Reply to Discriminatory College Advising @ Big 3

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[quote=Anonymous]The part that seems to really gall many readers on this forum is that you're making a complaint that many parents feel - that the school doesn't know how special their child is - and that you immediately jump to discrimination.  As a person of color, I know that sometimes things just don't smell right. But, at the same time, remember that it is really hard to go through life feeling put upon and bitter and suspicious all the time. Schools just don't have any incentive to "save" slots at elite schools since they don't have any such thing. The college counselor's goal is to make sure everyone is happy with where they end up and right-sizing expectations is a big part of their job. If anything, the income gap between faculty/staff and students/families at elite privates is pretty big and staff/faculty have a real tendency to cheer for underdogs over the trust funders. 
All your child's classmates are great in their own way, and your child need to stand out from his/her classmates for college admissions at the very top. More importantly than the test scores, ask yourself is whether your child took the most rigorous classes available at the school? GPA alone can be very misleading at the selective private schools because their requirements are so flexible. It is quite possible for students to skate through with relatively easy classes and their GPA is not comparable to a classmate taking post-calculus math, post-AP sciences, multiple college-level English electives, and a deep independent history research project. The college advisor has no power over you or your decisions. They are there to offer counseling and information to help you through the process. The teachers at the school can be very influential through their recommendations, but the advisor does not write those. Are your teachers going to say that your child stands head and shoulders above her classmates? If so, ignore the advisor and plow ahead.  Just make sure you have a safety. Also, there are a number of non-profits in the area that are geared toward helping underrepresented students into college. Reach out to them and see if you can find some useful advice since you're uncomfortable with the school's.
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