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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I agree with your post. At the privates -- students may be fractions of a point away from each other with respect to grades. If the college counselor knows that Suzie has a 4.23 and Jennie has a 4.15 -- she will probably push for Suzie...even though Jennie might be a fit as well. I know of a case this year at a very elite private that the college counsellor told a girl she really wanted this other girl to get the Stanford spot. The girl who ended getting the Stanford "spot" was a recruited athlete whereas the girl with slightly higher grades didn't have the sports component to "her package". The girl who was selected for Stanford told me about it and felt really badly that the college counselor made her feel like "second best" and somehow undeserving of Stanford. It is the colleges and not the college counsellors who pick who they want. Sometimes the college counsellors resent this and try to steer potential candidates away from even applying knowing they might be the one selected. We found the college counsellors tried to suck up to some of the prominent parents and could care less about the "nobodies". It really didn't have to do as much with the actual students.

I'm not "bashing" college counselors but stating that college counselors often do discourage a student from applying to a college in which he/she may be interested, even if the student may "be competitive," i.e. have a good chance of admission to that college, because the school is prepared to support strongly only a certain number of students' applications to that college. Your hypothetical Sally can, of course, still apply to that college, but she will not have the school counselor's strongest advocacy for her application. The strongest advocacy will be reserved for the students who the school or the counselor thinks has the best chances and wishes to support most strongly. This is the reality of how it works. I do not state anywhere in my posts that this ia a bad thing; therefore I am not "bashing," as you call it.[/quote]

Also, to answer your question about how I know that this does not apply just to my college: in my training and my work I have talked to a lot of people in admissions from not only my college but also other colleges. Everyone knows and talks about the triage of each school's "going to bat" for certain students but discouraging other students that may have a good shot but are not as strong. [/quote][/quote]
I went to an Ivy. If I had not applied b/c my moronic counsellor had told me not to. Well, I woulld not have gotten in. Why let someone else discourage you? They were forever telling me was "only for the very best students" not me. How surprising when the fat letter came.[/quote]

From reading both your posts, it seems to me that no one should worry too much about college counselors discouraging students, or about counselors failing to "go to bat" for certain students.  In your posts, you both have close personal experience with qualified students being admitted despite the fact that the college counselor discouraged them and didn't "got to bat" for them either.  Seems like the college counselor doesn't have nearly as much influence on admissions as you seem to fear.

I'm sure some counselors might have inappropriate influence over [i]students[/i], and some students might fail to apply for a desired college because of what a counselor said.  Indeed, I myself was told by my college counselor not to bother applying to several colleges where I was admitted.  But that problem seems to stem from (1) the college counselor doesn't know the student well enough, (2) the college counselor doesn't have a good grasp of the admissions landscape, and (3) the student allows herself to be controlled by the counselor.  If the counselor stinks, that's a problem.  But the more important lesson (to me at least) is that students need to be strong enough to make their own decisions, and not blindly follow advice they feel is incorrect.[/quote]

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