My high school counselor was incredibly useless, and quite possibly harmful. I also went to a small private high school (~30 students per grade level).
Her only focus, as far as I can tell, was to make sure we could be admitted to a UC. She spoke to us in 10th grade, letting us know that we needed to take three SAT II subject tests, and that two of them should be writing and math, while the third should be whatever we thought we'd get a high score in. She also stated that on no account should we schedule all three tests for the same day, because too much testing wears you out and your performance suffers.
I could tell that last bit was nonsense, but I believed the earlier advice and took the math, writing, and latin tests. The counselor bore a grudge against me from then on for ignoring her advice but still getting high scores. Come senior year, I learned that good schools usually required a science SAT II. Whoops.
I had almost no interaction with the school counselor besides the speech she gave to the 10th grade. I heard through the grapevine how upset she was that I'd flouted her non-individualized advice.
I had no "counselor" or similar role in college. The CS degree required a CS professor to sign off on my "plan", but that entire process consisted of me going to a professor in my final year, saying "I want to declare a CS major; here is my plan, all of the classes except that one are already complete", and getting a pro forma signature.
Her only focus, as far as I can tell, was to make sure we could be admitted to a UC. She spoke to us in 10th grade, letting us know that we needed to take three SAT II subject tests, and that two of them should be writing and math, while the third should be whatever we thought we'd get a high score in. She also stated that on no account should we schedule all three tests for the same day, because too much testing wears you out and your performance suffers.
I could tell that last bit was nonsense, but I believed the earlier advice and took the math, writing, and latin tests. The counselor bore a grudge against me from then on for ignoring her advice but still getting high scores. Come senior year, I learned that good schools usually required a science SAT II. Whoops.
I had almost no interaction with the school counselor besides the speech she gave to the 10th grade. I heard through the grapevine how upset she was that I'd flouted her non-individualized advice.
I had no "counselor" or similar role in college. The CS degree required a CS professor to sign off on my "plan", but that entire process consisted of me going to a professor in my final year, saying "I want to declare a CS major; here is my plan, all of the classes except that one are already complete", and getting a pro forma signature.