<p>sally305 ~ re: huge public schools. I was having a very nice one-on-one with a guidance counselor and realized the counselor had my daughter confused with another student - but I couldn’t get a word in, and thought I wouldn’t embarrass her because any moment she was going to realize her mistake and I wanted to allow her to save face. Then before I knew it, we parted and I didn’t have the chance. Bet it happens more often than I realize. They do kind-of look alike and played the same sport. The other student was very strong academically and well thought of ~ luckily.</p>
<p>youtube. lily tomlin. orange county ~ this is hilarious.
She is a high school guidance counselor.</p>
<p>In case this discussion needs stress relief (or warning -it may case more stress)</p>
<p>Ha, ha. In many schools the GC’s write canned recs and hardly know the kid. My former neighbor moved to another country with her oldest entering senior year. The girl decided she wanted to go with the family rather than stay here, an option that was given to her. So they asked the GCs to provide recs for college along with some of her teaches since she had been in the system all through high school and was a top student there. Now my public school is considered a very good one, and the college guidance dept puts on a terrific show about their college app support which those who have undergone it mumble under their breath. </p>
<p>One of the envelopes was not well sealed and easily opened, and my neighbor could not resist looking. She was horrified. Showed me the rec. Was canned as Campbell’s soup. It probably was a very good rec, but could have been about any good student at the school. Misspelled the DD’s name to boot. So she opened the teachers’ recs and found the same. In fact one had the same language,must have been from the same website. </p>
<p>Also colleges are processing huge volumes of apps. Look at the number of apps they process, the time they have to do so and how many in an admissions department. And they are on the road for college fairs and school visits, doing visits and talks at their school, and doing other administrative things as well. Not gonna want to be calling GCs as a rule. Nope. </p>
<p>There was a book out by Jay Matthews on the college process of a competive highs school in the NY suburbs,and the GC actually sent out the wrong rec to the colleges. Yeah. That one got caught in real time while the book spotlight was on the process. Scary. My son’s file at BInghamton got mixed up with another student with a similar DOB, name and SSn. To this day I wonder who really got accepted there.</p>
<p>My son’s public hs with 1,200 students has 2 GCs for everything. Given that, I was amazed by how much time he gave me and my son for the college process. I am sure, though, that he didn’t have the time or inclination to engineer everyone’s admissions results. Most of my son’s schools were well out of our area and quite unknown around here anyway. Whew! I wouldn’t have wanted someone interfering in my son’s process like that. He was perfectly capable of choosing his own school once he had his results.</p>
<p>Funny clip, Snug-a-pug. Are there any safeguards in place to ensure transcripts aren’t mixed up? Aren’t their names on them?</p>
<p>Agentninetynine ~don’t think it’s a too-real-worth-worrying-about problem.</p>
<p>Snug: It probably doesn’t happen very often, but someone upthread mentioned that this did happen to their kid.</p>
<p>yikes - sounds like cptofthehouse may know best.</p>
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<p>Which is interesting, because there’s a lot of noise made on CC about the “unfairness” of - affirmative action / URM preference, legacy preference, athlete preference, and so on and so forth. But not a lot of noise about the “unfairness” that x% of students have a GC who has a relationship with elite schools, who actively participates and provides relevant info back and forth, and some other y% of students have a GC who write canned letters (insert Bobby and math here, Susie and history there), wouldn’t know the students if she tripped over them, much less their order of prefeerence, and who have neither any reason to contact or be contacted by elite school adcoms. </p>
<p>I’m not complaining - I’m just making an observation here. That’s a REAL tilt of the playing field, IMO.</p>
<p>Since this is our first time through the college process, I’m curious about how much sway GC’s do have. Wouldn’t LOR from teachers be as important?</p>
<p>It is a tilt in the playing field, but the situation is largely under the radar. I’m sure private high school counselors would deny until they are blue in the face that they had any control whatsoever in where your kids get in.</p>
<p>I think LORs are actually more important. Another win for the private HS kid, as their teachers are often better writers, have fewer kids to write for, and generally are more invested in their outcomes. (some public school exceptions, of course)</p>
<p>**Both of mine went to private HS, so no sour grapes- just an observation.</p>
<p>Agent99 - it’s all in context. Colleges known darn well that this school is a private one where the GC could fairly be expected to have some real commentary to say on the kid, and that one is a public one where the GC just filled in the blanks that Bobby / Susie is a good student and very interested in math / history. And therefore they discount the latter (unless there is some glaring red flag). Which is why I think the whole thing is stupid, since it gives repetitive info about the type of high school the student goes to. I’ve long felt GC recs are unnecessary, but that and $4 gets me a latte at Starbucks.</p>
<p>I agree the GC letter is a bit odd. Never knew it existed until I saw it here on CC. And you’re absolutely right. How can a GC with 400 kids possibly write a glowing or even accurate LOR for a kid he or she barely knows?</p>
<p>Certainly colleges know that this, so why require it? So much I don’t understand…</p>
<p>They can’t. And the colleges know it, yet they continue to ask for it. I think it’s dumb, but they didn’t ask me.</p>
<p>Some large U’s only suggest, not require LOR. My son didn’t want to wait. He had HS elected office on his record which he thought would be good enough. He heard back quickly from several OOS rolling admission schools Depends on the type of school your student targets, and you may need a varied approach. Our high school is so focused on the usual in-state options -the guidance/teacher LOR workload seems to follow those known deadlines. Kids with other ideas of schools/other deadlines are sometimes disadvantaged by guidance/teacher timetable.</p>
<p>What the colleges actually “require” of the GC is hardly anything at all. Mostly it’s official certification from the school of the kid’s transcript, current course load, and disciplinary record (or lack thereof), basic statistical information about the school (and most schools of any sophistication at all have that information and more on a separate data sheet), and, all importantly, characterizing the kid’s curriculum (relative to other students at the school) as “most demanding.” “very demanding,” “demanding,” “average,” or “below average”. There are also a few questions about the applicant and his or her character, mostly again sorting applicants into boxes like “top 1%” or “average”, and the GC is free to indicate that he or she has no basis for knowing. </p>
<p>The school data is important to a selective college (assuming it isn’t already familiar with the school), because it helps put the kid’s transcript and recommendations in context – Is this a large suburban public or a small religious private? Is this the only kid who has applied to selective colleges this decade, or is this a feeder school for MIT? If the kid is in the top 1% of the class, is that out of 40 kids, 400, or 1,400? And what range of test scores does that represent? That’s why sophisticated schools have their own data sheet that gives a good picture of what the school is, and makes certain college admissions personnel will understand that a kid with 2200 SATs and is in the middle of her class isn’t necessarily a slacker.</p>
<p>At the private school my kids attended for a long time, every application is a team effort. There is one full-time GC that coordinates everything, and usually four other faculty members who serve as advisors, and the five of them each takes primary responsibility for 15-20 kids. They write a supplemental letter for the GC report that ties all of the kid’s school work together – what he was interested in, how he changed, which courses were really important, what he learned from the ones he didn’t do so well in, etc. They work with the other teachers to make certain everyone is telling a consistent story, and that the teachers’ recs are full of illustrative, personal-observance detail. They meet repeatedly with the student and his parents, so they are very familiar with the student’s strategy (and usually have shaped it, and approved it) and thinking, and they have worked hard to manage expectations realistically. They have also tried to make sure that everybody isn’t applying to the same three colleges, and I strongly suspect they try to shape things so that they can tell five or six different colleges, about five or six different students, “This is the top kid in our class this year,” secure that none of those colleges is going to see another application that would make them question that. (Officially, there’s no numerical rank, of course.)</p>
<p>They are really good at it, and it works well. Of course, the colleges know they are getting it handed to them on a silver platter, and discount that. But when it comes to taking a risk on a kid, having such a carefully crafted, elaborate background story makes it much easier to take the risk than if their information were really minimal.</p>
<p>At the public school my kids graduated from, the GCs are responsible for about 100 seniors each, plus another 350 kids from other classes. They check the boxes and make certain the transcript and the school report are in the envelope. They meet for 5-10 minutes with each of their students, and tell most of them to apply to LACs (where the GCs sent their own kids), advice that is generally ignored. Most of the GCs’ efforts are to make certain everybody applies to at least one college that will accept him or her, but they don’t always succeed at that. The most competitive, most ambitious students counsel each other. Sometimes kids fall through the cracks. That’s life.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS. I posted up thread as well but wanted balance out my comments by saying that at small elite private HS, the GCs really know the kids well and will really go to bat for them with the ad coms. These GCs know the kids academics and rigor, ECs in school, have met with kids and parents 1 on 1 multiple times, and do group kid sessions weekly. So, if the GC thinks that its a good fit, the GC will go to bat for a kid. But this is always in context with both placing the entire HS class and in maintaining relationships with ad coms.</p>
<p>Edit: cross posted with JHS’s new post which I haven’t read yet. Was agreeing with much up thread post</p>
<p>Hi everyone, sorry to interrupt the conversation with a random question but I just joined this website and I’m seeing it’s not really that user friendly. lol Can you guys tell me how to make a new thread? I want to know about ornithology & Calculus, and get some advice about BA vs BS degree in Environmental Science…</p>
<p>I really appreciate it, thanks!</p>
<p>
Look for the white box “New Thread”. Poke it. See what happens.</p>
<p>DS’ list was composed of Midwest LACs, Tier 1 and “Tier 1.5”. He attends a private college prep, but not a super-expensive socially-elite school. When I’d ask during college tours, designated admin reps would respond: “we like kids from DS’ HS”. Relying on the college guidebooks, these schools would look like DS’ “reaches”, yet at interviews, admin reps noted kids from DS’ HS get a “bump” and that he was a strong “likely-admit” candidate nonetheless. DS’ HS GC thought DS’ shortlist of schools were all likely “RD-acceptance”, w/exception of Careleton. GC did discuss DS w/several admin reps, and likely helped solidify merit aid too. No, he’s not going to Carelton in Fall.</p>