Are Private Counselors a Bad Idea?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally know 4 moms turned private college coach or college essay tutor. It is a joke. I know as much as they do from having a couple kids apply to college. People pay them $10,000 for their services. It is like the new interior decorator side gig for rich SAHMs. Sure, they get certified by an online class or something. Not one of them have ever worked in a college admissions office or even a high school college counseling office. They think because Larla got into Cornell they are experts.

THIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Speaking as a college admissions consultant, the reason why we get a bad rap is because in the 2010s, the only credentialing programs for independents were the same ones that credentialed high school college counselors. So the perception that we were redundant and only for families who needed extra help the high school counselor couldn't provide was largely true.

Since then, however, the field has matured and evolved a lot. In many ways that school counselors aren't aware of. In my practice, we use admissions rubrics from highly selective college admissions offices that we've combined with proprietary data we gathered from colleges, the CollegeBoard, our partnerships with local high school counselors, and our own clientele dating back 16 years. It allows us to run gap analyses on students so services are targeted and pragmatic, and additive rather than redundant, wasteful, or off-target.

The admissions rubrics we used were gathered from active involvement in NACAC over more than a decade—and won't be found by parents searching online. Furthermore, the most valuable insights we gained about below-average SAT/ACT patterns that can still win admission at various colleges were drawn from the period before test-optional policies became widespread. The pre-test optional score thresholds still hold true in today's test-optional environment and aid in the decision to report SAT/ACT scores or withhold them. But someone trying to draw the same conclusions today would have an extremely difficult time sorting through current data given the diversity of testing policies across colleges.

Beware the bigger firms that are driven by sales. If you look on Yelp and Google Business Reviews, you can find college consultants who consult to the size of the gap that's actually necessary and helpful. You may have to search for consultants in other cities, as everyone works virtually now. But we're out there.

The outside counselors work for their clients, so they tell them what they want to hear, rather than giving them the honest feedback and realistic advice that the school counselor is more likely to give. Telling kids to load up on as many AP courses as possible is not very useful and possibly harmful to some kids who cannot handle that course load. But, a lot of families feel that if they are spending a lot of money on something then it must be giving them an advantage. The school counselors can often tell which outside counselor has been hired as soon as they read the student’s draft of their essay. Not impressed at all by this business.

[Anonymous]

College admissions officers will take a phone call from a school counselor. They will not take a call from an independent one. Your school counselor can support your child better. They also have all of the data the independent counselor has. Also, please let your kid take the lead in some of this. They have to own the process a bit in order for this to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on for what purpose. DC's college list should be determined between DC and CCO, I don't think private counselor should have a final say on the college list.

For essays, I don't see how a private outside counselor could make things worse.

Before junior year, you will occasionally need a private counselor when CCO has not been assigned to DC.

Final say on college list is neither CCO nor private counselor. We take the input from both and DC and parents have "final say." Got it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Skip counseling, it’s a waste of money. Invest in SAT prep and maybe a good essay coach, if needed.

For kids with ADHD, it's a good idea to have an outside counselor to keep them float. Just a weekly meeting would help a lot, making sure all the details have been taken care of. It's not even counseling, it's project management.

This. We hired one for the expertise, but it is also serving well to keep DD on track. She already has a very strong common app essay draft and has first drafts of her first choice school supplemental essays. Her common app is filled out as much as possible at this stage. Stress level very low in our home and very little nagging! Plus counselor is an excellent writer and has made some very good suggestions on her essays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The counselors at our independent school have been polite about the possibility of families hiring private counselors but they made it clear that they will be the counselors of record and anything other than test prep is a waste of money and risks impeding the process. They have an essay coach on staff so I can’t really see the point of hiring anyone else other than to personally harass your kid (and we plan to task DC’s exec function coach with that).

I found this comical. Are you serious? Is exec func coach familiar with the application process and all the nuances?

We are tasking exec function coach with harassing DC to do the things assigned by the school’s counseling team. Exec function coach also isn’t familiar with calculus but is perfectly capable of helping DC stay on track to finish homework and study for tests. It’s not the subject matter, it’s the staying on track with tasks assigned by others.

LOL. We re in a private school, and the level of detail of tasks from school counselor is not nearly as specific as from private counselor. And at this stage they are meeting weekly to review progress and she gets new task list after every meeting. School counselors are on vacation during the summer. Our private counselor is full steam ahead with DD. Anyone saying it doesn't matter probably just can't afford private counselor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College admissions officers will take a phone call from a school counselor. They will not take a call from an independent one. Your school counselor can support your child better. They also have all of the data the independent counselor has. Also, please let your kid take the lead in some of this. They have to own the process a bit in order for this to work.

It is so clear that you do not know the counselors at our underfunded public school. They are working so hard to get just to show up to school and graduate. They have huge caseloads and much bigger issues to deal with than supporting kids applying to competitive schools. If they do have the data, it is lost in a sea of email.

[Anonymous]

The profession refuses to regulate itself, so they can’t be taken seriously. None of them call out the bad actors, so their reputation overall is dubious.

Once upon a time, wealthy women who were bored became interior decorators. It seems like they’ve moved to another activity. Just saying.

[Anonymous]

We hired a private consultant in May of daughter's sophomore year. It is the best decision we have made. Initially meetings were limited, but it was very helpful to have someone help with course selection for junior/senior year and to help craft the pillars of interest for DD so that she could develop the ones for which she had the most passion. She had a resume done by the beginning of junior year and was encouraged to take leadership positions and/or start a new club at school. She did all of this and now has an very strong resume and a beautiful essay that will easily pull at the heartstrings of any admissions officer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The counselors at our independent school have been polite about the possibility of families hiring private counselors but they made it clear that they will be the counselors of record and anything other than test prep is a waste of money and risks impeding the process. They have an essay coach on staff so I can’t really see the point of hiring anyone else other than to personally harass your kid (and we plan to task DC’s exec function coach with that).

I found this comical. Are you serious? Is exec func coach familiar with the application process and all the nuances?

We are tasking exec function coach with harassing DC to do the things assigned by the school’s counseling team. Exec function coach also isn’t familiar with calculus but is perfectly capable of helping DC stay on track to finish homework and study for tests. It’s not the subject matter, it’s the staying on track with tasks assigned by others.

You don’t have a kid, right?

Stop. Please stop with this kind of nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College admissions officers will take a phone call from a school counselor. They will not take a call from an independent one. Your school counselor can support your child better. They also have all of the data the independent counselor has. Also, please let your kid take the lead in some of this. They have to own the process a bit in order for this to work.

No! College AOs are not allowed to take phone calls from the school counselor nowadays. Please stop with this ill informed nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College admissions officers will take a phone call from a school counselor. They will not take a call from an independent one. Your school counselor can support your child better. They also have all of the data the independent counselor has. Also, please let your kid take the lead in some of this. They have to own the process a bit in order for this to work.

No! College AOs are not allowed to take phone calls from the school counselor nowadays. Please stop with this ill informed nonsense.

100% INCORRECT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on for what purpose. DC's college list should be determined between DC and CCO, I don't think private counselor should have a final say on the college list.

For essays, I don't see how a private outside counselor could make things worse.

Before junior year, you will occasionally need a private counselor when CCO has not been assigned to DC.

Final say on college list is neither CCO nor private counselor. We take the input from both and DC and parents have "final say." Got it?

Telling me you don't go to a private school without telling me.
School counselor will have to approve your list. If your snowflake put all T20 on the list without safeties and targets, it's an automatic no.

[Anonymous]

our private HS has 4 counselors for a class of 125 kids. It should be fine, but one of the 4 is really terrible. My kid got that guy.

BUT I'm a person on DCUM who knows what YCBK is. So I felt prepared to DIY. If I was working a job or had a complicated home life or something that didn't allow me to spend 50 hours getting up to speed on college admissions, I would have hired someone AND I would have not told the HS-based guy who really needed to be managed (luckily, I had a kid who understood the assignment with the counselor - asking for his opinion on schools, essays, etc so he would be liked and get a good letter. It was really a bullshit situation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on for what purpose. DC's college list should be determined between DC and CCO, I don't think private counselor should have a final say on the college list.

For essays, I don't see how a private outside counselor could make things worse.

Before junior year, you will occasionally need a private counselor when CCO has not been assigned to DC.

Final say on college list is neither CCO nor private counselor. We take the input from both and DC and parents have "final say." Got it?

Telling me you don't go to a private school without telling me.
School counselor will have to approve your list. If your snowflake put all T20 on the list without safeties and targets, it's an automatic no.

LOL, of course there will be targets and safeties. What I am saying is that neither counselor can tell us what and what not to put on the list. We decide this in the end. They can advise, but that is the extent of it. After all, the title is "college advisor."