Originally published in HT
Education
Planning to study abroad
for your Bachelor’s degree is exciting! It’s a huge decision for you and your
family and taking the right steps to get through it successfully is crucial.
Fortunately there are a lot of resources available to help you succeed. Among
these is the option to engage a private educational consultant or college
counselor. As Indian students’ interest in study abroad rises, so do number of
consultants and organizations offering their services for a fee. But do you
really need to hire someone? Could you get through this on your own with
available free resources? And if not, what is the best way to find the right
consultant and get the most out of the relationship?
When students and their
families approach me for guidance, it is important for me to understand why
they are seeking help. Here are a few of the profiles I see often:
The family that needs
guidance from A-Z. A bright student who has a good chance of success at
competitive colleges but parents do not have the experience to guide their
child and neither does the school. A private counselor can be a worthwhile
investment that helps families put forth their best effort.
The family that needs a mediator
between the desires of parents and child. This scenario can arise when one
party is aiming for the Ivy League and the other wants to explore less
competitive options. A counselor can suggest choices and approaches that
address both sets of requirements and help reduce tension within the family.
If the student is not responding
to the urgency of the process and the parents want a third party to motivate
their child. Realistically, counselors are hired for a limited period to deal
with a specific task (e.g. admissions to college), so iff parent-child conflict
is entrenched over years, the counselor can rarely smooth things. If families
can make the effort to forge a united front, then the investment can pay off –
but don’t expect the counselor produce family harmony.
Even if you fall into one
of these categories, you may not feel like you need a full ‘bouquet’ of
counseling services or you do not have the money to hire a counselor. In this
case you can consider the vast free resources at your service. See below for a
list of country educational resource centers for the USA, UK and Australia.
These centers can help answer basic questions for free or a nominal charge.
Alternately look for a counselor who will offer you either a free consultation
or a low hourly rate to help you figure out what you need. Finally, for certain
countries (e.g. Australia) agents are paid by the colleges, not the applicant,
so you can access advice as a courtesy.
If you want to hire a
counselor, do so carefully as you would for any other service – ask for
references of past clients, try to meet as many counselors as possible to find
the best fit, do not let yourself get forced into an array of services you
don’t need, and keep your expectations of the counselor realistic. Students and
families seeking to totally outsource the process of choosing colleges, writing
essays, teacher recommendations and applications will be disappointed to find
that good counselors do none of this – a good counselor will be your partner
and help bring out the best in you, which requires a lot of time and effort
from your side.
Australia: http://www.studyinaustralia.gov.au/
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