Okay, so my guidance counselor is new this year and I got to say, I absolutely despise her. Guidance counselors in my school are the epitome of the useless administrative office. They don’t know anything and have like 300+ students each. So what happened was, in the beginning of the year (before school started) we had this registration day where you go to take yearbook photos, check out textbooks, etc. I got my class schedule and I realized that she put me in the wrong English class. I walked into the office and requested to see her. I talked to her about how she put me in regular English, when I signed up for AP Lit. (At my school, you and your last year teachers chose your classes together. Then over summer, your counselor arranges your schedule)
Then she was like “Oh sorry, I must have put you in the wrong class my accident. Let me help you change it.” Then she tried to change it, but the class was full so she refused to add me in. I got extremely pissed and was trying to be as polite as possible. I kept asking her if she could put me in my class and she refused to. Then I asked if I could speak to someone else about getting into my AP Lit class. I was understandably frustrated because I signed up for AP Lit and she imputed my class requests wrong. She refused to let me speak to anyone. I literally stormed out the room crying. I was having the worst day (aunt flow, broke my phone screen, messed up schedule).
I called my mom in the bathroom and she told me to go talk to the Principal. So I went to the office and talked to the Principal. The Principal called in my counselor and we had a brief polite argument. The Principal ended up extending the class, so I could be put in because she put in the wrong class. She was pretty angry that I got in my class and remember, I was a crying mess.
I didn’t think much of it then because I got in my AP Lit class. But now I’m really scared because she’s writing my LoR.
Will a counselor purposely write a bad LoR so I don’t get into college? Just to screw with my future?
I’m absolutely freaking out. Counselors request you give them a sheet of paper with your ECs and awards. Do counselors write about your behavior/personality or just your achievements/class rank?
I’m soo scared that she’s going to ruin all my years of work and dedication.
Counselors can have a bias, but they are supposed to be objective enough to look past their “emotional” opinions of their students. That being said, they are human, so your letter might be good, okay or just generic.
Crying in front of both the Principal and the counselor may have demonstrated that you weren’t mature enough to handle the stress; college scheduling is even worse. The Principal had already stretched the state’s maximum number boundary by letting you into that class. The person who should be angry is the teacher who will have another set of papers to grade.
What you don’t seem to understand is that the counselor was trying to protect the teacher’s workload. Yes, it was the counselor’s mistake in not including you in the class but, she was looking at numbers. The classes become disproportionate such that the regular ed teachers will have lower numbers and the AP teachers will have increased workloads. Yes, that is not your problem, but you need to see it for what it is: a numbers game.
As ucbalumnus stated above, apply to schools that don’t use counselor recs.
In college there will be many times that you will not be able to take a class when you want to. And inept and uncaring university administrative bureaucracies can be far worse than what you have just gone through. What will you do then? And what when things in your job or career don’t work out exactly as you want? At some point you need to stop running crying from the room when you have a challenge. I doubt that the professionalism of your counselor would let her write a negative rec. But she may correctly feel that you are not ready for the challenges of certain schools and programs. Could you meet with her to try to restart your relationship and her impression of you? That may go a long way. Good luck!
So, she’s new, made a mistake, apologized but didn’t have authority to correct it, but you ultimately got into the class anyway. And you “absolutely despise” her because of this one incident?
If she has 300 kids to counsel, I’m sure she has had more than your situation to deal with. She’s also responsible for many recommendations; it’s doubtful that she’s going to personally write a memoir of her side of the story just to “ruin” you.
If you were my child, I would tell you to go talk to her. Tell her that you’re sorry you got off on the wrong foot. Apologize. Who knows? She may not be this despicable person you seem to think she is.
Sound advice from @ScreenName48105, but first talk yourself back out of the despising/useless mindset you have about the school admin & this GC. Recognize that they are humans, with various strengths and weaknesses- like you!- and that they have a rules about how they do their jobs as well.
The other posters are right: colleges where scheduling works smoothly and painlessly are vanishingly rare. Of course, you will be another year older, and yes you are still a maturing person, so you may be better able for it next year.
Learning to see adults- admin or teacher- as something closer to work colleagues who have more seniority than you, rather than parental-type authority figures is something you will need to start doing in college anyway, so this is a good opportunity to start practicing.
How much you said- and the way in which you said it- will be the key to the apology, and yes, it has to be an apology. Yes, you had to watch out for yourself (and I think some of the other posters are being a little hard on you), and good job on doing that. What you are apologizing for is anything rude that you said (mostly), and for going over her head (indirectly).
IF you can manage going in and saying ‘I understand that you were in a difficult position and I’m sorry that I panicked. I was so anxious about doing everything right because college is so important to me. I know you were just getting settled here and I’m sorry that we got off on the wrong foot’ in a genuinely civil way you may actually be able to turn it around to a positive. She has 300 letters to write- you may be able to show her that her brief negative picture of you has a positive side (takes academics seriously and showing growth/maturing (by recognizing own ‘fault’ in the row).
If you can’t do that with some sincerity, however- don’t go in. You are better off turning in your sheet of paper (put some thought into that, btw- writing phrases or sentences that the GC can lift whole) and staying away than going in with a half-#@#$ apology that s/he hears as ‘I’m sorry you’re a useless paper pusher’.
While you didn’t come off looking mature here (the crying), you get credit in my books for taking initiative to get what you want from a bureaucracy that had little incentive to be responsive. This will happen again in your life and while you may not always be able to get what you want (and crying is inappropriate), it’s also an important lesson about the value of standing up for yourself, politely and firmly, especially when someone else’s error is the cause of your problem. So kudos here for this.
As for the rec, you did make the GC look bad to her boss. But she should have gone to him in the first place and said she made a mistake and needs his support to fix it by expanding the class by one student. That’s not a huge burden to the AP Lit teacher and it’s a reasonable request.
As for you rec letter, she will probably be professional about it. Most GC letters at large public high schools are impersonal - they provide the school profile, compare your transcript’s rigor to that of your peers (in this case, the AP Lit course is valuable), mention anything noteworthy about you both pro and con (disciplinary issues, class president, family or health issues that might have impacted your grades, etc…). And if she knew you well personally, she could put in in the plug for you, which probably isn’t going to happen here. But silence on that point isn’t going to hurt you either.
By the way, I think your judgement of the GC is immature and unfair. GCs at large public high schools often have 300-500 students for whom they are responsible. They spend most of their time helping kids who are flunking out, who are experiencing life crises, who aren’t going to college and don’t know what their next steps should be, who are facing serious disciplinary issues, whose families are unsafe…your AP Lit issue, against this backdrop, is trivial. Not that she handled it well because it’s not trivial to you. But I’m guessing as new GC trying to get up to speed quickly on all that is one her plate and this didn’t strike her as critical. Cut her some slack and she may do the same for you.
From the counselor’s point of view - she’s at a new job, a mistake was made (as an aside: did she make the mistake or was it made by someone else before she started?, was she even working at the school over the summer when the course requests were entered?), she followed procedures, you had a fit and cried and went over her head to her boss. She wasn’t mad because you got into the class despite the fact she said no. She is mad because you made an emotional scene and called her out in front of her new boss, even though she was doing what she was supposed to do. Frankly, you owe her an apology. Adults do not handle disappointment by crying and making a scene.
You say she has 300 students to write recommendations for. If that is the case, she probably hasn’t even met everyone yet and is going to do pretty generic recs. Since she has met you and has a bad memory of it, she might write something about the incident, mentioning that you display lack of maturity and ability to handle disappointment. I agree that you should apply to places where recs aren’t required.
@me29034 She said herself that it was her mistake. I was angry because she fessed up to the mistake and refused to do anything. Yes the class was full, but she didn’t even care enough to take me to someone else who could’ve helped more. I’m not going to simply apply to places where recs aren’t required because I have dedicated so much of my life and I refuse to give up on my dream colleges because of her.
@collegemom3717@ScreenName48105 I didn’t say anything rude to her. Our entire conversation was:
“Are you sure you can’t squeeze me in?”
“No”
“Maybe if I get transfered into another period?”
“No”
“Is there anything I could do?”
“No”
“Could I try speaking to someone else?”
“No”
I kinda just froze and asked the same questions repeatedly…
@“aunt bea” Yes I understand the workload of the AP Lit teacher will be more because of me. That is my fault and I apologize. But my AP Lit teacher also teaches regular English 3, so I had her anyways. And the counselor put me in the wrong class, when I signed up for AP Lit. Also I ran out crying because she refused to let me talk to anyone else. She also gave me extremely kurt answers and gave an impression that she didn’t even care about me.
@snarlatron I’m praying that she doesn’t write a negative one bc I’m applying to all my colleges no matter what. Im praying for a generic one of my grades, etc.
Its obvious your aren’t looking for advice because you’ve argued with everyone who has tried to give you some.
Your last three posts are all trying to justify your behavior. We understand that your schedule was not correct. We understand that she refused to do anything about it. That still doesn’t justify your behavior. Little kids cry when they don’t get their way. Adults do not (not in public anyway). You did not handle this in an appropriate manner. Your behavior was immature and she might reflect that in your recs. It sounds like you are going to apply to schools that use recs despite the possibility that it might not be good. I would just make sure that you have a safety or two that you like.
OP, I think some of the posters are being way too hard on you. I doubt that any of them would have taken it lightly if their child had been slated for an AP English class and was instead going to spend the year in a regular English class which would have been an entirely inappropriate placement. Of course, you shouldn’t forego applying to schools that require a GC letter. That would be crazy. I do think that the advice for you to have a face to face conversation with the counselor is a good one. Sit down with her and directly communicate: "I’m sorry I was such an emotional mess over the English placement, but I have worked really hard in school and was really caught off guard when I wasn’t placed in the AP class as expected and it already had been a bad day for me. I hope that I didn’t case a problem for you by speaking with the principal, but I really didn’t know what to do. I would welcome the opportunity to tell you a bit more about myself so that you can get a fuller picture of who I am (and not just that image of me having a really bad day) before you write your counselor recommendation. I really want to go one of the colleges on my dream list and I would hate to think that I’ve jeopardized those chances by letting my frustration get the best of me, but I also don’t want to graduate without your getting to know me better so that your impression of me isn’t forever colored by that one interaction . . "
At the end of the day, I don’t think it will be that big of a deal. I doubt the counselor will screw you over. At worst, she would probably just write a bland, tepid letter. If you have strong teacher recommendations, I think you will be fine. Good luck!
Your first question was: ‘can a negative counselor recommendation ruin my chances’. The answer is yes. So, in fact, can a neutral recommendation.
Your second question was “Will a counselor purposely write a bad LoR so I don’t get into college? Just to screw with my future?” and the answer is almost always no. GCs do not actually want to ‘screw with your future’. They are used to dealing with immature people (b/c that is the nature of teenagers). The GCs and high schools want their high flyers to get into good colleges, b/c it’s what makes them look good. Your GC is going to write 2-300 LoRs. Picture the work that takes- between talking to students- and you can figure out how long she is able to take for each one. She doesn’t have the time to ‘just screw with you’.
Since you have decided to stick with your current strategy of prayer you should commit to it and have the faith that a prayer-based strategy implies, and stop ‘freaking out’.
Yeah, I am with pittsburghscribe on this one. Crying out of frustration isn’t terrible or immature. It is just a stress response. And going to the Principal was your only recourse. On the other hand “storming out of the office” isn’t great. So go apologize and then I would also ask her advice on some issue to show that you still value and respect her as a GC.
If after that meeting you get the impression she isn’t willing to accept your apology and really dislikes you? I think you have to let it go and hope the rest of your application is strong.
Agree with Pittsburghscribe. Really? You’d all let your AP student be dumped in an regular/“college prep” class they didn’t sign up for?? I’d fight like heck to get out of there.
It seems the parents of CC are quick to point a finger at the kids. In a sense we are not mature, we are just teenagers.
Anyway, even though her GC might have been swamped with work, it was unprofessional of her to refuse for her to speak to anyone else about the matter. To make matters worse she got angry because the OP was assisted by the Principal. IMO, an apology could go either way, she may forgive you or considering HER IMMATURE actions, may open an old wound.
My advice, apply to UCs(deadline Nov. 30th) and other universities that don’t require recommendations, just to be safe.
Good luck.
@divinggirl6, I didn’t say or even imply that you were rude to her. It may very well be that she was rude to you. My point was that what happened may not warrant you “despising” her. Anger takes a lot of energy and it’s rarely worth it; just look at the angst you’re feeling over this right now.
FWIW, I think you did the right thing. Regroup, talk to parent, go see the principal. I would have advised my son to do the same. You did fine. You also now know that a GC (or anyone else) can’t refuse to “let you” speak to someone else. You always have the power to escalate.
But, now, you need to look ahead. If all you want is validation that it wasn’t your “fault”, then I guess you have it. If you want to clear the air and feel less anxious about how the GC will treat your recommendations, then you need to go talk to her. IMO, it seems REALLY silly to let this dictate which schools you’re going to apply to, just to avoid having to deal with it.
Btw, if you do go talk to her, don’t use the opportunity to try to “prove” that it was her fault. Try to keep in mind what your objective is. Trust me, this is a skill you’re going to need as you go out into the working/business world.