Hi all, this is my first post, so bear with me. I would like to think I am a fairly competitive applicant (33 ACT, 3.99 uw gpa, fairly rigorous schedule, decent amount and quality of ECs) but I am worried about my prospects for a well written letter of rec from my counselor. I come from an extremely small public school in rural Wi, with 112 kids in my grade and 2 counselors for the whole school of about 550, separated by last name (A-N,O-Z). However, this does not mean that I am close with my counselor. Neither of our counselors are particularly good at their jobs because all they ever do at our seminars is talk up the UW system - which is going to h*** because of our governor anyway - and the “great” prospects of going to technical or trade school. These are the usual paths of most graduates other than one 2013 grad went to Stanford, but she was a val, had excellent test scores, was a 4 time state golf champ, and founded her own charity through golf all whilst often missing school to attend pro tournaments and recently putted the cards to a national title so she was a shoo-in. However, my class is one of the most competitive our school has ever produced, looking at 6 vals and myself and one other tied for sal. One of these has perfect ACT and SAT scores and her along with 2 of the other vals placed highly at a large science fair and their research was published. After us 8 (all ladies I might add) the quality of students drops significantly, with the 9th ranked student holding a 3.8 gpa and is only mildly involved elsewhere in the school. Anyways, after all this background, my true concern is that my counselor will not know how to write recs for those of us trying to get into top schools. Are these letters required, or just recommended? How can I attempt to get the best out of my seemingly incompetent counselor? (which sounds rude, but after misspelling Berkeley on my junior-meeting itinerary she then broke out the pamphlets for the technical college 15 miles away and suggested I go for an associates nursing degree instead of pursuing med-school) These questions also apply to my other teacher recs, who presumably have never written letters to such distinguished schools. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
It depends on the college.
You do nothing other than let the professionals at your school do their job. Now you can assist them in doing their job by providing a 1 page resume to highlight items that you think might be important to be covered.
You should also assume that admissions officers are quite skilled at reading between the lines of a GC recommendation. While the below is from MIT, I think it can really apply to all colleges.
http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs
@skieurope The link was super helpful, I might print it out for my teachers. Thanks!
Guidance Counselor recs are usually required because they provide a profile of your school, how your transcript compares to your peers in terms of rigor, your class rank, whether you have outstanding disciplinary action, etc…not usually the kind of stuff that requires an intimate knowledge of you personally. Of course, if the GC does know you well, they can say more - and many large public schools actually ask students to submit goals and objectives, personal achievements, etc… to the GC for those letters. GCs in public schools are usually more focused on kids with problems than on high performers and not much involved in college admissions - that’s just not the priority in their jobs. What they know tends to be about state schools, community colleges, and how to help the kids who aren’t going to college…so your GC sounds typical, and the colleges won’t be surprised or dismayed if they don’t get an intimate profile. Your teachers’ letters are better suited to that purpose in any case.
What can you do? Talk to your GC and see if providing information to him/her about your goals and objectives, educational and professional, your accomplishments and challenges overcome, and any special circumstances would be helpful. Then start doing your own college research…
Cool, thanks. Honestly, I consider CC my by proxy guidance counselor and college search tutor, as I’m sure many students similar to myself do. Thanks for the info!
This is a great opportunity for counselor management. @N’s Mom is spot on in that the GC’s may not have had much opportunity to work with very competitive applicants. Doesn’t do any good to pan them for what they most often have to work with.
What you might do is see if you can talk with the counselor and get them interested in your case. At our school, one counselor took particular interest in the students with top school possibilities even though they might not have been in her “last name range”.
My experience was very similar to yours; I went to a small public high school, two guidance counselors separated by last names, counselors only ever advocated for our local community college. The latter was the most frustrating; I told my principal I was applying to Ivy Leagues and he said “Have you considered community college instead?” What I found was that all the administrators discouraged me until I actually got in, at which point they all took complete credit for my accomplishments and acted as though it was their idea all along.
So it was extremely frustrating, but the best you can do is supply your counselor with a sheet listing your ECs and accomplishments. I also made sure to stop by my counselor’s office occasionally and update him on my college search. At the very least I would always say hi to him in the hallway so that he remembered me. Senior year I was also one of only two students taking a certain class, and my counselor had to proctor all the exams, so by midway through senior year he was fairly familiar with me.
Was his letter of recommendation stellar? No, probably not. Was it generic and similar to most of the ones he wrote? Probably. Did it keep me from getting into any colleges? I doubt it.
I was going to post that MIT link as well.
Awesome, thanks guys. Yeah, it sounds like we are pretty similar in terms of hs atmosphere, @Ranza123. In fact, my AP Chem class this year consisted of 6 upperclassmen, and only 3 of us took the exam - proctored by none other than my counselor… as were all of the other exams. She knows who I am and she knows my family as she was both of my sisters’ counselor, but I guess I’ll just have to try the rap-sheet idea and see how it pans out. Thanks again to those who commented!