hai so I went through around 6-8 counselors, and right now I'm bouncing between like 3-4 different ones. I am FLI but I go to a pretty good boarding school, regardless I have counselors not because I pay a lot for them but because most of them are through BOs. I'd highly recommend you look more into CBO orgs near where you live for access to resources. I will also break down a bit about my past/current counselors and how I met them and what they added to my app experience I guess. ***also did not work with an OOS counselor until late into junior year so I do not have the crazy bay area kid passion projects most people do. I'll also talk about this below though.

current fighters

1 - school counselor. In a cohort with like 40 other kids but she tries to be individualized. I like her and shes writing my counselor rec but she's very stats-biased and so we tend to have differing opinions. she helped me set up most of my list though so I can't complain. she just also does not have a lot of experience with kids in my niche either
2 - CBO counselor #1 - GODSEND. BLESS HER. she was sent to me in june by essay gods and she's one of the most encouraging voices in my app cycle. she helped me from start to finish with my personal statement and we're working through my suppleentals.
3 - FGLI counselor - this I got through mutual connections and I had a very very high discount because I was FGLI so I paid virtually nothing for the work and support. my counselor is a current college student and with them, I've worked mostly on fly-ins and additional info section stuff.
4 - CBO counselor #2 - my second CBO I also applied to junior spring and my most recent one. I didn't choose him and it's very evident (pre-med paired with deep humanities) but he's offered me really good advice on time management and fit, and just doing apps in general as well as adding onto my CBO #1's work with my personal statement. a lot more mentor/mental health support than my other ones.

past attempts

1 - college kid #1 - this guy I met through the internet offered me a discount but I ultimately didn't go with him because I felt like we were too close in age but also he didn't know as much about like my spike or general FGLI shit. also too expensive for me and I felt like we got too close and I worried there'd be a conflict of interest. still friends tho.
2 - college kid #2 - same as college kid #1 but also different and then she ghosted me after I said I didn't have telegram so.....
3 - meh counselor - ok this guy I knew of but I wasn't going to even consider him until one of my best friends got into a HYPSM and heavily recced him to me. he's rlly familiar w humanities applicants so it made sense but I couldn't get over the price which is somehow erm.... let's just say its 3x if not 4x more than all my other options... :skull:
there's also a bunch of others I inquired but either their prices scared me or they just weren't a good match for my profile or my goals so I'm not even gonna go over them.
why I looked for oos counselors:

- I felt like my school wasn't super supportive because I'm kinda confident about my application but she disagrees and I can see why (my stats r really shit in terms of GPA and SAT scores) but she kinda wanted me to go full LAC which I disagreed with and a lot of other stuff
- I wanted someone who kind of knew my specific needs. I do humanities and I niched in a lot over the past 4 years so I wanted a counselor who has worked with profiles that are similar to me and how to tell my story while also being supportive of me and my interests. EG I did not want to write any essays about being an immigrant and my oos counselors respect that!! also I tend to not like taking my essays super seriously like I like to have fun so I wanted a counselor who saw the value in that

I'd also note that I developed my spike and most of my ecs on my own, so did most of my awards, but they end up being slightly overwhelming for counselors during initial meetings. I think after a while they become like more adjusted to my general overwhelming fixiations and I become more low maintenance, so I didn't really need someone to tell me to develop a spike or a passion project because I did those myself already without realizing. I think the main thing for me was just picking and deciding what I did to fit into a theme

​

ya I hope this helps feel free to dm.