Excellent, private school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Completely useless to the point of detrimental. She has a son one grade or two ahead of DS. Her son goes to Rutgers. My son vehemently hates New Jersey. She kept encouraging him to go to Rutgers, even after he said he will never in his entire life spend the night in New Jersey let alone attend school there. Besides that, he was considering schools like Boston U, Cornell, Berkeley, Duke, etc.

Unfortunate, that counselor was swayed by what sounds like her son's good experience at Rutgers. But interesting that a 17-18-year old can hate a state so vehemently that he wouldn't even spend the night there. Really???? Sounds a little close-minded.

Agree. So he wouldn't consider Princeton because it is located in NJ (in a particularly nice part of NJ for that matter).

Rutgers is probably better than Boston U.

Anonymous wrote:Completely useless to the point of detrimental. She has a son one grade or two ahead of DS. Her son goes to Rutgers. My son vehemently hates New Jersey. She kept encouraging him to go to Rutgers, even after he said he will never in his entire life spend the night in New Jersey let alone attend school there. Besides that, he was considering schools like Boston U, Cornell, Berkeley, Duke, etc.

Unfortunate, that counselor was swayed by what sounds like her son's good experience at Rutgers. But interesting that a 17-18-year old can hate a state so vehemently that he wouldn't even spend the night there. Really???? Sounds a little close-minded.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^to be fair to the counselors, I'd venture that you need to tell them if you're looking for financial aid. They can't and shouldn't assume that.

Which is why she said she was 'shut out'...no opportunity to sit with the counselor and discuss the parent's frame of reference...it was student-led with the resulting disappointment. Of course, disappointment is integral to the college application process but in my DC's public school, the counselor specifically asked if we had run the NPC's for schools on the wish-list, and directed us to a few schools with merit-based aid when I said we were a full-pay situation

The process should be student-led. Too bad the kid wasn't informed what sort of the financial contribution his parents were in a position to make.

Anonymous wrote:Just curious how helpful the guidance counselors are with college prep? As we decide between high schools, I just want to get an idea about how much help (if any?) my son will get, esp since some of the private college counselors seem so pricey. We are deciding between public in NoVA and Catholic.

I'd say the 4k for a private counselor will be less than 4 years of private school. But I'd not pay that either, unless you think that the parent-child relationship would be damaged by the frustrations of the application process. My DC has been awful about completing essays and following up with needed interviews etc

Seriously consider doing your own research. Find out what your child's goals are and look for the best school with the best program for that subject. Then find about thirty others that are reasonably good.Councilor was a glorified secretary at my D's big three. We did all research, all pruning and all advising. Unless your child is one of only ten, you are on your own. You must be prepared to advocate for what your child wants but you must be realistic and knowledgeable.

Completely useless to the point of detrimental. She has a son one grade or two ahead of DS. Her son goes to Rutgers. My son vehemently hates New Jersey. She kept encouraging him to go to Rutgers, even after he said he will never in his entire life spend the night in New Jersey let alone attend school there. Besides that, he was considering schools like Boston U, Cornell, Berkeley, Duke, etc.

Op, do not base your HS choice on college counseling. That's just punting the ball. Learn about it yourself. You've got time. And no one knows your child better than you.

Anonymous wrote:One thing we learned the hard way about merit and being nominated for merit is that many times it means you cannot apply ED to a school. It might seem obvious to some but we were not told and after DC applied early the counselor said that if DC had not applied early decision would have been nominated for x,y and z. And we told the counselor ahead of this that we were looking for merit $. It's a complicated process with aid.

yes, the process is insane. Some schools have early deadlines to be considered for merit aid, some consider all kids equally...looking around the web, one ED school is already interviewing potential Scholarship candidates (from the ED pool?) while my DC is still waiting admission results

Anonymous wrote:^^to be fair to the counselors, I'd venture that you need to tell them if you're looking for financial aid. They can't and shouldn't assume that.

Which is why she said she was 'shut out'...no opportunity to sit with the counselor and discuss the parent's frame of reference...it was student-led with the resulting disappointment. Of course, disappointment is integral to the college application process but in my DC's public school, the counselor specifically asked if we had run the NPC's for schools on the wish-list, and directed us to a few schools with merit-based aid when I said we were a full-pay situation

One thing we learned the hard way about merit and being nominated for merit is that many times it means you cannot apply ED to a school. It might seem obvious to some but we were not told and after DC applied early the counselor said that if DC had not applied early decision would have been nominated for x,y and z. And we told the counselor ahead of this that we were looking for merit $. It's a complicated process with aid.

^^to be fair to the counselors, I'd venture that you need to tell them if you're looking for financial aid. They can't and shouldn't assume that.

FWIW, a colleague of mine had her son in a well-regarded small local catholic high school. She complained that she felt shut out of the college guidance process, and her son ended up accepted to a small handful of schools with no financial aid, so she sent him to college park....she said the guidance office didn't even consider the potential for need or merit based aid when helping her 17yo make a list, only prestige

OP here. Thanks for all the responses. It may be premature to be worrying about counseling, but good to have my expectations in check going into the process. For those who went the private route...did you feel it was helpful to hire someone to advise throughout the process or just someone to help with essays and motivation? I feel like the cost differential for outside help is enormous.

Anonymous wrote:Nothing. FCPS. Langley High.

No recommendation? No sending of transcript?