Do You Need an Independent Counselor?
The past few years have borne witness to a frenzied rush to gain acceptance to highly selective colleges, which in turn has spawned an entire industry of independent college counselors. In New York City, for example, these independent counselors often are paid extremely high consulting fees and are expected to work miracles for their clients. While I have spoken to many who do not really have the credentials or know-how to be truly effective, I have also met others who are very qualified to advise students and help them with the application process. To be fair, I have also met scores of extremely dedicated “public” counselors, the guidance counselors or college counselors who work for high schools and who in many cases are extremely knowledgeable and professional. When and under what circumstances, then, does it pay to invest in an independent counselor?
Before parents run out to find an independent counselor, they should make an effort to get to know the counselors at their child's high school, public or private. Many have years of experience and are tremendous resources. Sit down with the counselor early on in high school, ninth or tenth grade, and try to get a sense of how he envisions your child's college search, what kinds of colleges he thinks are realistic, and what advice he has for the college search in general. Does he have a time line for testing?
Does he have suggestions for course selections that will interest your child? It is a smart idea to get to know the counselor personally and to have a good working relationship, because the better the counselor knows your child, the more helpful his recommendation will be. As discussed earlier, the guidance counselor's letter of recommendation plays a key role because only the guidance counselor can provide insight as to where the student is ranked relative to the rest of his classmates and what teachers really think of him. This information is crucial to any application and is really not available to independent outside counselors, for how would they be aware of how the student was regarded by faculty and peers within the high school? There is simply no way for them to have access to that information.
Whether you decide to go to an independent counselor or not, you will need the high school counselor's help, for he will write the official high school letter of recommendation, so in no case should you alienate him from the process or tell him that you don't think he knows what he is talking about—even if that is what you happen to be thinking. I would also recommend the utmost discretion about the role of the independent counselor, because you will need to count on the high school counselor's official participation in your child's college admission process.
The most convincing reasons to hire an independent counselor would be (1) if the high school counselor seems under-qualified for the job; (2) if the high school counselor has such a huge caseload that he cannot possibly spend enough time advising your child; (3) if your child has special needs, such as learning disabilities; (4) if your child has exceptional talents in an area like art or music that requires a specialized knowledge of different kinds of colleges, such as conservatories or design schools.
When should you contact an independent counselor? If I were an independent counselor trying to help students gain admissions to the most competitive colleges in the country, I would want to start meeting with the student and his family as early as eighth or ninth grade to make sure he was getting on the right track in terms of course selection in high school, certainly no later than eleventh grade. By the time many students are ready to apply for college, hiring an independent counselor will probably be too late in the game to have a major effect.
This brings me to the function of an independent counselor. Once you have made the decision to hire an independent counselor, what should you expect? In my view, the main function of an independent counselor should be to sit down with the student long enough to see what it is the student is really interested in and what ambitions he has for college, and to look at his transcript and achievements and try to match the student's talents and goals with colleges that will be able to address the student's needs. What independent counselors should not be expected to do is to get students accepted by the top colleges in the country. Remember: Only the student himself catoget into college. There are no tricks, no shortcuts that will get a student admitted.
I have read all sorts of absurd claims by counselors, asserting they have gotten students accepted to certain colleges, but after having worked four years in admissions, I can tell you that for the most part, these stories are apocryphal. In fact, bad independent counselors can actually hurt a student's chance of admission by making the student look too “packaged,” to the point that admissions officers suspect that many others beside the student have had too much input into the application. Remember, a counselor cannot create talent or intelligence—this must come from the student. After all, you can take vanilla ice cream and dress it up with all sorts of hot fudge, nuts, sprinkles, and whipped cream, but underneath it all, you still have plain old vanilla ice cream.
The best counselors are those who are able to match the student to the most appropriate colleges, and to guide them along in the process so testing is done at the right time, essays are written well in advance, requests for recommendations are well thought out, and all possible contingencies are provided for. A good counselor will know from experience what kind of college the student is capable of getting into and will include a few “reach” colleges, some real possibilities, and at least one “safety” school in case not all goes well. They will guide the student through the long and sometimes tiresome process, but they will not write the essays for him or try to invent talents that are just not there.
The best counselors take a very low-profile stance and never call the colleges directly or write letters on the student's behalf. Contrary to what you might think, the ideal independent counselor should be invisible as far as colleges are concerned. As discussed, the highly selective colleges under no circumstances want to give a privileged student an advantage over a nonprivileged student. If anything, these colleges bend over backward to attract talented students from modest backgrounds who do not have the money to hire an independent counselor in the first place.
Parents should be aware that if admissions officers know that the student has had an independent counselor, it can have a negative impact on the student's application. The natural response would be, “Doesn't the student think he is good enough to get in on his own without paying for extra help?”
The worst thing the counselor can do is to write a letter of recommendation to colleges on his client's behalf. Think about it: Colleges know that you are paying a consultant, so in effect they know that you are buying his words of praise—therefore, his letter has no value. The only letters taken seriously are those that come from the high school or from others who have known the student well.
The same applies to phone calls pestering admissions officers for feedback. The truth is, almost all highly selective colleges will give early feedback regarding decisions to guidance counselors they have grown to trust over the years, but only in rare cases would they ever give this information to an independent counselor. Many highly selective colleges will not even accept phone calls from independent counselors. I used to have phone appointments wìth both public and private school counselors a few weeks before letters were sent out, during which time I would run down the list of applicants from their high schools, giving them a “likely,” “unlikely,” or “possible” for each student. I knew I could trust them, especially because those decisions are not always final, although they are a good indication. Rarely, if ever, did I give information to an independent counselor.