<p>Are counselor recommendation letters required for ALL the schools? Or do schools specify whether they want it or not? </p>
<p>I've been looking at some school websites, but noticed that not a lot of them state "a counselor recommendation" as a requirement. Even with the higher tier schools, most of them just say to send teacher recommendations.</p>
<p>I've asked my counselor at school, and she is fine with sending the letters. However, I think it would be better to avoid sending them if they're unnecessary. Not that her recommendation would be bad - I just feel she just doesn't know me that well (we only ever come in contact once or twice a year during course selections). Also, I asked her two months ago and she STILL hasn't started. Ugh. ;(</p>
<p>There's a space on the Common App's Secondary School Report for the counselor to write an evaluation. It's not a big space, but if they want to write more they can attach their evaluation on a separate sheet/s. Is that what you mean? That is what is usually meant by the counselor's rec.</p>
<p>In that case, I would think she'd be expected to write something in the evaluation space, at least, since she's also supposed to be filling out the rest of the form. I suppose she could leave the evaluation part blank, but she still has to complete the rest of the form anyway.</p>
<p>I think you don't see schools asking for it specifically, because it's included in the secondary school report, which is required.</p>
<p>As to the fact that counselors often don't know the students well, one admissions officer I talked to said they are aware of that, and don't expect a counselor to necessarily have much helpful to add to an application. As long as the counselor doesn't have anything problematic to report, it won't much matter if her evaluation is superficial, since a counselors often have very many students assigned to them and don't necessarily know them well. Or so I was told.</p>
<p>Sounds like the problem is just getting your counselor to get the secondary school report done!</p>