So for most college and the Ivies, one part of the recommendations is from a guidance counselor. However, my school just got a new guidance counselor for this year, and I feel that I won’t get to really know her before she writes my recommendation in Sept/Oct because I am applying early. I’m still in touch with my old counselor who had me from freshmen to junior year. I was wondering if it is acceptable for me to ask my old guidance counselor who is no longer at my school anymore to write my letter of recommendation from a counselor? Will colleges understand this and will this make be look bad/questionable if I don’t have my current counselor write me a LOR? Thanks for replying!
Your counselor relays much more information to the colleges than a mere assessment of how they feel about you. There can be no way that the former counselor’s recommendations could be any more than a third/community/outside recommendation meant to augment your portfolio.
HS counselors recommendations provide AOs with info about the school’s curriculum, whether you choose the most/least rigorous of courses available to you, how you compare/rank within your school/class. AOs know that at many schools counselors have many hundreds of students and don’t know them all very well except for what’s on your transcript. You should make a point of meeting with your counselor, ask how your rigor will be ranked, ask if you can provide a resume or a parent ‘brag’ sheet to help, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that recc. Your teacher recommendations are the ones that AOs will be more interested in, as these are academic professionals who have seen your work and interacted with you regularly over the course of a year or more.
Yes, and think of the counselor as ‘Office of the Counselor,’ more than ‘person from with whom I have forged a deep connection’. As WhataProcess points out, it is the teachers who can speak in depth about your work habits and growth.