To sustain its economic growth in the coming years, China will have to increase the country's supply of skilled labor by enabling its workforce to attain to higher levels of formal education. Unfortunately, when children in poor, rural areas today grow up, they may not be able to enjoy China's future economic prosperity because of their low levels of education. Credit constraints combined with the high cost of attending school can induce students from economically disadvantaged households to prematurely leave school (Banerjee et al., 2000). Even when schooling is free, there may be high opportunity costs of going to school (Angrist and Lavy, 2009). The highly competitive nature of education systems in many developing countries can also discourage students in poor, rural areas from continuing their education (Glewwe and Kremer, 2006; Clarke et al., 2000). Misinformation about the returns to schooling is another important, but less researched, factor that may undermine the likelihood that students continue school. However, this may only be part of the problem. There may be a number of other constraints. First, even if students understand that there are high returns to high school, they may not know how to prepare for high school, i.e., entrance requirements and which types of high schools are available. Second, beyond economic returns, students may not see the links among their own interests and aptitudes, going to high school and the careers options available to them. The term "career planning skills" is used here to refer to the knowledge about how to attend high school (requirements, options, planning, etc.) and the awareness of the links among one's own interests and aptitudes, high school and future career options. The main purpose of this study is to measure the impact of offering information or teaching career planning skills on dropout, academic achievement, and plans to go to high school among grade 7 students in poor, rural areas in China. Results from the study suggest that information and counseling have negligible to quite small impacts on the outcomes of the average junior high school student in poor, rural areas.