Counselor Doesn't Know Me at All

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I’m a freshman in high school, so this is not of immediate concern, but I was just curious what would happen if a college were to call up my school to ask about my involvement in extracurricular activities. I come from a poor, large high school in the city and there’s absolutely no way for the counselor to keep track of all students. Even worse, the school does not log extracurricular involvement in their database where grades and other information is stored.

The bottom line is that my counselor does not know which programs I’m involved with, and this concerns me. They don’t even have tangible access to find out which clubs I take part in, so if a college were to call up asking for verification, I suppose they’d just have to lie?

Does anyone know more about the college admission process, especially with regards to extracurricular involvement, that can help me figure out what to do in this situation?

2

In 9th grade my kids were given a fill in the blank resume of sorts. They were to fill in their academic info (gpa, ranking, etc) and info on extracurricular involvement. This was then to be given to anyone who would be sending a letter of recommendation. You might could do something like that, updating yearly, for her to keep on file for inquiries. Not only will she have the info but you doing it will help her remember who you are.

3

No college will call up your counselor for this. In the rare (very, very, rare) occasion that the college asks, they will ask you to provide documentation.

FWIW, many kids go to HS’s were the college does not know them well. As stated above, in many cases, a counselor will ask for a “cheat sheet” to help with the rec.

In the scary world of college admissions, this is one thing that you do not have to spend time worrying about.