HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELOR
DEFINITION OF COUNSELOR RELATIONSHIPS and the admissions process
A school counselor, also
called guidance counselor, college advisor or college
counselor, is a person hired by a school to provide a
variety of functions ranging from scheduling classes,
taking care of disciplinary issues and counseling students
about college admissions.
Some counselors at large public high schools perform
all of those functions and are responsible for as many
as 250 to 500 students. Private high schools often have
college counselors on their staffs whose sole job it is to
take care of college admissions.
Regardless of their responsibilities, school counselors
are the people who complete the part of the college app-
lication called the Secondary School Report/School
Counselor form, and often write scholarship recommendation letters.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Admission officers pay close attention to counselor recommendations. More importantly, when college admissions officers have questions about students and/or their applications, it is the high school counselor who they call.
adMISSION POSSIBLE® TIP! Because counselors often serve large numbers of students, you need to make yourself stand out from the crowd. Because he or she is an important resource to you, it is critical that you begin developing a relationship with the school counselor early in your high school career. By the time you begin sending in college applications, you want this person to be your admissions advocate.
COLLEGE COUNSELORS HAVE VARIED BACKGROUNDS
The training, admissions knowledge, and accessibility of college counselors is unbelievably varied. Many public school counselors have been teachers at one time or another, and are required to have a Master’s Degree in Counseling. However, one of the unknown facts about Masters in Counseling is that there is little or nothing in the curriculum about college admissions. While some information is available through college and/or professional workshops, most people learn about college admissions by simply doing it. Private school college counselors are not required to have Master’s Degrees in Counseling; some do, but many don’t.
