{"id":269801,"date":"2026-06-10T19:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T23:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/ai-wont-replace-college-counselors-but-it-may-bring-their-best-skill-to-millions-of-students\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T20:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T00:00:19","slug":"ai-wont-replace-college-counselors-but-it-may-bring-their-best-skill-to-millions-of-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/ai-wont-replace-college-counselors-but-it-may-bring-their-best-skill-to-millions-of-students\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Won’t Replace College Counselors\u2014But It May Bring Their Best Skill To Millions Of Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI Won’t Replace College Counselors\u2014But It May Bring Their Best Skill To Millions Of Students<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/scottwhite\/2026\/06\/10\/ai-wont-replace-college-counselors-but-it-may-bring-their-best-skill-to-millions-of-students\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-10 19:55:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Smiling college girl studying in a campus cafeteria<\/span><\/p>\n

getty<\/p>\n

For years, the conversation about artificial intelligence in college admissions has focused on efficiency.<\/p>\n

Students use AI to build college lists, compare majors, summarize campus information, and increasingly, draft application essays. While these uses are valuable (and, at times, questionable), they miss the most important role that experienced college counselors play.<\/p>\n

The best counselors do not simply help students find colleges.<\/p>\n

They help students discover themselves.<\/p>\n

When a student tells me they love a particular college, my first response is rarely about admissions statistics. Instead, I ask a series of questions.<\/p>\n

What attracts you to that school?<\/p>\n

What do you imagine your life would look like there?<\/p>\n

What kind of students seem happy there?<\/p>\n

Could you see yourself spending four years with those people?<\/p>\n

The first answers are often superficial.<\/p>\n

“It has a pretty campus.”<\/p>\n

“It’s in a city.”<\/p>\n

“The students seem smart.”<\/p>\n

But after twenty or thirty minutes of conversation, something deeper emerges.<\/p>\n

One student may reveal a love of intellectual debate and academic intensity. Another may discover that what they really value is collaboration rather than competition. A third may realize they are seeking independence, adventure, community, prestige, or security.<\/p>\n

The conversation stops being about colleges and starts becoming a process of self-discovery.<\/p>\n

Historically, this process has been available primarily to students who can afford private counseling. AI has the potential to change that.<\/p>\n

From Search Engine to Socratic Guide<\/h2>\n

Most students currently use AI as a search engine.<\/p>\n

“Find colleges in the Northeast with engineering programs.”<\/p>\n

“Compare Michigan and Purdue.”<\/p>\n

“Show me colleges with merit scholarships.”<\/p>\n

These are useful tasks, but they only scratch the surface.<\/p>\n

A far more powerful use of AI is to turn it into a counselor that asks questions rather than answers them.<\/p>\n

Imagine a student beginning with a simple statement:<\/p>\n

“I visited…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI Won’t Replace College Counselors\u2014But It May Bring Their Best Skill To Millions Of Students…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":269802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/imageio.forbes.com\/specials-images\/imageserve\/6a29f66962bf3e896e932762\/0x0.jpg?format=jpg&height=900&width=1600&fit=bounds","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-269801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269803,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269801\/revisions\/269803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}