As a parent, it’s difficult to often trust anyone else with your child’s welfare. Study abroad counselors are those guiding your child through one of life’s most important, and more often than not, difficult decisions. How can you then work best with your child’s college counselor, so as to ensure the best possible experience for them through this difficult, strenuous process of college applications?

• It’s important to treat your child’s consultant as an ALLY—as study-abroad mentors, they’re almost second parents to the kid, and they also have the child’s best interest at heart. It’s the counselor’s job to give you real information about the likelihood of your child’s admission possibilities based on their grades. It’s NOT judgment, but fact. Please take it in that sense.
• Don’t wait for a crisis to meet the counselor. Use their time effectively to convey any important information about the child, and take invitations for meetings seriously. Respect their time, as much as you respect any of your child’s teachers’. While they might be providing a service, they ARE professionals. They don’t need to be constantly reminded, or be contacted outside business hours.
• The education consultant knows what they’re doing. They have access to current information and trends, connections to colleges around the country, and the responsibility to do what's best for each mentee. Enter this relationship with a positive attitude—don’t question their knowledge. Definitely ask questions if you’re unsure about something, but respectfully.
• Help the agency and the student coordinate, but also ensure that your child is taking ownership of their activities. It’s neither your’s or the counselor’s responsibility to do the child’s work for them—it’s the child’s application, and they MUST be held accountable for it right from the beginning. Remind them of deadlines, help them prioritize tasks, proofread and provide suggestions, but they must do their own work and stay ahead of their tasks.
• Don’t pressurize the child into your dreams. This also means, in all honesty, don’t hover over your children, even if they’re applying to YOUR field. This makes it difficult for the abroad-education counselor to provide the right advice or lead them down the path that’s best for your child. Guide them, but let them find their own way. It’s imperative to their success.

Having a good relationship with your child's college counselor goes a long way toward smoothing out the rough pavement on the road to college. You'll be glad to have had the support at the end!