No parent who has helped a child apply for college or written the tuition check needs any reminding about the importance of having their child feel comfortable with their college choice. It’s probably the second biggest investment a parent will make after buying a house.
"The way to think about this is you’re buying a new car for the next four years. If you make the wrong choice, if you drop out, that’s like driving the car off a cliff," said Rick Gifford, an independent college counselor.
A real estate agent might help with that house purchase. Consumer Reports might assist in finding the right car. And when it comes to college applications, the growing trend among parents is to seek out extra help, even if it costs extra money.
Private college counseling is a growing business. Corporations such as College Coach, which helped 20,000 families last year, have become fixtures in the suburbs outside of Boston and New York. And now, independent counselors have crossed over the bridge.
Gifford, of Dennis, charges $75 an hour and expects to see a child he doesn’t know for at least three hours. Connie Nicholson, another consultant based in Osterville, charges an hourly rate for various services and $2,500 if a child gets accepted to the college of their choice.
Private counseling has been a growing trend for many years. Stan Vincent, an educational consultant in Falmouth, said he was one of the founders of the Independent Consultants Association in 1975. Back then, counselors stuck to giving advice about private secondary education in middle or high school.
Now the majority of the 300-some members of the association are principally involved in college placement. "I think, counselors in public schools are stretched so thin, they don’t have time to put in the time you should," Gifford said.
Picking the best school means assessing a student’s personality, preferences, and talents, as well as knowing all about colleges, the degrees, the programs, the reputations, the scholarships and the tuition.
Charlie and Cindy Harrington, of East Dennis, decided to seek out Gifford with help for their son, Travis, who dropped out of Sturgis in January.
"Travis is a very nontraditional student," said his mother. "What shows up on paper doesn’t really show the whole picture." After taking his GED in March, he decided he did want to go to college to study art, his mother said.
Travis thought Gifford, who was his favorite teacher at Sturgis, could help him find a college, even though his grades aren’t exactly Harvard-ready.
At a meeting this month, Gifford laid out Travis’ best bet – the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts – and advised him to finish that college essay soon.
But does he really know any more than a high school counselor? Marie Anderson, the head of guidance at Barnstable High School, thinks not.
Even with a caseload of 280 students to one counselor, about 90 percent of the school’s juniors and their parents meet with a counselor for college counseling at Barnstable high, she said. About 80 college representatives visit with students every year at the school, and they keep the counselors current on what they have to offer. High school counselors also arrange college tours all the time, paid for by the colleges.
The most important reason to stick with a high school counselor is that they know the students personally, she said.
"College counseling is an important part of our job and we put a lot of emphasis on it," Anderson said. "It’s the culmination of four years. This is the exciting part for us."
Connie Nicholson, who moved her educational consulting business to the Cape in 1997, said she respects the high school counselors’ feelings, but disagrees with their assessment of private counselors’ work.
"They are overworked and underpaid and tend to feel, ‘Who are these people charging outlandish prices?’" she said.
But the fact is, private counselors can spend all their time on a college search without setting students schedules or dealing with students’ personal problems, Nicholson said.
