Reply to Worth it's own post: The Harvard-Westlake college matriculation data!!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This data is amazing. Than you. What saddens me as a GDS parent is that they never once shared data like this with us. It was always a game to try to figure out the tone of the college counselor.

"What are my chances at XYZ?"
"Well if it's in your heart, you should apply"

WTF is that supposed to mean. We have no naviance. and they fall back on holistic review blah blah.

All I needed from the office is to tell me and my kid- should they apply to these schools and what's GDS historic record for unhooked kids in that GPA range.

We could never get a straight answer. It was always couched in feel good language.

I know GDS keeps such a list but they just don't share it w/ parents - even when direct questions are asked.

Are Sidwell/Potomac/Albans/NCS any better?

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Do you have access to previous students’ acceptance through SCOIR scattergrams? We are at a different school and found them directionally helpful to somewhat gauge reasonability of consideration. [/quote]

GDS does not allow students or families access to SCOIR scattergrams. CCO is not at all forthcoming with statistics, which severely erodes trust in the CCO. I do not understand how the CCO fails to grasp this. Transparency breeds trust.[/quote]

GDS process has been entirely - i mean entirely - lacking any data/stats. ZERO. They share no data w/ parents or kids.

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We were not happy with GDS college counseling this year. 
My son got into his first choice ED (not an ivy) but no thanks to his college counselor who tried to dissuade him from applying to his first choice school.
My suggestion is to hire a private counselor like so many folks at GDS do
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I totally agree. GDS parent here. Similar situation but kid did not apply ED. the counselor was just so far off the mark. I've heard from my kid that the kids all know that there is GREAT variability in the office. If you get the head of the office, at least she is capable. There's two others who are decent. And then there are two who are awful - by awful i mean unreachable for weeks. Off on school overnight trips as chaperones during peak application season or being grade dean - also a full time job.

What I also learned - GDS pays very very low wages to the CO staff. like way low. So they all need to supplement income by taking o these other side jobs at school which include overnoght trip chaperone w. the debate and other teams or being grade dean. Those jobs take up huge swaths of time.

I'm guessing way more than half - maybe 65% hire outside counselors. Problem is outside dont have enough sample size or data to know whether kids last 3 years from our school have gotten into certain colleges.

That said, our outside person was a great resource for kid to keep process organized. We also had an outside essay reader (as quite a few GDS families had) because the person GDS has for that read my kid's essay and said "looks good" - like no other comments. When I heard that I flipped out (because it needed a deep read). Kid said he heard the reader who GDS hired say in the office one day "if i have to read another of these student essays, I'll jump put a window"

I mean jesus christ. Then they promoted this person cycle in the fall to take on some kids as a full counselor because the other counselors were so stretched.

The office has been a litany of bad process, no data, and entire ack of transparency. They do these periodic morning parent zooms where they smile through non-answers.

I found them utterly worthless. Nice people who are all utterly worthless. Perhaps with the exception of the head of the office - but she must not believe in data so I'm not sure I should even be generous with her.

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