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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m lost as to what the CCO has to do with your child not getting into college.
I assume Sidwell parents are highly educated and capable of researching college admissions.

Did you feel out the common app with your child and honestly believe some magic was happening that you weren’t involved in that guaranteed their admission to every college they applied for? 
Because, I’m thinking if you didn’t have the power to wil your child into Brown, the CCO sure didn’t either. [/quote]

The role of a good CCO is to provide real advice and counseling, based on their knowledge of the student and also their knowledge and perspective as an inside expert at the school who has insight into all aspects of Sidwell's college placement process--an insight that parents, by definition, cannot and do not have on their own. Sidwell's CCO does not provide any of that meaningful advice and counseling.

Of course they're not going to will anyone's kid into a particular school. But there is a huge chasm between that absurd strawman you have created, and a CCO that is just pushing paper and making sure that deadlines are met (which is about all that Sidwell's office actually does).[/quote]

They do this. It's just that many parents apparently don't want to or aren't willing to listen to what they are trying to tell you. and then fast forward a few months an you get a thread like this[/quote]

No, they did not and do not do this. At least, our counselor did not. And it has already been discussed that there is a huge variance among the four counselors as to what they do. Also, I don’t know what you are talking about when you say “fast forward a few months.” Lots of parents have been consistently pointing out for months that the CCO is terrible and does not provide any advice or counseling. And before you accuse me of some sort of sour grapes complaining, let me tell you that my kid got in to their #1 choice. That was no thanks to the CCO though.

Last point: if the CCO is so great, why is the conventional wisdom among upper school parents that you need to hire a private counselor? I can’t even count how many 9th-11th grade parents there are who have told me that they have been advised this by parents of older kids or recent graduates.[/quote]

I'm going to need an example of what you expected. As in, Larla goes into the office with you and hubby. She has a 3.7 at the end of the last trimester of her junior year. She's looking at the admissions process ahead.   You and your hubby explain she wants to study chemistry in college and both you and hubby graduated from MIT.

What are your expectations of this CCO?  Someone educate the parents of lesser private schools who don't have someone in this role.

[/quote]

CCO needs to explain that MIT is a reach+ that there is a 98 percent rejection rate, so even if it is a dream school, there is a hugh probability of not being accepted. And then, work through what it is about MIT the student likes. Is it Boston? Then there are 10 other schools in Boston to consider. is it Tech? Then there are scores of other Tech schools. Is it urban? Then look at other urban schools. Find the common thread and build  a list from there. Rochester, GT, VT, Rensealler, Michigan, Illinois - there are a lot of fantastic places where you can get similar.[/quote]

They. Do. This.

That you and your DC did not listen is no one's fault but your own.[/quote]

DP. It has been established pretty persuasively that, at minimum, not all the counselors do this. Not sure why you are talking about fault....

If you would like to share actual facts about your DC’s experience with their particular counselor, rather than just make conclusory assertions, by all means have at it. I think many of us would love to hear how your experience differed from ours, and could be the basis for some feedback to the CCO.[/quote]

DP. Nothing’s been established persuasively. Parents don’t attend every meeting with the CCO and their kids. They simply can’t know exactly what was said.  It’s common sense that different counselors have different styles and don’t follow exactly the same script. But my kids absolutely did get the kind of advice that some posters are saying the CCO isn’t providing. And I heard the same sort of advice in the meetings I attended, including the ones where they went over our kids’ prospective lists of schools.

Since this forum is all about anecdotes, I know some parents who didn’t listen and insisted their kids weren’t going to waste their time applying to “safeties.” Most did fine and some got burned. But everyone I know was forewarned. Maybe some others never got the memo, but from my vantage point, they are the aberration. Apart from the CCO, parents and kids need to educate themselves. By now, any minimal due diligence would show the large variance in gaining admission to any specific highly ranked school. It is such a part of the college admissions landscape today — front page articles about record applications and record low admissions rates — that you have to be willfully blind to not see it.[/quote]

You are applying an incredibly narrow lens on this issue. The question is not simply “were kids/parents advised by CCO to apply to safeties and did they listen?” If that’s all you think the CCO needs to do, it’s a pretty low bar. My critique of the CCO is not that they didn’t advise kids to apply to more safeties.[/quote]

My kids got the advice some posters are saying the CCO doesn’t provide. Didn’t you attend a mtg with the CCO where they went over your kids’ prospective college list? During those meetings, they went through each college on our list, showed us the Naviance charts, and made comments/suggestions, including others to consider were like X or Y school. They put them into categories (High Reach, Reach, Target).  They didn’t handicap odds at any school (for obvious reasons) but strongly recommended a balanced list with a certain number of schools in each category. They answered all of our questions.

Didn’t they do that in your meetings?  If not, didn’t you have the chance to ask them precisely those questions?  If you did, are you saying they simply didn’t answer?[/quote]

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