What Does a College Counselor Actually Do All Day? A Behind-the-Scenes Look
The first knock on my office door comes at 8:02 a.m., two minutes after the first bell, before I’ve even had time to screw the lid back on my coffee. Lila, a 10th grader with chipped navy blue nail polish, leans against the frame and says, “My mom is going to kill me.”
Her mom signed her up for a three-week pre-med summer program months ago, convinced pre-med is the only path to a stable job. Lila never cared much for chemistry, though—she’s been picking up trash at the local creek with her 4-H club since she was 8, and just found a two-week environmental field study that counts for high school credit and costs a third of the pre-med program. The only problem? It’s the same three weeks. She’s been sitting on this for two weeks too scared to say anything, and the deadline for the field study is Friday.
I don’t jump in to fix it. I just ask, “What do you wish would happen right now?” She doesn’t want me to call her mom and argue. She just wants me to join a 15-minute call after school this week, so I can confirm the field study counts for college applications, which she thinks will make her mom more likely to say yes. I jot it in my calendar, and she heads to first period.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m on a Zoom with a dad of a senior whose early application to UC San Diego got rejected. He leans into the screen and says, “My son has a 3.8 unweighted GPA. Why didn’t he get in? What did you miss on his application?” I explain that UCSD got more than 130,000 applicants last year, and a 3.8 is well below the average for admitted in-state students. I remind him we already have four other applications out to UC campuses that align better with his stats, and one already sent a preliminary preliminary offer. He’s still frustrated, says I should call the admissions office and ask for a second look. I don’t argue. I add the request to my to-do list, even though I know it won’t change the outcome.
Between meetings, I answer 19 emails: a senior who forgot to link his official test scores to his Common App, a middle school mom asking if 8th grade is too early to start visiting college campuses (I tell her it is, unless her kid is already actively curious, no need to force it), a teacher asking for help with a junior who’s been skipping class because he’s convinced he’ll never get into any college he wants. I walk down to the cafeteria for a bottle of water, and Javi, a first-gen senior I’ve worked with since freshman year, runs up to me holding his phone. He just got accepted to the state university 45 minutes from here, and earned the full tuition nursing scholarship he applied for. He can stay home two nights a week to help his mom with his two younger siblings, which was non-negotiable for him. We take a blurry photo in the hall, he heads back to lunch, and I’m grinning the whole way back to my office.
Lunch is a granola bar I keep in my desk drawer, because I promised I’d proofread Mia’s personal statement by end of day. She’s writing about helping her dad run his landscaping business after he hurt his back two years ago, and she wrote 750 words for a 650-word limit. I cut 100 rambling words about how she’s always loved plants, leave the line that says “I learned how to bid a job before I learned how to drive” highlighted, and send it back with a note that that’s the line admissions officers will remember.
After school, I meet with our PTA team to plan next month’s financial aid night. We’re bringing in a Spanish-speaking financial aid advisor this year, because last year half the parents who showed up couldn’t follow the presentation. Most don’t know the difference between a subsidized loan and a grant, or that you never have to pay to fill out the FAFSA. That’s the part of the job most people don’t see: meeting families where they are, instead of just sending generic emails that get deleted unread.
Most parents I talk to assume my job is just editing essays and submitting transcripts, or that I spend all my time getting kids into top-ranked name-brand schools. The truth is, 70% of my day is the messy, unplanned stuff: mediating conversations between kids and parents who want different things, untangling FAFSA paperwork for kids whose parents lost jobs or got divorced mid-application season, helping kids let go of the idea that they have to go to an expensive private school to be successful.
From what I’ve seen, parents get stuck on the same noise we see all over social media, and that makes the whole process way more stressful than it needs to be. A few things I’ve learned that any parent can put into practice this week: First, when your kid comes to you stressed about college, start with “What do you wish would happen right now?” instead of jumping to fix the problem or call the school to argue. Lila didn’t need me to fix things for her, she just needed me to back her up, and that simple question lets them tell you what they actually need instead of making you guess. Second, when you start talking about college options, ask two specific questions: “What size of school makes you feel most comfortable?” and “What’s the maximum amount of student debt you’d be okay paying off after graduation?” Those two questions cut through all the noise about rankings and reputation, and help everyone focus on what actually fits the kid, not what your neighbor or your cousin says you should want. Third, don’t ever feel like you can’t ask a “silly” question. Nine out of 10 parents have the same question, and we’d rather answer it than have you make a costly mistake because you were embarrassed to ask.
It’s 4:45 when I lock my office door. I still have 11 unread emails, and I know I’ll answer three of them after my own 10-year-old’s soccer practice tonight. Lila texted me 10 minutes ago to say her mom agreed to the call, and she already signed up for the field study. Javi’s blurry photo is still in my camera roll, and I’ll pin it to my bulletin board tomorrow with all the other acceptances from this year. Some days are 90% stress and problem-solving, some days you get a minute to stop and celebrate. It’s not glamorous, and we can’t get every kid into every school they apply to. But most days, it’s just showing up, one knock on the door at a time.
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