Counselor Influences on College Decision Making

Although numerous studies have been devoted to understanding the role of the counselor in schools, few studies have been conducted to understand the specific influence that counselors have on girls throughout their college admissions process (Bryan, Farmer-Hinton, Rawls, & Woods, 2017; Bryan, Holcomb-McCoy, Moore-Thomas, & Day-Vines, 2009; Bryan, Moore‐Thomas, Day‐Vines, & Holcomb‐McCoy, 2011). The purpose of this study was to examine the interactions between girls and their high school college admissions counselors and the resources and programmatic offerings of the college counseling office that girls experience. Perna’s (2006) proposed conceptual model of college student choice served as the conceptual framework for this narrative inquiry study of five female undergraduate students at a small, liberal arts college in the southeastern United States. The qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The data was examined using the lens of the study’s three research questions and six themes emerged from the open coding process: outside factors and influences, college-level factors, positive counselor interactions, ineffective counselor, resource for college admissions, and girls’ own college admissions journey. While each girl came from a different high school background, they each expressed a need for emotional support and resources from their college counselor. This study found that the availability of resources did not impact a girl’s connection to the college counselor. Rather, a higher level of emotional support was correlated with greater satisfaction with the counselor, regardless of resources available.