Reply to Big College Admissions Year at St. Albans

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DD graduated from a local private school and our view was that the college counselors helped with 1)providing data on what the school's admission history was with a particular college 2) helping with the transcript/recommendation process 3) helping brainstorm essays (but no help in editing them, as we discovered at about 11:30 pm before one midnight deadline) 4) writing a good recommendation.

They were not much help in identifying schools, my DD did that on her own and the ones they suggested she hated.  I don't think they did any calling/cajoling in the admissions process, although they may have met with the admissions reps when they were on campus.  But those visits were early in the process and most kids had not settled on their application list at that point.  It is not clear to me that they were any help in the WL process and my DD was WLed at her two top choices.

I understand at some schools the counselors strongly discourage some kids from applying to some of the top schools if they think they can't get in.  Our school did not do that, although they did help to identify reach schools.[/quote]

I don't think any counselors actually edit the essays (that would be a pretty crazy task, if you think of it), although at ours they read drafts and gave helpful oral feedback and did a good job of keeping kids on track so that they weren't procrastinating and writing crappy essays the night before (although a few probably did anyway).  They are good about suggesting good options tied to the students' interests (engineering, or niche arts programs, etc.).  They are candid about what are reach schools but kids can still apply if they really want to.

I really liked the former college admissions poster's point about needing to make sure you value the private school for the educational experience while you are there.  If you think it's all about the college admissions I think people are almost bound to be disappointed, given the hyper-selectivity of many colleges these days.
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