Independent college admission counselor (degree, med school, highest, scholarship)

[rm7717]

My son will be starting his Junior year in a North Dallas High School. He is highly interested in getting into Pre-med courses locally here in the area. His school did offer a dual credit program at a local community college but unfortunately his Lazy school counselor messed up the enrollment deadline dates and made him miss the sign-up date. I was wondering if hiring an independent College admission counselor worth the money. It appears to be very expensive but wanted to know if anyone had any insights on their services and had a recommendation for a counselor.

[BlueAbiqua]

https://www.iecaonline.com/


Have you seen this website? I feel for you. Most high school counselors do the bare minimum to keep their jobs.

[MI-Roger]

High School Counselors are responsible for addressing:

• Teen-aged pregnancies
• Homelessness
• Physical and Sexual Abuse in the Home
• Gang Affiliations
• Eating Disorders
• Failing Students
• Truancy
• etc.

Unfortunately, the kids who have their stuff together, live in stable home environments, and are working toward a future goal, need the least assistance and therefore receive the minimum attention from HS Counselors.

The School where i obtained my Graduate degree offers a $25,000 per year scholarship to one incoming freshman student from every participating high school, awarded in their Junior Year of HS before the mad rush of college visits and applications. We pushed to have our local HS become a participant so local students could benefit from this scholarship. It has been awarded exactly twice in 20 years! I cannot get the HS School Counselors to add this Scholarship to the list of college funding sources published on the School web site.

(p.s. The school is one which offers a 6-7 year accelerated BS/MD program)

It will fall upon your son and you to track the dates for applications to all of his desired programs and Colleges.

45+ years ago I had a Counselor tell me I had zero chance at being accepted at a top Engineering School because a student from my same High School had been accepted by this college the previous year.

He was wrong. I got accepted to the college and graduated on schedule. The student one year ahead of me dropped out.

[RamenAddict]

Originally Posted by MI-Roger

High School Counselors are responsible for addressing:

• Teen-aged pregnancies
• Homelessness
• Physical and Sexual Abuse in the Home
• Gang Affiliations
• Eating Disorders
• Failing Students
• Truancy
• etc.

Unfortunately, the kids who have their stuff together, live in stable home environments, and are working toward a future goal, need the least assistance and therefore receive the minimum attention from HS Counselors.

The School where i obtained my Graduate degree offers a $25,000 per year scholarship to one incoming freshman student from every participating high school, awarded in their Junior Year of HS before the mad rush of college visits and applications. We pushed to have our local HS become a participant so local students could benefit from this scholarship. It has been awarded exactly twice in 20 years! I cannot get the HS School Counselors to add this Scholarship to the list of college funding sources published on the School web site.

(p.s. The school is one which offers a 6-7 year accelerated BS/MD program)

It will fall upon your son and you to track the dates for applications to all of his desired programs and Colleges.

45+ years ago I had a Counselor tell me I had zero chance at being accepted at a top Engineering School because a student from my same High School had been accepted by this college the previous year.

He was wrong. I got accepted to the college and graduated on schedule. The student one year ahead of me dropped out.

BS/MD programs are insanely competitive and have been for years. FWIW, I finished high school 25 years ago, and even then it was out of control. I was in a magnet program and we had lots of kids in my class trying to get into the one program in my state and the related antics were ridiculous. We did have at least two make it, and a few others went to med school outside the program. I tutored SATs later for kids in the same magnet and kids were taking secret online classes to get the highest GPAs. This was still about 15 years ago.

In the magnet program, the guidance counselor was more college oriented, but even she did not know about all the programs/scholarships out there. There was no way she would. It is just too much because we still had just one for 500 kids, 1/4 of whom were in the application process. They were excellent about making sure we all qualified for the state scholarship program and all applied to a state school (even if we did not want to) to make sure we had an option with good financial aid. At that time, all students in my magnet program pretty much got a full scholarship by default. However, she had no knowledge of smaller/lesser known schools.

How good your school’s counselor is will depend on the school and the population. If it is a school that has a lot of kids going off to college, the counselor may no more. If it is a school that has a variety of problems, which it sounds like it is more likely (I seriously doubt she is lazy—- they have so much on their plates), the private route might be worth it.