Guidance Counselors

Certification or Licensing

You must be certified by your state to work as a counselor; the requirements for certification vary from state to state. Most state licensure standards require that counselors have teaching experience. This experience may be as short as one year or as long as two to three years. Some states also require that counselors have work experience outside of the teaching field.

The National Board for Certified Counselors and Affiliates offers the national certified counselor (NCC) designation, the national certified school counselor (NCSC) designation, and other designations. In order to apply for the NCC, you must have earned a master's degree with a major study in counseling, have at least 3,000 hours of postgraduate counseling work experience over a minimum 24-month period, pass the National Counselor Examination, and provide documentation of post-graduate counseling experience and supervision. NCCs are certified for a period of five years. In order to be recertified, they must complete 100 contact clock hours of continuing education (time spent training with students or with learning new materials) or pass the examination again. In order to apply for the NCSC credential, you must hold the NCC credential, have received graduate credit in the fundamentals of school counseling, have at least two years of full-time experience as a school counselor, obtain an endorsement from a professional colleague who holds a master’s degree or higher in a mental health field, document at least 100 hours of post-graduate school counseling supervision, and pass the National Counselor Examination, including practical simulation problems that assess your problem-solving abilities.