College Counseling and Upper Year

The pressure of college admissions hounds students from the moment they step on campus and the competitive nature of the Academy forces students to jostle year after year for spots at the most prestigious universities and colleges. This process is naturally selective and at Exeter is exponentially more. However, too often, the College Counseling Office (CCO) takes the heat for a process that is by nature extremely selective, with complaints, at times unfounded, running rampant among uppers.The College Counseling Office outperforms many of its counterparts at other comparable institutions. Their efforts, coupled with the abilities and talents of Exeter’s own students, are responsible for the Academy’s stellar matriculation record. The CCO maintains a relatively low ratio of students to counselors, affording students the opportunity for more specialized attention. Counselors do an excellent job of making themselves available to students through scheduled meetings and “Drop-In” hours on Wednesdays. CCO also routinely keeps students informed about college fairs, SAT prep classes and standardized testing dates. The upper questionnaire, which is unique to Exeter, ensures that counselors are very familiar with students before they write college recommendations on their behalf. This familiarity is also helpful when counselors exceed the call of duty and attempt to get their students off of college waitlist.However, CCO has recently mounted an attempt to encourage students to diversify their college choices, and consider programs at larger state and public institutions. This is a welcome change to the Harvard-Princeton-Yale rhetoric that was so previously prevalent. But at times the push for ‘low-tier’ and ‘mid-tier’ universities can be overwhelming, almost as if they would prefer us to go to those schools instead of our dream schools. Though the process is in its beginning stages, a number of uppers have already spoken about their counselors pushing them to consider such schools, even when their preferences for size or location do not correspond.This increased emphasis on larger public institutions and ‘mid-tier’ universities could be a symptom of the heightened competitiveness of the Class of 2017. Counselors have reported that the upper class has a higher collective GPA than the seniors, and that a large portion of the class has above a 10.0 GPA. It is entirely possible that CCO has seen the statistics about the upper class, and has decided that it is more prudent to discourage students from applying to more selective schools. However, does this really mitigate the pressure on students?Members of the Class of 2017 have spent the last two or three years surrounded by seniors who, by and large, go on to attend very selective colleges. They have seen their teammates, dormmates and their friends leave Exeter to pursue further education at some of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Are a few words from a college counselor enough to relieve the pressure that is so ingrained in Exeter students?For many Exonians, the suggestion that they should consider schools with higher acceptance rates carries with it the inference of inferiority. Because college factors so heavily into our day-to-day lives, the caliber of university that we attend is often directly linked to the strength of our confidence.Because of this, we believe CCO has the right idea, but is perhaps taking it a step too far. While we are obviously unqualified to question college counselor’s knowledge of admissions, we do think that in this matter, moderation is key. CCO should make the point that getting into an Ivy League school is not the end-all-be-all and that great people have come out of less selective schools. However, CCO should not promote lower-tier schools such that applying to better schools is discouraged.