SAN JOSE, Calif. -- There is a decidedly corporate feel to the college counseling at Silver Creek High School here this school year.

1. Seniors have been told to send résumés with cover letters to their favorite teachers, and to be sure to write "thank you" in the first paragraph and "thank you again" in the fourth as they ask for college recommendations.
2. Freshmen are urged to pick "strategic" extracurricular activities in which they can play leadership roles or log hours of public service.
3. And all students have access to a Web site that asks them seven multiple-choice questions, including what they like to do on Saturday afternoons, and then spits out the names of five colleges they might consider.

The purveyor of this wisdom is not the harried guidance counselor of old: it is a fledgling consulting firm, Achieva, founded by two Harvard graduates who are still in their 20's and who are intent on hanging a shingle in several hundred school districts throughout the country. In hiring Achieva, Silver Creek High, whose lower- to middle-income students score below the state average on College Board tests, is hoping to gain the same edge for its 2,700 students that private college advisers have long offered to parents willing to pay thousands of dollars.

In a trend that educators say is sure to spread, a growing number of public schools - in California, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri - are engaging firms like Achieva and the better-known Princeton Review to relieve guidance counselors of major aspects of college and career advising. The companies say that public schools in more than a half-dozen other states, including some in New York City and the surrounding region, are considering their offerings.

By contracting out some guidance services, the schools are seeking a lifeline above the rough waves lashing them from all sides: budget cuts that have burdened many counselors with caseloads of 1,000 students or more, a college admissions process that is increasingly cutthroat and complex, and demands from parents and politicians for higher performance, as measured by test scores and college admissions.

Public schools have been delegating select administrative duties to private companies for several years, whether it be managing their custodial staffs or providing a pool of substitute teachers. But the hiring of companies like Achieva signals the crossing of a significant threshold: the acknowledgment that student services once regarded as basic have in many cases become a fringe, to be delivered by outsiders, if at all.

"In an ideal world, we should be able to provide most of this ourselves," said Fred de Funiak, a former guidance counselor who is in his fourth year as principal of Silver Creek, which sent fewer than half its students to four-year colleges last year. "But we are overwhelmed."

Even before Silver Creek's four guidance counselors can focus on college advice, each must help about 700 students pick courses, earn passing grades and steer clear of trouble.

When budget cuts prevented the hiring of more counselors last year, de Funiak spent $20,000 of his discretionary fund to hire Achieva, which he had read about in a local newspaper. Four other San Jose high schools did the same.

In six pilot sessions last year at Silver Creek, three Achieva counselors tutored 100 freshmen and sophomores who, judging by their test scores, were likely to go to college, but only with prodding. The students learned how to research particular colleges, and in one memorable exercise played the role of admissions officers deciding which of four mock candidates to admit.

This year, Achieva is in "final negotiations" with schools in at least half a dozen other districts, most of them in California, and is responding to inquiries from schools in eight other states, including New York, Florida, Massachusetts and Texas. Its management projects that Achieva will become an H.M.O. of college advise, with counseling centers available to public schools, and individuals working in 250 locations by 2004.

However, one of the more formidable obstacles to their plans could involve the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, which has not opposed the company's plans [right!!!] but would prefer that schools hire guidance counselors.

The Manhattan based Princeton Review, another test-preparation leader, already providing test-taking advice to more than 400 public schools, is also branching out into the advising business.

Anything that cuts the number of district employees and the related expenses -- outrageous salaries, 7% + in social security costs, medical-dental-eyeglass-drug benefits, pensions -- while simultaneously providing the same service is to be seriously considered, don't your think?