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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our kids' Big 3 counselor provided very little guidance.  What little guidance the counselor did offer was pretty useless because she didn't know them very well.  We put together a list of schools to visit and to apply to on our own.  Our kids, very reasonably, didn't want us to look at their essays.  Fortunately, we were able to ask a family friend with extensive professional experience as a writer and editor to look over the essays and give them some feedback (they didn't need a lot).  The director of admissions at my alma mater (to which the kids were not applying) was also very kind in responding to specific questions we had regarding recomendations.  It all worked out for our kids, but the credit should go to them, not the school.

That said, I wouldn't recommend hiring a private counselor.  I know only 1 family (from a public school) who hired a counselor and there didn't seem to be much that she contributed beyond what the parents and kid already knew.  They drew up their own list of schools to visit and apply to based on a little research and common sense.  (Fiske is a good place to start, then you can noodle around on websites.  Naviance is largely a waste of time IMHO.)  Their son rejected the counselor's advice -- she didn't know him and wanted to totally re-shape his essay.  It sounded like a waste of time and money.            [/quote]

Same here, my DD NCS alum, hardly received any guidance from her counselor.  The only thing the school did during the process is to upload their profile & a personalized narrative, her transcript, ap scores, and recs.  We as a family worked on her applications, made suggestions to her on essay prompts that would really emphasize who she is and helped her to discover the types of schools that would potentially be a pretty good fit.  Also, I read some books on how the college admission process works. She applied to her schools during regular decision and was accepted at a few ivies and several highly selective LACs.  NCS didn't contact any of the colleges that she applied to for feedback (DD was told this in around February by her counselor). Some of the girls that the school showcased as their very best, we learned, was provided this courtesy whether they applied early/regular decision.  Glad we didn't assume the counselor was a strong advocate for our daughter.[/quote]

To be fair, the "recs" would include the long, in-depth school counselor rec.  If it were not a good one, your daughter might not have had as good results, reasonable to say?

Not sure why you've got the bitterness that you seem to have, and the sense of competition towards other girls in your daughter's class that you seem to be exhibiting, given her terrific results?  [/quote]

Incorrect, the recs were from two teachers.  The counselor and admin assistant at the time explained exactly what was being sent.  The school submits their profile and a narrative on each girl based upon the answers from a questionnaire submitted by each student & their family.  The counselor

No bitterness just being honest.[/quote]

I promise you the counselor "form" is a very in-depth recommendation that pulls together SOME information from this student/family questionnaire, perhaps, but also weaves together years worth of teacher comments to paint a picture of the student.  Maybe at NCS they didn't want to emphasize that aspect for fear the parents would be all over them to lobby about the counselor rec, but every independent school does it that way and if it were not an excellent assessment (which I'm sure your daughter worked hard for and deserved 100% by the way) she probably would not have gotten those results.  [/quote]

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