<p>I heard you need letters of recommendations from teachers and your guidance counselor. We visited one school and they asked who many kids know their guidance counselor and 1/2 the room said no. They said it would then be ok to ask teachers. I think the teachers know the kids better. Wondering if many schools require the one form the gc?</p>
<p>According to my son’s GC, a GC rec. is not required on common app and, if the counselor does not know the student well, then the GC can opt out of writing one by checking a box when completing the student’s school report.</p>
<p>Ok thank you! </p>
<p>I also meant to ask if a rec. from a teacher senior year would be ok even though they didnt know the student the entire year. My son is a senior and has a great relationship with his current Calc teacher. My son helps him with tutoring students. Being this is a core teacher and my son is interested in Math I thought this would be a good rec., but not sure if they have to know each other for a full year? Anything on that? </p>
<p>It depends on the college. Check each college’s application requirements.</p>
<p>Most top schools do want both. A lot of schools ask for 2 teacher recs and the GC rec. The GC rec has things the teacher rec does not have (eg, info on class rank). I think it is actually called the “School Report” in the Common App terminology. It does say that a school administrator could also fill it out, but most high schools have a standard process where the GC fills it out. Colleges do understand that GCs at big high schools barely know their students when the ratio is poor – they will give more weight to teacher evaluations in that situation. I would not worry about this, let the GC follow their standard process at your kid’s school, unless he has had disciplinary run-ins with the GC… then you may have to worry.</p>
<p>Thank you for the explanation!</p>
<p>At our large public high school, the parents write a “rave” sheet for the guidance counselor, as does the student, to help the GC write a more compelling recommendation. Colleges know this and judge them accordingly. </p>
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<p>This seems to be standard procedure at large publics, where the GCs only know the students who have had repeated difficulties of some kind and are barely aware of the competent, largely self-managing kids who plan to apply to colleges that require letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>I think you can just let this happen, with one exception. If your child faced a special challenge during high school (e.g., long absence due to a serious injury) or something that might look bad if not explained properly (e.g., student had no ECs junior year because the mother had cancer and the student had to help care for her and watch younger siblings after school), sometimes it’s appropriate to discuss it with the GC, who may want to include a sentence or two about the nature of the challenge and how the student coped with it well. </p>
<p>If they are applying via common app, then the requirements for recs are listed when you enter schools into your dashboard. In our experience, all of the schools my kids applied to needed a GC rec. My Ds GC, (large suburban HS) probably has 75+ seniors so the advice I gave them was, starting freshman year, get to know your GC. Schedule a meeting that has nothing to do with scheduling classes, schedule conflicts, etc. Go see them once per quarter, tell them what your are up to outside of school, etc. Basically anything that will let them get to know you better personally. Continue this through 10th and 11th grad and by the time your senior year rolls around, you will have a leg up. This has worked out very nicely for my kids.</p>
<p>our school has the student and the parent write a “brag sheet” that helps give the GC more info about the student.</p>
<p>Thank you for the continuing advice! I like the idea about visiting the GC. Will start my 2nd and 3rd on that one : )
I was happy to find out my school does use a brag sheet. Also, my son made several trips to GC just in the past few weeks so that helps. Some of his college choices have visited the school. </p>