HELP!! REJECTED FROM MANY SCHOOLS!

Applying to College
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Got rejected from my safety school, which was Dickinson.

I am seriously suspecting that there is some sort of foul play here. People have looked over my application and it is all good, but I have a very strong feeling that it is my GC. I also forgot to add that after I cried and FINALLY convinced her to write me a letter of rec, she said “coffeelife, since you asked a few days late, I do not guarantee that your letter will be good or edited”. I only asked a few days after her deadline and I clearly told her and emailed her that I was not at school during my original appointment because I was sick.From the first time I met her, I always had a feeling that she hated me. To clarify, I do not have behavioral issues or attitude issues at all. I treat all adults with respect and I have won role model awards, so I do not know why my counselor hates me, since I have treated her with respect every time I met her.

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I’m really sorry about all that, @coffeelife. At least you were able to get into UCI and it sounds like a good option. Are you still waiting on any schools?

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@coffeelife - If you are accepted to UCI, you can ask to review your admission file when you become a student. You’ll see links on the Stanford thread about some kids who figured out the FERPA exception and articles written about the review. I would think rex would be part of the file. At a minimum, I would get the file once you are a student and “out” the GC to her superiors if the recommendation was unfair.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/heres-how-to-see-what-college-admissions-officers-wrote-abou#.hrm7yVmb7z

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@albert69 I am waiting for NYU, UCB, USC, Tufts and Stanford. Those are all my suppppper long shot schools, so I don’t expect to get in. Also, after getting rejections from most of my safety schools so far and having this much bad luck, I basically have a 0% of getting into them :disappointed:

@skrunch Thanks for reminding me about that! I think that is a great idea!

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Don’t think like that at all! Stanford is Stanford, but your stats I believe are well in the competitive range for NYU. I wouldn’t be surprised if you got in either.

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Only problem with NYU is the aid

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I hope you do well wherever you decide to go, but I just find your GC’s behaviour really, really odd. I mean my GC doesn’t help with the admissions process and doesn’t even try to know us but she is nice, like all the others at my school who are all willing to write EVERY student a good rec as long as there weren’t any serious issues (like suspension but even then its rare). They all want students to go to good school. What sort of an adult DOESN’T want a student to go to a good college? We are still kids after all. It just seems so immature and bitter.

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@coffeelife‌ you’re counselor is for sure an issue here. I’m not sure it’s THE issue, but her behavior suggests that what ever she wrote will not help you. Call all of the schools you were rejected from. Ask to speak with the persons that read your file, ask if there was a concern with a recommendation.

The schools may be reluctant and you’ll likely have to call many schools before you can reach a counselor who is willing. But THERE IS SOMETHING AWFULLY WRONG.

Try to speak with at least one school, if you can talk to many all the better. Be polite and don’t insinuate anything happened at first.

Oh and another thing teachers, counselors, administrators, they are all in cahoots. DO NOT TRUST THEM. Of course there are good people, but bureaucracy exists.

Second did you consider that your current GC knows what happened about the last one/the teacher incident? This could affect how she treats you especially how you noted she hated you in the beginning.

Call the schools yourself and be humble, I doubt your GC would be honest.

Also can you request recommendations for scholarships? Technically if you could request one be made, I would risk reading it (if your schools gives the sealed envelope in person). Yes this is unethical, but I think the situation warrants it. Pretend you need one for a scholarship application, that needs to be included in the application envelope then read it.

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My counselor is EXTREMELY bitter and always seems mad. I honestly have never seen her smile or have a straight face. I am going to start colleges soon and I will start with the smaller ones, since I have a feeling that they might help me. I do not trust GCs, since I have had problems with them in the past and now.

@ccheennaa I have never thought of that, but I think that is a good idea. I just did a google search and I found out that the old GC that was fired was actually hired in a school district next to mine. I dont know if the GCs were friends, but that could be a reason why she hated me from the beginning. I honestly was the ring leader when it came to complaining about the last GC and I wrote A TON about her, especially how she called me stupid and how she was rude to me when she called me in, which resulted in me crying a lot of times.

The scholarship idea is genius!!! I am going to look at local scholarships and I will definitely do that when I come back from spring break!

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Do you often have drama like this occur? Or should we consider this anomalous?

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DO NOT do this. It is illegal. Adcoms CANNOT legally give you this information.
THE ONLY WAY is if your former guidance counselor calls or if a teacher or that former guidance counselor can look over your full file. That’s it.

The “request a rec for a scholarship” is harebrained, sorry. The GC is likely to ask for a stamped envelop and wouldn’t give you a compromising letter.

In addition, the issue isn’t likely to be a recommendation your teachers wrote, but your SSR – ie., what the GC fills out - there are several parts: how long they’ve known you and what comes to mind when they think of you, plus a few other short answers; a grid where they check if you are above average, very good, excellent, outstanding, or one of the top few in career for character, respect accorded by peers, respect accorded by faculty, initiative, creativity, collaboration, intellectual curiosity, etc - I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea; a written evaluation; a final recommendation line where they recommend you ‘enthusiastically’, ’ without reservation", or “with reservation”; a school profile; your transcripts; test scores. In short, accessing the recommendation will be of zero use since the issue is likely the parts of the SSR your GC filled out, such as the short answer, the grid, and the written evaluation.

If her evaluation consisted in " trouble maker: got a collegue fired by rousing the students", yeah, there you go, you know why you were turned down. But until your former GC or a teacher can go over the whole file, you can’t assume anything.

GET YOUR PARENTS INVOLVED. GCs aren’t allowed to “screw” students over. It may not be what happened, you may have been denied for other reasons, but you want to find out what happened.
In addition, next year, can one of your parents volunteer in the GC office?
(In addition, note that UCs don’t consider recommendations, so you may have a shot at these.)
It’s time for you to talk with your parents. What have they been saying so far about those surprising results?

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I am not blaming anyone, but I have a strong feeling that it was the GC. I have doubts that the new GC knows my old GC, since mine started a few months ago, but who knows. Other students played a role in getting the old GC fired and I did not do anything wrong, since she was verbally harassing me (calling a student STUPID based on the location that they live in is never OK). If my GC knew about it, I bet she would write about it and make me look bad. I am going to wait for my last decisions and then I will make a move based on what the decisions are. My parents can not volunteer, since they both work full time and I am 99.9% sure that my school does not allow parent volunteers.

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@MYOS1634‌ thanks for clarifying–I didn’t know that. I guess I saw on another thread a someone asking Harvard what was up, and it was their GC that called and got answers. I assumed one could take the initiative.

Well I mean the SSR is part of the recommendation piece. All teachers also do this who do recommendation But yes, for a scholarship you wouldn’t get that included. I do think it’s worthwhile to see the recommendation letter . If it’s bad content wise, it’s likely the SSR is bad.

Okay for the letter. Say you need a letter from the counselor in a sealed envelope. Tell her the letter she sent to colleges is fine. You need to include the envelope in you application rather than having them mail in directly. She should print and sign one for you. Even better is there a secretary that handles and prints the letters from naviance? Then ask them.

But of the counselor seems strange and says she has to mail it out, or guidance does, or if you can’t get a sealed letter, or the GC is super paranoid about it then something maybe up.

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Never heard of parent volunteers either–not at my school at least.

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When I requested recs from my counselor for scholarships, she included the SSR as well. I was also required to mail the scholarship committee everything in one packet, so I was handed the rec in an envelope to include. If you happen to apply to such a scholarship, then… maybe you’ll find out what went wrong.

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@irlandaise‌ yup exactly what I was advising her to do.

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@MYOS1634‌
I completely agree with this person. Don’t make things worse.

Some people are just really bitter and take themselves too seriously. I remember my little brother had teachers like that too when he first transferred to the “prestigious” independent school I went to. He was 12 and his teachers basically bullied him for being dumb. They’d ignore him if he wanted to make a point and basically told him to shut up if he had a question to ask. Yes I admit he wasn’t that bright but he was 12! He was literally just a kid! And he was there to learn of all things!

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^Irlandaise, I assume your GC’s rec was fine, and your GC an okay person… I imagine things would be different.

OP: you can try it… you never know, she might not ask for the stamped envelop… but I doubt the GC would just hand out a lousy SSR to a student whom she knows is likely to open it (like, if you apply to 4 scholarships “officially” but really only send 3…)

But do NOT call colleges yourself. It’d be like asking colleges to break the law on your behalf, and although they’ll understand you’re curious as to what was in your file, you just can’t know officially. The only people who can dare ask and hope to get an answer are adults in charge such as a GC or teacher.

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I think I might go and do the scholarship thing and I will do a local scholarship, so I could say that I am hand delivering the envelope. I am not going to try to personally start an argument with my GC, since that will just make everything worse for me and my sibling.

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Okay, I was accepted to UCI and I transferred to UCSB at the end of my freshman year. My advice to you is to accept UCR (you’ll be in the UC system) and then transfer to UCSB (because once a Gaucho, always a Gaucho) into a not in impacted major. I transferred in with 43.7 units and a 3.0. My reason for transferring was because I wanted to be an organizational psych major which was not available at UCI at that time. So find a major not at UCR that UCSB has and then switch to what you want once you are there. Don’t let it make you nuts. You will find out where you fit. Also, I went to UCR for a few summer school classes and found it to be a nice place.