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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was recently talking to an admissions officer from a fairly selective university (but not Ivy or T20 or anything) who told me it's best for kids to meet with a counselor starting in 8th grade to ensure their high school academic choices are on track. I pointed out that most middle schools don't offer this, and he replied that in that case, hiring a private counselor is suggested. This is insane, right?  [/quote]

Not really needed if you have a driven kid and you (the parent) are willing to help guide them.  A little research tells you the following:

Kid will need 2 year Foreign lang for many schools, if aiming for Top schools 3-4 is needed

Take the most advanced Math/Science your kid can handle, but don't overload them.

If kid is STEM focused/interested, then encourage a few CS courses (they will need them in college, and it might spark an interest in Robotics or some EC in HS)

But in reality, if you are a college educated parent, you can easily research what your 9th grader needs.

That being said, our College counselor charges a FLat rate for 10 hours (and you pay hourly for more)  or a Flat rate for ALL 4 years.  That was only $4K.  We didn't start until Jan junior year, but you really get your money worth if you start in 9th.  That being said, I managed kid 1 completely myself (they ended up at a T100, we knew they were not T50 material so I'm smart enough to manage their college process).  Kid 2 was T25 material, definately T50.  So we hired a counselor to help (and motivate the world's biggest procrastinator). They recommended SAT tutor, who was 1-1 and had the "best score" within 4 hours of tutoring.

So if you select one for all of HS, just know it should be low key.  My mantra is "let your kid enjoy HS.  DOn't make them do an EC or AP/IB courses that they don't really want to do".

For us, my kid focused on their EC (20+ hours/week of dancing) and STEM APs and skipped the AP FL and AP ENG/APUSH.  Might have been why they got WL at T20s, might not.  But in end their top 2 school choices in April BOTH do NOT allow AP credits for the "Core Curriculum" which meant my kid wasn't getting college credit for AP Eng or APUSH and that would have been only reason they were considering taking them
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