Reply to Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP - Just read your very thoughtful and useful post.  Do you have access to Naviance?  If you haven't done this yet, I would go on there and look at admissions statistics to the colleges you are interested in based on your child's stats at your school.  More generally, your complaint is not uncommon, and is one of the things I am always surprised other parents don't give more weight to this when applying to "Big X" schools.  When you are in a culture where expectations are you should attend H/Y/P/S/ etc., that is a lot of pressure and a recipe for disappointment to those that do not attend these schools.  Another thing you can do if you have doubts about the counselors advice is pay for a consult with an outside counselor if you can scrap together the money. Chances are that it won't help and will just waste money, but it might give you piece of mind.   It is also possible that at this point your counselor doesn't know how strong a student you have -- perhaps his teacher references should reach out to the counselor and talk to him/her about your son?

All that said. the reality is that H/Y/P/S -- add Columbia, UChicago, and several others -- only take 5-6% of applicants. If your child is first generation to go to college from a working class background, you should bring that up with the counselor -- all colleges give a boost to first generation kids.  Yes, it is possible that the counselor is steering certain kids to certain schools knowing those kids have legacy parents or will make big donations for years to come, but at the end of the day it is also possible that the counselor knows which kids with stronger stats than your DC will have the strongest recommendations from teachers or have done other things likely to increase their odds of admission.  At most DC privates, it is also not all about GPA but also class selection/rigor, and you can't tell that from an unweighted GPA. .  We just finished the process last year at another school (not a Big X).  What we found was that parents -- and kids -- who made extra appointments to talk to the counselors more than the minimum required tended to feel better about the process.  The counselors get to know you and the kids better and can do a better job. Might be tough with the distance from where you live or work requirements, but realistically that is what might help the most.  Good luck.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics