College counseling

[Anonymous]

Use the directory at www.iecaonline.com to find a good one in the area. These people had to go through a formal application process that is more stringent than the ones listed on NACAC. These will be the stronger of the local counselors.

[Anonymous]

Let me give a couple of examples and some of it is really that the college admissions world is very closed and what you are buying is expertise and insight into that world. One caveat I will give is that we worked with our counselor starting junior year:

- Getting to know my kid to determine best fit and giving an unvarnished opinion about chances for acceptance to particular schools. A good independent counselor will visit colleges throughout the year and have a ton of insights and make solid recommendations. Our list was 9 schools that fit DC and it included a financial safety that DC got into early on. I can confidently say we would not have had that school on our list.
-Strategizing around ED, EA, ED1 and ED2.
-Pushing DC to reach out to and connect with admissions officers so they would know DC's name, without being annoying or pushy.
- Helping DC uncover his personal story - this drives the essay and prep for interviews.
- Connecting with our high school counselor to make sure high school deadlines were met.
- Regimented process and getting apps in early. All applications were in by November 1.
- Streamlining the number of extra-curriculars presented to help AOs visualize how DC would fit.
- I'll just say re:essays you may be good at editing, but a good counselor has reviewed hundreds of college admission essays and can help your kid come up with the focus of their essay that is the best representation of themselves. It's not the same as editing. These are personal statements and some high school students struggle with it because it's a very different type of writing style. It helps a lot if your kid is a strong writer.

I'll just add that DC did bring a lot to the table - lots of hard work, some unique extra-curriculars and very strong academically. However, I'm not confident we would have had the same result if we did this on our own. Hopefully that helps.

PP, thank you for posting the examples above of things with which a college counselor can help. Did you use Marks?