I have noticed many colleges want a recommendation letter from your guidance counselor. While my son has an ok relationship with his guidance counselor, our family has had a rather difficult relationship with her. She has pushed our younger child to take classes that she was not academically ready for and that has led to some pretty heated discussions. . How much weight does a school give to the counselor’s recommendation? I hate to think she would give my son a less than stellar recommendation, but I am worried about how it might affect his chances to get in to a selective college. I know his teacher recommendation will be outstanding. His Debate coach, who is also his AP Lang teacher, loves him. He is one of her hardest working team members and has taken Debate class for 3 years (planning on his Senior Year) to help her coach the novice debaters. She told me that she did not know what she would have done without him last semester in her debate class and assigned him one of the most difficult jobs at our host debate tournament. He is also a member of the Scholar Bowl Team and helped to form a chess club this year. His scholar Bowl Coach and Chess Club sponsor (also his AP Macro-economics teacher) would give him excellent recomendations. My son attends a very large school, so students don’t typically form close relationships with their guidance counselor.
I suspect that they will give more weight to teacher and other recommendations because your teachers obviously know you better, so I wouldn’t worry too much (this is purely my opinion though). Also schools want their students to get into good colleges because it makes them look good, so I doubt that a counselor would give a negative recommendation because of that alone. The recommendations are meant to highlight the best of you - not point out any negatives.
Of course nobody know for sure but I doubt that any guidance counselor would choose to sabotage a good kid. More than likely the GC recommendation will be bland which is fine (and not usual given how many students some GCs handle). I expect that the more personal teacher recommendations will be given more weight.
If your S is a junior, he should try to meet with his GC later in the school year to go over college plans, ask for suggestions etc. And at that time he could also ask the GC if there is any information he could provide (ex. resume, list of activities etc.) to help him/her write the recommendation.
Thanks Happy1! He met with his GC once already this year. I sent her a detailed CV and a list of colleges he was interested in attending. I will have him hand her a paper copy of his CV the next time he meets with her. I’m fortunate to have a friend who was a GC at a low income school and her job was to work with the first generation college bound kids. She’s helped me navigate the waters and pick stretch, fit & safety schools.
@sahmkc That all sounds good. Might I suggest going forward that it is your S who send or hand the GC the information he/she needs such as the CV – it would show the GC that your S is maturing and taking charge of the process (even if you are quietly helping out behind the scenes).