for us) of the college selection process–creating the list in the first place. She had enormous influence on my S, who says he truly loves her…</p>
<p>She was really skillful at balancing the student contact with the parent contact…particularly good at giving me enough input to not be nervous about the fact that my S ran his own college search w/little input from me (until after he’d already made tentative initial decisions)…she recommended him for a summer internship (where the govt agency contacted her looking for a HS student intern–this was a particularly good experience for my S)…</p>
<p>Bottom line: very personal contact (it was the GC who made S bounce back–in just 2 days–from the intense pain of his one rejection), intense interest, incredible skill; somehow or other, she always had enough time for him, and for me…she was THE BEST … as far as I can tell, she’s “typical” of the TJ GC process…we were beyond lucky to have this support system 2 years ago when we were going thru the college app process…</p>
<p>Thanks everybody. Some great ideas here.</p>
<p>To those of you whose counselors helped with college lists, or suggested lists, how did they factor in what the family could afford?</p>
<p>Weenie:</p>
<p>They asked. College selection was easier for us because they did not have to factor in merit aid or financial aid.</p>
<p>weenie, That is a very good question. I can tell you that our gc did not ask financial questions. The guidance department brought in an outside source, one that could be hired on a private basis to figure out how to pay for college. Our gc only looked at whether our son had the stats/ecs for a particular school. My son presented his gc with a list, and she advised him whether it was reach/match/safety. She encouraged a couple of reaches for my son, since his list had more match/safeties, which was intentional on our part.</p>
<p>For those of you whose kids received specific advice from GCs on where they should or should not apply for college, what happened if your child chose to apply to somewhere contrary to the GC’s recommendation?</p>
<p>My kids’ GCs didn’t make any recommendations; they simply grunted with acknowledgment when the kids said where they wanted to apply. I wish there had been some actual guidance, but on the other hand, they didn’t have to face the problem of going against the GC’s advice.</p>
<p>“what happened if your child chose to apply to somewhere contrary to the GC’s recommendation?”</p>
<p>Well, I know someone who wanted to add a few schools to their list. Our gc likes to see 7-8 schools, not 18-20 on the list. Once the schools one is applying to is on the list, apparently one can just go and submit another couple of apps via the secretary. I guess the gc’s recommendation, as well as the teacher recs are the same for all schools. I suppose that the secretary just copies the recs and sends out another transcript to each school. One mother told me that her gc never said anything to the student or parents, and colleges did receive the necessary high school documents. I don’t think that sneaking around is necessary or proper. Why not just be upfront, and tell the gc where you would like to apply?</p>
<p>I can help with that one Weenie! Our situation is similar to Juba’s. My kid’s high school has approximately 550 students in the 4 grades. GCs and CCs are separate people, but they share office space and knowledge about the students. The GCs follow a class for several years so they get to know the students well. Many of the teachers are long term employees, so they know the students well.
Tuition at this school is under $8000/year, so the family incomes vary widely from mutimillionaires, to lots of upper mid income to a number of people who sacrifice to make the tuition. In the years prior to my D’s graduation, there had been a couple of instances of disappointed kids over money issues, so the CC was forthright, if delicate about asking about money. When we told her we were interested in merit aid for safeties only, she had the experience to rate one college vs another based on their generosity with merit aid, she approved another selection because even though less generous, it was also less expensive. Since tuition at big state U is close to if not less than what we paid for high school, they almost insisted that everyone in the top half of the class apply to one or the other of the state unis - although they did this more with the kids than the parents. If we had needed merit aid in order to send D to a LAC (which was what she wanted), she was ready with other choices, ranked by the history of generosity.</p>
<p>“what happened if your child chose to apply to somewhere contrary to the GC’s recommendation?”</p>
<p>Uuuhh, nothing. They pack and send 6 applications for the students, the students turn in their part of the paperwork, the student asks teachers for recs, fills out a form for the CC telling which teachers and when she was approached - the CC then does the follow-up with the teachers. If you went against their recommendations, then that would count in your 6 apps. I think they concentrate on each student having some choices, and let you worry about wasting your money.</p>
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<p>But you have no way of knowing whether the guidance counselor took into account the student’s defiance when writing the student’s recommendation.</p>
<p>What’s bothering me here is that some of you who are raving about your GCs are describing situations where the GC essentially dictated what the student should do, and the student said “Yes, sir” (or ma’am). What about the student who says, “I know that you think that X University is a good choice for me and that Y University shouldn’t even be on my list, but I don’t like X and I want to apply ED to Y”? Do you really think a GC could write a recommendation for such a student without taking the student’s disobedience into account?</p>
<p>Our guidance department consists of three GC’s for 1000 students in the HS, so about 250 seniors each. The group is divided alphabetically so one GC has students with last names beginning with A- I, second has J - O and last has P - Z. I feel sorry for anyone with a student in the first group because that’s the dud GC and I’ve jokingly suggested to eighth grade parents that they change their last name before their student starts HS to insure that they get the good GC’s.</p>
<p>I was my kids college counselor for the most part but we relied on the GC to help my kids choose and get in the classes they wanted. For my daughter it was getting an internship in the fall instead of the spring her senior year. For my son it was taking two maths his sophomore year and deferring health until senior year. I think the best GC’s really listen to the students and help them figure out how to reach their goals.</p>
<p>For colleges, the good guidance counselors figured out a checklist to streamline the process for transcripts and recommendations that was flexible but also had a paperwork trail so students know what was sent and the date it was sent. That is, the students sign a waiver with each transcript request and GC rec for each college. The gc office then sends the same note back to the student with the date that transcripts and GC rec’s were sent. The students can choose for each college to have the teachers send their rec’s through the guidance office to be sent with GC rec’s and transcripts or students can handle the teacher rec’s on their own and have teachers send them directly.</p>