When good kids get bad advice on college

In his sophomore year, this man's son was told that his 83 average and 1200 SAT scores left him no chance of admission to a four-year college. His counselor advised him to look into a community college or technical school.

"The GC was not totally wrong," his father wrote on the discussion board. "Our kid applied to 19 colleges and our son knew as well as we that he stood almost no chance of getting into 15 of them."

In the end, however, the young man was admitted to five schools - including highly ranked Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., which he plans to attend.

Sometimes counselors simply don't understand student ambitions.

At Derby High School, a 2,400-student suburban school in Kansas, Logan Runyon faced skepticism and resistance when he expressed interest in out-of-state colleges.

Logan's transcript was packed with challenging college prep courses. He graduated with a 3.98 GPA, and had earned a 1460 on the SAT. He wanted to go to the kind of prestigious school where such numbers would be the norm.

But for his counselors, "a postsecondary education, whether it's gotten at Butler Community College or at Duke, is the same," says Logan's mother, Karen.

Undeterred by his counselors' lack of enthusiasm, Logan aimed at some of the country's most selective schools and was accepted at several, including his dream school, Duke University in Durham, N.C., where he ended up enrolling.

But for every counselor who offers unfortunate advice, there are many more who do their best at a very difficult job. Even under the best of circumstances, point out those familiar with the process, college advising is a balancing act.

Counselors must be pragmatic about students' chances without becoming pessimistic. They must nudge them to be realistic while remaining encouraging.

Hard as they try, there are always students and parents who feel they've been ill advised. Often, says Harvard admissions director Marlyn McGrath Lewis, what these families mean is "the counselor didn't have a crystal ball."

Every year there are success stories, students who made it into their dream schools, despite middling numbers and incredulous counselors.

Yet counselors maintain that the admissions process isn't a complete mystery. "Just having the numbers and scores isn't enough" to guarantee admission to an Ivy-caliber school, says Michele Hernandez, a former assistant director of admissions at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., and currently a private consultant in Portland, Ore. "But not having the numbers and scores, you don't have much of a chance, either."

In Kimberly's case, her early-decision application to Harvard was deferred and then she was rejected in the regular decision pool. At Yale she landed on the wait list. Finally she settled on the University of Michigan - sometimes called a "public Ivy" - where she was offered a generous scholarship. It would seem that the Ivy League had been a realistic goal for her.

Kimberly says there is no ill will between her and the staff at Boys and Girls High School. (Her counselor asked not to be a part of this story.)

She says she understands that counselors and schools "have opinions and they have experience." But the way she sees it, "you just have to apply where you feel comfortable and go from there."

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