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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What is experience of people at maret and Sidwell? We are considering these for our kids. Thanks. [/quote]

Honestly, all of the independent schools basically have a similar set-up.  Good ratios of counselors to student.  Use of the Naviance database to show families where their kid stacks up on the numbers compared to recent grads of the same independent school in terms of success applying to any given college.  The college counselor statement will be a lengthy narrative that draws extensively on the detailed written teacher comments for the student throughout the high school years.  Generally there are workshops on essay writing and the college counselors will comment/give feedback on essays.

All of this sounds great to me, a public school grad with a very good but overworked guidance counselor who had, say 150 students as his caseload, and who didn't have time to proofread or comment on college essays.

If you are curious, I would first start at a school's web site and see if they describe their approach or have a timeline -- many do.  Then -- if you get into a school as highly selective as either Maret or Sidwell -- there is plenty of time to find out more about college counseling by talking to other families.

Even with the much greater transparency of the process now (access to things like Naviance; NY Times coverage of the process; acceptance ratios; yield numbers; tell-all books by former college admissions officers), many parents seem to default reflexively to what it was like when we applied to college.  Very understandable.  However, if you do some background reading, you'll see that insiders really do believe there's been a sea change, for all the reasons discussed (Common App; internet democratization of application process; robust international competition for undergrad slots; colleges playing to the U.S. News & World ranking system).  To pick just one example, liberal arts colleges are far more likely to put large numbers of very good students on waiting lists these days.  That allows them to lower their acceptance rate -- a key element in the ratings system -- and then pull kids off the waiting list (and oh, by the way, even at need blind schools generally the waitings list admissions are NOT need-blind).  30 years ago, even 15 years ago, you didn't see a very qualified kid with 5-6 WL results, but it's not uncommon now.

It's worth doing the research, even if it gives you a little bit of heartburn.  It will save you and your child angst in the long run and probably as a by-produce not think that the college counselor doesn't know your kid, or care about your kid, or is under-selling your kid.  [/quote]

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