Brag or complain about your HS's GC

Parents Forum
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<p>Perhaps I don’t really understand the purpose of a GC – other than to send out xscripts & complete the requisite counselor rec forms. It never occurred to me to have either of my d’s cultivate a relationship. I find the insistence on a recommendation from a GC my child has never met, to be annoying.</p>

<p>I’ve posted this elsewhere, and was directed to this thread. I read w/interest the group’s take on waiving rights to see letters of rec. In our current situation, I opened one of the sealed counselor rec envelopes, and discovered inaccurate and potentially damaging class rank info. What sayeth the crowd now, re: waiving rights to view?</p>

<p>What’s the group recommendation on approaching the GC with the admission that we opened the envelope, a request to repair, and level of trust for additional recs needed?</p>

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<p>From my perspective, I see it the other way around. At our school, their bread-and-butter is getting kids into the local state schools and importantly, finding scholarships / financial aid options that make the kids able to go in the first place. The perspective towards the smarter kids is – hey, great to shoot for Harvard or Georgetown or wherever, and good luck to you, but if all you wind up at is Univ of Illinois, hey, nothing wrong with that school either. IOW, if you’re smart, you’ll do just fine wherever you go and it’s just not the priority to be figuring out how to get them into the most selective schools. </p>

<p>And frankly, I see their point – what IS more important, getting Smarty McSmartpants into MIT for engineering when it’s not the end of the world if he goes to U of Illinois’ well-ranked engineering program (and the McSmartpants have to like that it’s cheaper too!), or getting Suzy McMiddleClass’s parents to come up with a way to get her to Northern Illinois University vs community college? For every Smarty McSmartpants, they have 25 Suzy McMiddleClasses.</p>

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<p>I think it’s total nonsense and I don’t see why the schools persist in asking for them. At private schools, the GC will know the student upside down and sideways and will pen something that’s pithy and telling. At most public schools, it will be a formulaic “Mary is a strong student who is interested in _____ and would be a good addition to your campus.” What’s the point? It confirms what they already know about the schools.</p>

<p>My kids spent junior year making nice-nice to their (very overworked) GC to stand out in a crowd of 500 kids - and then she left on maternity leave. So the replacement GC, that they’ve met ONCE, will write their letters, based on stuff they’ve given her. It’s a completely stupid process. Might as well tap some stranger on the street, give them info and say “write a rec for me.”</p>

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<p>Developing a relationship with the guidance counselor is extremely important, particularly in large public high schools where the student:counselor ratio may be 500:1. </p>

<p>We have three GCs at our small rural/suburban public school of 700 students. All three are SUNY grads, enthusiastic, friendly and eager to learn. They have 1,2 and 3 years experience as high school GCs respectively. We will not use the guidance office to assist with the college search but have advised our daughter to get to know her GC and to be proactive without becoming a pest. Establishing a relationship will prove its worth once it comes time for the GC to complete the secondary school report and forward the additional paperwork on a timely basis.</p>

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<p>SuperMom,</p>

<p>I don’t have a solution for you. You are going to have to come clean on opening the package.</p>

<p>This is why many schools won’t ever hand back any part of the package to a student - the risk of opening/tampering.</p>

<p>Mistakes get made. You can address your worry wart nature and say you wanted to make sure that it was accurate. In terms of the so-so letter, your child is stuck with that one.</p>

<p>The issue of unweighted vs. weighted is an interesting one, though. Each school seems to take a slightly different tack sending out these transcripts. What may seem wrong to you may be perfectly accurate using the courses the school counts for college admissions requirements. This using means tossing out PE classes and other elective, non-academic subjects. Colleges may also re-calculate those percentages when they get the transcript despite what it says on the transcript from the school.</p>

<p>Good luck. Getting to reestablish trust back with the GC at this point is going to be a challenge.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl wrote: “And frankly, I see their point – what IS more important, getting Smarty McSmartpants into MIT for engineering when it’s not the end of the world if he goes to U of Illinois’ well-ranked engineering program (and the McSmartpants have to like that it’s cheaper too!), or getting Suzy McMiddleClass’s parents to come up with a way to get her to Northern Illinois University vs community college? For every Smarty McSmartpants, they have 25 Suzy McMiddleClasses.”</p>

<p>Yours must be a good public school. At our school the goal sometimes appears to be pursuading Suzy McMiddleClass’s parents that they’ll save a lot of money if they send their kids to the local CC. That is, when they are not suggesting that the McSmartPants parents to cough up money to pay for “college-in-the-high school” courses so their progeny can graduate in 2 1/2 years.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl,</p>

<p>I agree on the lack of validity on a GC’s recommendation. The forms they expect the students to fill out are a poor substitute for the counselor knowing the student. At my kid’s school there is a 600 - 1 GC/student ratio after cutbacks. The squeaky wheel is going to get the grease. How fair is that?</p>

<p>I would rather see a teacher/coach/employer provide these recs. They will be far more thoughtful and cogent. No offense to our valiant GC’s at public schools that work especially hard doing a job that is woefully underpaid and demanding…just that they will probably not know the students as well as their private school counselors do. </p>

<p>I am sure the colleges can sense this. Perhaps they can just stop the charade once and for all and say the counselor rec is optional, knowing that it may be a half-hearted attempt in the first place.</p>

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<p>The GCs at our mediocre SoCal suburban HS do the best the can, but they’ve got a huge task. They don’t aim for HYP. Their definition of Big Success is getting a smart kid into a UC, any UC. If a top ten kid wants to shoot for HYP s/he is going to have to pull together any needed extra effort on his/her own. The GCs have bigger problems to deal with in trying to keep the lower third of the class (including many minorites) from dropping out. </p>

<p>One telling thing came last year when one of the GCs (knowing that both our girls had gotten into highly-selective colleges) asked US for advice about how to get her own daughter accepted at high-end schools (she ended up at Berkeley).</p>

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<p>Coureur,</p>

<p>OMG. You are so right. Same with my kid’s school in SoCal. If it’s not a UC or a CSU, our counselors aren’t as clued into them. The students are on their own for the lesser known privates or out of state publics. </p>

<p>Kind of sad…really.</p>

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<p>What was inaccurate about the class rank information?</p>

<p>You cannot mix apples and oranges. </p>

<p>Your first question is to ask about how is rank determined?<br>
Is it based on weighted or unweighted gpa. </p>

<p>If everyone’s rank is evaluated the same way, then the ranking is not inaccurate. </p>

<p>If the ranking is based on weighted gpa, lets say out of 5 as I wrote in my other post addressing this issue, your child may be in a less favorable light than had she been evaluated using the unweighted gpa. </p>

<p>Usually on the forn they will ask if the gpa/ranking based on weighted or unweighted. Some forms will ask for both the weighted and the unweighted.</p>

<p>When you waive your rights, you are simply waiving your rights to inspect any letters of recommendation contained in the applicant file of the school you ultimately decide to attend (what you are waiving is your rights to go to go to the admissions office at the college you are attending and demanding to see your recommendation letters in their files) . </p>

<p>Waiving your rights does not prohibit you from seeing drafts or final copies of your recommendation letters should your recommenders want to share them with you. If your teacher is willing to share them with you, you can see them (but they are not obligated to let you see them). </p>

<p>As a school policy we do not give official transcipts to students. All recommendations, transcripts are mailed from the school (we will ask eash student to provide postage for what needs to be mailed out).</p>

<p>as far as recommendations are concerned, I give students on my case load a packet; If you need a recommendation from Sybbie, this is what Sybbie needs from you. I let them know in advance that they are written on a first come first served basis after they complete the package and have a one one interview. At the interview I get clarification about things that are in the packet so that I can write an in-depth recommendation. But then again, I teach a college advisory class to the whole junior class so when they come in as seniors I can write from a counselor/teacher perspective.</p>

<p>As part of the be careful of what you ask for because you just might get it I went to a high school last week where the GC does not do anything related to college, transcript updates or program changes. The college advisor is a english teacher who has office hours 2 periods a day. I just started shaking my head and feeling bad for the kids that are being serviced.</p>

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<p>sybbie – maybe the inaccuracy could be explained by something as simple as a typo. I saw one student’s high school transcript a couple years back that listed his rank as 99 (out of 165 or so). he was, in fact, 9th in the class. I have also seen transcripts with inaccurate final grades and ones in which the GC or secretary failed to indicate that the course was honors level. </p>

<p>Having seen enough of these clerical errors over time my wife and I have made a point of requesting an reviewing our kids transcripts at least once a year.</p>

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<p>Hudson you are absolutely right. students should request a copy of their transcripts each year (my seniors are getting copy of theirs today with a credit check letting them know where they are in terms of graduating in june).</p>

<p>As far as determining whether a class is an honors course or if the grades are weighted in the NYC public school system that is not done by the GC but the program chair in STARS/HSST (which generates transcripts, report cards, rank list,etc) when the scheduling master is being created. Grades are uploaded into STARS from the class room teachers (a number of teachers use easy grade pro which is an electronic grade book)
<a href=“School Website, CMS & Communications Platform | Finalsite”>School Website, CMS & Communications Platform | Finalsite;

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<p>Thanks all. I really appreciate the comments. By way of clarification, the official xcript bore the class rank previously discussed with the GC. The one in the GC’s letter and counselor rec form had a totally different number of kids, and placed d, statistically, much lower.</p>

<p>Dunno that we’ve resolved it, but I had to fess up. I wimped out and did it via email. Got a msg back from the GC describing the weird numbers as “her error” and telling me to bring the forms back in so she could “revise” them. Stopped by the school this morning to bring in new blank forms and GC advised that she could share, on the xscript & rec form, the weighted GPA on which d’s class rank is based, but that she couldn’t say what it was out of (4.0, 5.0, etc) because not all classes offered had AP/GT options (this actually DOES make sense to me). </p>

<p>While she seemed friendly and very willing to redo the docs, the lack of real explanation means I can’t help but feel REALLY leery now about what happened, and it doesn’t auger well for the future. Arrrggghhhh!!! Exasperated!!</p>

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<p>SuperMom, in the other thread I meant to distinguish between the issues of transcripts and letters of recommendation. But in any event you’ve convinced me to change my opinion, or at least make sure that I inspect Lake Jr.'s most recent transcript before any official copy is sent to admissions offices.</p>

<p>As regards letters of recommendation, the opinion I expressed earlier in this particular thread stands: I don’t favor waiving the student’s right to view it. Apparently, a lot of high school administrators and teachers do not agree with me.</p>

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<p>Maybe it’s because DS is at a private boy’s college prep school (not cheap), and part of their marketing campaign consists of boasting about where their boys are going on to college and how much money they were offered in scholarships. There could be some pressure from above on the GC’s to get the better students looking at the more prestigious schools…</p>

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<p>He liked D and because she was new in the middle of sophomore year (students meet GC from freshman year) he was particularly eager to learn more about her interests. Now S is a senior and he has been given the other GC at the school.</p>

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<p>I like my daughter’s GC, as he has been quite helpful with some scheduling snafu’s over the past 3 years. Also, the entire guidance department seems on top of the college application process. </p>

<p>My biggest gripe with him, however, is he told her to take SATs in January, which was just before midterms, so she didn’t do as well as she hoped, as she didn’t have time for practice exams. He also told her to take SATs in May, as it would mesh well with APs. If you remember an earlier post of mine, she panicked after taking Math2 and instead of taking Chemistry, took US History and left. (despite getting a 5 on AP Chem, 10 days later). </p>

<p>PS - I am dreading the tension over next 38 days, as she is applying ED & EA to her top 2 (& only) schools.</p>

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<p>Good luck, njmom. Our GC seemed to have no opinion on ED, but she did suggest my daughter take a third SAT and a second ACT because “that’s usually standard.” You can imagine how thrilled my daughter was. Recently, my d changed her mind about applying ED since the school she really wants if basically unaffordable. I’m very relieved because now I have time for the money fairy to come.</p>

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<p>It wouldn’t even occur to me to solicit the GC’s input on whether my kids should apply ED or not, or when they should take SAT’s / ACT’s.</p>

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<p>sybbie – Our high school went to electronic grading for the first time about three weeks ago, so I would be hesitant to say that ALL NYS public schools do anything.</p>