Any Parents Privately Disappointed with College Placement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stow the sour grapes, people--it is about grades and scores, or a hook such as legacy status or varsity athletic potential at the collegiate level. It is just ludicrous to assume there are lots of students dissuaded from applying to Harvard who otherwise would have gotten in. We don't know what we think we "know" about college admissions as parents, because the landscape has changed so much since our time.

17:26 here. I was writing from experience as an alumna interviewer for one of the top schools. For me it's not sour grapes, as my children have not gone through the college-application process and I myself got into all the colleges to which applied (and that was a different world then, as we know).

How, then, would you know how much a given college counselor works with any kid not applying to your alma mater? And as for "discouraging" applications to a school, it is part of the cc's job to give unvarnished advice--along the lines of "Sally would not be competitive for admission to Ivy U.". I sm surprised that as someone purporting to be part of the official process you would join in the college counselor bashing.

I'm not "bashing" college counselors but stating that college counselors often do discourage a student from applying to a college in which he/she may be interested, even if the student may "be competitive," i.e. have a good chance of admission to that college, because the school is prepared to support strongly only a certain number of students' applications to that college. Your hypothetical Sally can, of course, still apply to that college, but she will not have the school counselor's strongest advocacy for her application. The strongest advocacy will be reserved for the students who the school or the counselor thinks has the best chances and wishes to support most strongly. This is the reality of how it works. I do not state anywhere in my posts that this ia a bad thing; therefore I am not "bashing," as you call it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stow the sour grapes, people--it is about grades and scores, or a hook such as legacy status or varsity athletic potential at the collegiate level. It is just ludicrous to assume there are lots of students dissuaded from applying to Harvard who otherwise would have gotten in. We don't know what we think we "know" about college admissions as parents, because the landscape has changed so much since our time.

17:26 here. I was writing from experience as an alumna interviewer for one of the top schools. For me it's not sour grapes, as my children have not gone through the college-application process and I myself got into all the colleges to which applied (and that was a different world then, as we know).

How, then, would you know how much a given college counselor works with any kid not applying to your alma mater? And as for "discouraging" applications to a school, it is part of the cc's job to give unvarnished advice--along the lines of "Sally would not be competitive for admission to Ivy U.". I sm surprised that as someone purporting to be part of the official process you would join in the college counselor bashing.

I'm not "bashing" college counselors but stating that college counselors often do discourage a student from applying to a college in which he/she may be interested, even if the student may "be competitive," i.e. have a good chance of admission to that college, because the school is prepared to support strongly only a certain number of students' applications to that college. Your hypothetical Sally can, of course, still apply to that college, but she will not have the school counselor's strongest advocacy for her application. The strongest advocacy will be reserved for the students who the school or the counselor thinks has the best chances and wishes to support most strongly. This is the reality of how it works. I do not state anywhere in my posts that this ia a bad thing; therefore I am not "bashing," as you call it.

Also, to answer your question about how I know that this does not apply just to my college: in my training and my work I have talked to a lot of people in admissions from not only my college but also other colleges. Everyone knows and talks about the triage of each school's "going to bat" for certain students but discouraging other students that may have a good shot but are not as strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No time is spent on the bottom 80% other than the college counsellors disuading them from applying to any good schools.

Just went through the process and this is absolutely true from our experience and several parents at the school who I've talked to, glad we didn't depend on our counselor for much else beyond transmitting transcripts & recs.

17:26, your first post said "not only is the above post true" before going on to add your point about ccs dissuading apps. So yes, I include you as a college counselor "basher".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No time is spent on the bottom 80% other than the college counsellors disuading them from applying to any good schools.

Just went through the process and this is absolutely true from our experience and several parents at the school who I've talked to, glad we didn't depend on our counselor for much else beyond transmitting transcripts & recs.

17:26, your first post said "not only is the above post true" before going on to add your point about ccs dissuading apps. So yes, I include you as a college counselor "basher".

You are free to characterize my statements as you wish. I stand behind the content of my posts. Take them for what you will.

[Anonymous]

Well don't endorse a jerky anti- college counselor post then get all huffy about it--if you weren't agreeing with the statement that ccs do not help 80% of the students, just say so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well don't endorse a jerky anti- college counselor post then get all huffy about it--if you weren't agreeing with the statement that ccs do not help 80% of the students, just say so.

I do not think any reasonable person would take literally the adolescent hyperbole of PP's words ("No time is spent ont eh bottom 80% other than . . . .").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well don't endorse a jerky anti- college counselor post then get all huffy about it--if you weren't agreeing with the statement that ccs do not help 80% of the students, just say so.

I do not think any reasonable person would take literally the adolescent hyperbole of PP's words ("No time is spent ont eh bottom 80% other than . . . .").

Sorry. I must proofread more. The quotation from the PP should read, "No time is spent on the bottom 80% other than . . . ."

[Anonymous]

Lots of people jumped on and agreed! Although it is a silly and hyperbolic statement.

[Anonymous]

I agree with your post. At the privates -- students may be fractions of a point away from each other with respect to grades. If the college counselor knows that Suzie has a 4.23 and Jennie has a 4.15 -- she will probably push for Suzie...even though Jennie might be a fit as well. I know of a case this year at a very elite private that the college counsellor told a girl she really wanted this other girl to get the Stanford spot. The girl who ended getting the Stanford "spot" was a recruited athlete whereas the girl with slightly higher grades didn't have the sports component to "her package". The girl who was selected for Stanford told me about it and felt really badly that the college counselor made her feel like "second best" and somehow undeserving of Stanford. It is the colleges and not the college counsellors who pick who they want. Sometimes the college counsellors resent this and try to steer potential candidates away from even applying knowing they might be the one selected. We found the college counsellors tried to suck up to some of the prominent parents and could care less about the "nobodies". It really didn't have to do as much with the actual students.


I'm not "bashing" college counselors but stating that college counselors often do discourage a student from applying to a college in which he/she may be interested, even if the student may "be competitive," i.e. have a good chance of admission to that college, because the school is prepared to support strongly only a certain number of students' applications to that college. Your hypothetical Sally can, of course, still apply to that college, but she will not have the school counselor's strongest advocacy for her application. The strongest advocacy will be reserved for the students who the school or the counselor thinks has the best chances and wishes to support most strongly. This is the reality of how it works. I do not state anywhere in my posts that this ia a bad thing; therefore I am not "bashing," as you call it.

Also, to answer your question about how I know that this does not apply just to my college: in my training and my work I have talked to a lot of people in admissions from not only my college but also other colleges. Everyone knows and talks about the triage of each school's "going to bat" for certain students but discouraging other students that may have a good shot but are not as strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I agree with your post. At the privates -- students may be fractions of a point away from each other with respect to grades. If the college counselor knows that Suzie has a 4.23 and Jennie has a 4.15 -- she will probably push for Suzie...even though Jennie might be a fit as well. I know of a case this year at a very elite private that the college counsellor told a girl she really wanted this other girl to get the Stanford spot. The girl who ended getting the Stanford "spot" was a recruited athlete whereas the girl with slightly higher grades didn't have the sports component to "her package". The girl who was selected for Stanford told me about it and felt really badly that the college counselor made her feel like "second best" and somehow undeserving of Stanford. It is the colleges and not the college counsellors who pick who they want. Sometimes the college counsellors resent this and try to steer potential candidates away from even applying knowing they might be the one selected. We found the college counsellors tried to suck up to some of the prominent parents and could care less about the "nobodies". It really didn't have to do as much with the actual students.


I'm not "bashing" college counselors but stating that college counselors often do discourage a student from applying to a college in which he/she may be interested, even if the student may "be competitive," i.e. have a good chance of admission to that college, because the school is prepared to support strongly only a certain number of students' applications to that college. Your hypothetical Sally can, of course, still apply to that college, but she will not have the school counselor's strongest advocacy for her application. The strongest advocacy will be reserved for the students who the school or the counselor thinks has the best chances and wishes to support most strongly. This is the reality of how it works. I do not state anywhere in my posts that this ia a bad thing; therefore I am not "bashing," as you call it.

Also, to answer your question about how I know that this does not apply just to my college: in my training and my work I have talked to a lot of people in admissions from not only my college but also other colleges. Everyone knows and talks about the triage of each school's "going to bat" for certain students but discouraging other students that may have a good shot but are not as strong.


This sounds familiarly like this year's admissions drama at NCS.

[Anonymous]

That's interesting pp -- because I wasn't talking about NCS. I have heard it goes on at many of the elite privates especially where large donors are involved.

[Anonymous]

Very cynical viewpoint and not fair to the hard-working professionals at these schools. It's why Head of School, Athletic Director, and College Counselor are the three hardest jobs in the independent school world. In a college counselor's case, if the kid gets in the kid gets the credit (as he/she should), but if there is an Admissions disappointment it is incompetence or favoritism on the part of the college counselor. With that said, I will fold my tent--it's a tough job I'm glad I don't have to do it!

[Anonymous]

I'm so glad I'm only worried about getting my kid in where there's a good fit for her. This country has a wonderful diversity of good colleges and universities. We should appreciate that and be glad there are all those opportunities out there.

[Anonymous]

My college counselor at a local competitive high school advised me to apply only to second tier schools (good schools, but not top tier) because that's where she said I would best fit in. And she explicitly told me that she could contact those schools on my behalf, but that if I wanted to apply to some of the other schools on my list, I needed to know ahead of time that the school could only in earnest support a small number of applications to those schools and I would not be one of them. So I applied early to Harvard, got in, and never heard so much as a congratulations from the counselor, though I did see her many time through the rest of my senior year. Harvard turned out to be a great fit, and I did well enough to go to the grad school of my choice. A happy ending for me, but a few friends from high school actually bought into her crap and applied only to schools that they were pretty assured of being accepted at (no reaches). It's hard to believe my parents paid for that advice.

[Anonymous]

amen sister!