<p>My D’s GC’s statement in a meeting was, “Someone is going to get into Yale. It could be you.” She did encourage us to look at small liberal arts schools that D could very easily get into, despite D’s interest in large, public institutions. That bewildered me a bit.</p>
<p>LizzieT - LACs and women - sometimes Yale is easier. LACs reject qualified women at a very high rate.</p>
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And yet, strangely enough, this sort of “reverse psychology” motivated you to prove you could succeed where she seemed to think you couldn’t. Had she instead said “oh, yeah, you will surely get in everywhere you apply” perhaps you would have been more complacent and not so improved your chances ;).</p>
<p>I basically told her that this has been my dream for years and I will apply no matter what. OH!!! And let me add, she has the title of “Gifted Counselor”. I told my mom about this incident and she freaked out. I would have as well. What I wasn’t ambitious or independent? The students who are a bit more shy or those who really depend on the advice from the counselors would actually listen to them, and that scares me.</p>
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<p>Me too. Do you know whether it ever happens?</p>
<p>I think it is wrong that students may be held hostage to their GC’s recommendation letters. Which is why I wish all applicant would stop waiving their rights with respect to seeing the letters. If the letters are true, there is nothing to worry about. If they are not, the GC’s should be held responsible for slander.</p>
<p>That is how it works in the business world. I don’t know why college applicants are not given similar rights.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t have even occurred to me to consider the GC’s opinion on much of anything, any more than I would ask the bank teller how to spend the money I’m taking out.</p>
<p>Nearly 80 years ago, my mother’s counselor wouldn’t write her a recommendation for UCLA because good catholic girls don’t go to a public school. She was forced to go to Mount St Mary’s and planned to transfer,but loved it. I guess this isn’t a NEW problem!</p>
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That’s not it. The school counselor only has to submit his/her report once (electronically), no matter how many common application schools the student plans to apply. It’s ok to set a limit as long as all common application schools count as one.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl – Me either. I just talked to a mother of a private school student whose counselor gave him a list of places to apply based on his grades, SAT, interests, and what SHE had determined would be fits for him. I suppose some appreciate the hand-holding, but I would chafe (as a parent OR as a student) at the micromanagement. Public school counselors, however, are generally overworked as it is. The advantage is that many students don’t have to put up with that kind of control – and they learn to find out things themselves. The disadvantage is that the counselors don’t have as much time to help the students who come from a non-college oriented family and really know nothing about higher education. (Of course most of them couldn’t afford to be in private school anyway.)</p>
<p>Still, because many colleges ask for a counselor form or recommendation as part of an application, I have encouraged my children to stay in contact with their counselors. I see the counselors at general information meetings and I occasionally stick my head in their offices, say hi, and ask how they’re doing. However, my children are the ones who work out schedule difficulties and drop by to get information. Those relationships can be very important.</p>
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<p>I felt very much the same way in high school, but, as with most things, I’d say consider the source – it depends on the GC.</p>
<p>I grew up in a very mediocre public school district in suburban Philadelphia, where the majority of students did not plan to attend college, let alone highly-selective ones, and my experience with their guidance counselors was very disappointing in general. The counselor who advised me on my college applications, however, was a godsend. When I told her I was wavering on my first choice, she literally picked up the phone right then and there and called Penn to see if it was too late to apply there. I thought she was nuts! My sister had been accepted there the previous year (she ended up going to another school) as had one of her closest friends the year before that, but my SAT scores and academic record were not in the same league as theirs. But I had excelled in other areas, and the GC felt I had a chance. Penn ended up not only allowing me to submit my application a week late, they accepted me for admission and offered me an enormous amount of FA. </p>
<p>I am forever indebted to that one GC and rank her right up there with my favorite HS teachers. She literally changed the course of my life. </p>
<p>Moral of my story: There are good GCs and bad ones. I think it’s really important to feel them out ahead of time so you have an idea if your assigned counselor is someone you can trust. Is he open to thinking outside the box? Does he already think outside the box? If not, I wouldn’t expect much from that person or allow him to dictate my choices.</p>
<p>Who cares what a counselor says. Apply anyways. If you don’t get in, just have some public schools as your safeties. No need to head all of the advice they give.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy. An application requires a School Report from the counselor. A counselor can torpedo a student’s admission chances by not sending out the School Report in a timely manner … or at all (not ethical but not unheard of) or by writing a recommendation that’s lukewarm at best.</p>
<p>I don’t think the counselors at my kids’ school discouraged kids from aiming high, but I don’t think they actively encouraged them to aim high enough. In particular, they didn’t advise kids who were looking at reach schools to apply to enough of them. So some of these kids end up at the state flagship–not a tragedy, but a disappointment. I think it’s partly because a lot of couselors still give the following advice mentioned above:
In my opinion, this is totally outdated advice for anybody who really wants to go to a highly selective school like the Ivies, top LACs, and probably about 50 other schools. There are just too many kids who get into one or two reaches, but are rejected at several others, for this to be good advice these days. I think more like 6 or 8 reaches, 2 matches and 2 safeties is more like it. Of course, if you’re perfectly happy with your matches and safeties, you don’t have to do this. But if your dream school is Harvard, or Amherst, or MIT, there are probably a number of other reach schools that you would prefer to your flagship.</p>
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<p>I find that quite shocking. Not only is it unethical, it is evil.</p>
<p>At my urban magnet, my GC admitted to us advisees he discouraged an older classmate from applying to BC because his stats was Ivy caliber and his reasons had mainly to do with being a big fan of their sports teams.* </p>
<p>Granted, part of that was because in the early-mid '90s, BC was viewed mostly as a party/heavy drinking sports school whose strengths were mainly in humanities/social sciences among that GC and many teachers/parents. Classmates who were aspiring STEM majors with BC-level stats tended to prefer schools like URochester or Stonybrook. </p>
<p>In short, yes…my urban magnet high school not only had GCs who’d discourage students from applying to colleges “too low” or “too high” on the basis of stats, but also strictly limited every student to 7 applications with one having to be applications to multiple city or state schools as each category counted as one app. </p>
<p>This is not only to facilitate the reduction of competition among those in the top 25-33% of the class for the elite schools, but also to max out acceptances to the elite colleges. </p>
<p>Heard this mentality was also common at many boarding/private schools from various folks I’ve met who are alums of such schools…though the hard max limit on apps was considered odd.</p>
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<li>Heard the classmate ended up at UPenn…but ended up transferring to BC later.</li>
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<p>Is it really a teacher’s right to deny a recommendation because of alleged bad behavior by previous students? Assuming that the allegation of “drug addictions” in “multiple students” is accurate, isn’t it possible that some (many?) of those students already had drug problems when they left for Reed? Maybe they even started abusing drugs while they were still in that high school!</p>
<p>I’ve always been impressed with Reed on paper, but maybe I need to go to their thread and inquire as to how much drug abuse goes on there. Somehow I’m skeptical that it’s any “druggier” than a lot of highly-competitive college campuses.</p>
<p>My dad’s a high school guidance counselor and he will strongly advise a student not to apply to a school if he feels the student really has no chance in getting in or is not fit for the program i.e if a student wants to apply with a 1800 SAT and decent grades or if a student wants to go for engineering but performs poorly in math and science. He’ll still fill out the recommendations and school reports if the student is persistent anyway. </p>
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<p>The problem with this mentality is that applications aren’t cheap and many students can’t afford to just send applications to pipe dream schools, which is why, when drawing up a college list, to know which schools are safeties, which schools are realistic and which schools are unrealistic.</p>
<p>It is really an issue if the counselors and teachers are generating printed letters for each college you apply to. If they are loading them in the commonapp electronically, they don’t really have to know anything.</p>
<p>But if they use the Common App and Naviance, it again might be a problem - I’m not sure of the exact process they use, but the transcripts and recs don’t get submitted to Common App directly, they are sent through Naviance eDocs. I don’t know if the GC has to release them to each school, or not. Could be a problem, if they won’t release them. But at least they wouldn’t be able to custom fit a bad rec for one specific school.</p>
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<p>This is not only true; this actually affects the NEXT year’s applicants as well. Several top schools actually TRACK THE PERFORMANCE of admits from a particular school/program, and use that data in the next round of admissions decisions when assigning weight to the rigor of the school. </p>
<p>What would be unethical would be for a guidance counselor to make a recommendation that was not an honest, objective assessment of a student’s character and capabilities in light of the known rigor and culture of the school in question.</p>
<p>I’m kind of surprised by some of the entitled attitudes expressed around recommendations. </p>
<p>Recommendations are professional assessments – made by professionals and specific to the school. They are earned – not a god given right ;)</p>