<p>I just learned that my daughter's guidance counselor, who she had a decent relationship with, has left the school for unspecified reasons. It's a school of 2400+ kids, so she doesn't know any of the other counselors. She obviously has to go meet with the new person, but they won't get to know her in any meaningful way, especially since she's applying ED and will only meet with him/her once or twice (if she's lucky). She has two teacher recs lined up and could get an additional one from her employer, but I've heard that the counselor rec is quite important. I'm worried that this will hamper her chances for admission. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Is there any way to contact the old counselor to ask for a letter from her? Will the new counselor be stating in her rec that she just started as the school counselor?</p>
<p>At a school that size, it should be no problem at all. It would have been nice and a bonus to get a rec from a counselor who really knows the student, but that’s certainly not the norm. Have your D prepare a short letter and resume to give the new GC when she requests the rec and have her try to spend a few minutes talking to the GC before the rec is submitted. That will provide the new GC plenty of detail to include in the recommendation.</p>
<p>@tylertexan: I don’t think she can contact the old counselor. It sounds like it may have been an unpleasant parting. I think it’s a good idea to ask the new one to put your suggestion into the letter though</p>
<p>@niceday: I guess you’re right about the school size thing. I think it’s almost impossible for the GC to know all the kids. It kind of makes you wonder about why colleges would give much credence to the GC letter at all. I guess it’s helpful for a candidate from a small school, but seems almost boilerplate for the big ones.
I like your idea about the resume and letter. She has one already from an 11th grade English assignment, and a letter should be relatively easy to do.</p>
<p>I have another question: I’ve talked to a couple of people about this and it’s been suggested that she get a couple of more letters to compensate for the less than ideal GC letter. She has a high-responsibility job in a company that she’s worked at for the past 3 summers, who would give an excellent addition to the perspective of her two teacher recs. She also is held in high regard at church, where she again has taken on a role beyond her years, but in a very different way. </p>
<p>My question is: Is one or two extra letters over the top? I would have said probably, but I really feel that she will be shortchanged by this new GC situation.</p>
<p>It has to be very frustrating. Large high schools with GCs that are filling in the blanks (ie most rigorous curriculum?, any discipline violations?, etc.) much of this is objective so students aren’t harmed by an overloaded GC. When deciding to send additional LORs my advise is there’s a finite amount of time the reader can spend on this part of the application. If 1-2 are requested and three are sent all will probably be read. If 1-2 are requested and 5 are sent to compensate for the GC you run the risk the reader randomly picks 3 of the 5 to read and moves on. You have no idea which three are read. The one that says your D is a ‘once in a lifetime student’ may be missed. With this thought wouldn’t you rather your D have control, or pick, the strongest LORs instead of leaving it to fate? I’m just offering a possible scenario, however I would be conservative in sending additional LORs. Others may offer different thoughts, just my two cents.</p>
<p>@hel2662 - our high school actually had the parents fill out a brag sheet for our kids (school of 1700) you might ask the new GC if that would be helpful to them!</p>
<p>On the issue of sending more then one or two letters of rec - a lot of schools will tell you that they won’t read more than the one they asked for or some will say we will read one or two extra. You might want to go on a school by school bases.</p>
<p>@hel2662, we ask for a guidance counselor recommendation (it’s part of the Common App’s Secondary School Report form) because counselors can provide information about the student within the context of that particular high school. While we know lots of high schools, we don’t know them all and the contextual information a counselor can provide, even if they’re not super familiar with the individual student, can be helpful.</p>
<p>We recognize that at many larger schools, students may not know their counselors very well. If the counselor letter is indicative of that it certainly will not hurt the applicant in any way.</p>
<p>As other posters have indicated, if schools have suggestions about the number of letters to be sent (and we do…we ask for no more than 2 additional letters beyond the one from the counselor), the applicant should stick to that suggestion. It’s not that we want to keep them from putting their best foot forward, it’s just that if every applicant sent 5 letters plus whatever additional materials they wanted, it would be very difficult for us to review applications in the amount of time we have and to provide decisions in a timely manner.</p>
<p>@blueiguana I never thought about that, it’s kind of like playing the lottery. Hopefully her teacher recs will be good! Thanks </p>
<p>@Cal1983 I like that brag sheet idea. She was going to send a resume as well, so maybe that will compensate for the lack of a relationship. Since this has happened, people are coming out of the woodwork telling me similar stories, and all of their kids did fine, so I’m less nervous. Thank you</p>
<p>@w&m admission: Thanks for the info. It’s reassuring to know that the counselor issue won’t be held against her. I think she will ask the counselor to mention that this is her first year (she’s actually an intern, not a “real” GC yet). I think the # of letters issue has sunk in now! ;)</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for your words of wisdom!</p>