Host: Should you hire an independent college counselor to assist you and your student?
Jerome Cole: My first response as an independent counselor is yes, but my second response is that, the first thing that you want to do is take advantage of your local school, the school that your child is attending, be a public, private whatever.
There are counselors there; there are experienced professionals there, who are dedicated specifically to helping you and your student work through this process, so my first response is take advantage of that individual. Now, there is always going to be situations where you feel like, you need a little more than that individual this in the school building and you have the financial resources to go out and hire someone, in that case I would say, go hire that independent counselor, but I would cautioned all families that are considering going out to hiring an independent counselor to do your homework, do your research.
Ask for references, ask around the local community, who are the people that are doing well? Who are the people that have a good reputation and follow up on those references before you make a commitment because this is a financial commitment and in some cases they can be pretty substantial. So, I would look at the independent counselor as a second resource, I would look at the school counselor as my primary resource.