Willard Dix is a former admissions officer at Amherst College, a former high school counselor, and an outspoken advocate for more sanity and common sense in the college admissions process. His most recent Forbes piece, 10 Ways To Bond With Your Child’s College Counselor, offers some great advice for parents to help you forge a productive, collaborative relationship with your student’s counselor.
I was surprised that he didn’t encourage parents to help their kids take responsibility to bond with their counselors. After all, it’s the students, not the parents, who are going to college. And those same students may need counselor recommendation letters to get there.
But I suspect Dix based his advice on the realities for many high school counselors—all too often, it’s the parent, not the student, who ends up driving the interactions with the counselor. If parents can become better drivers themselves, they’ll be in a position to help their kids do the same.