Reply to Senior parents at Sidwell/GDS/NCS/STA; are you happy with college results?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We found college counseling at GDS to be hit-or-miss — its value very much depended on the counselor the kid was working with. Overall, though my kid is happy with the ultimate result, it was a bumpy process and I do think the office failed to provide consistently good guidance in a couple areas (namely, school selection and essay topic selection). [b]Among other things, there was what I felt to be an undue focus on what they call “foundational” schools, and what the rest of us call safety schools.[/b] Even though our child was admitted early to a safety school that he would have been happy with, they insisted that he still apply to other safety schools rather than use those those slots for reaches or hard targets. GDS limits the number of applications a student can submit, so this had a real impact.[/quote]

I'm sure this is because there are so many parents who have an inflated sense of where their kid could or should get in.  My kids are (were) at another Big3 and we're on our second rising senior. With our first I knew so many kids who tried to ED to an Ivy with grades that were completely out of range. (Range frankly being a 3.8+ even with legacy, etc).  But there are a gazillion legacies (or non-legacies) who think they're going to make it in with lesser grades. The reality is that they don't.  Legacy may give you a 0.1 bump in GPA. t's not going to compensate for a 3.6 unless you are literally donating 6 figures.  So college counseling exists to continually bring peoples' feet back down to earth. And they don't want the inevitable crisis when the kid doesn't get in anywhere or to only their 4th choice safety.[/quote]

Yeah, I get it. It just makes less sense when your kid has already been accepted to a safety school they’d be satisfied with, and they are deciding what additional schools to apply to.[/quote]

yeah, that's just odd. [/quote]

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