<p>Cangel, I love that idea for getting teacher recs done . . . really streamlines the process. Think I will adopt that one for next year. Thanks for your post.</p>
<p>Momofthree and Sea Angel, I fully understand your points, and agree that my comments suffer from over-generalization. </p>
<p>I believe that there is a way to retain control even if the school offers an organized system. A student may have to relinquish the physical document, but he or she should still know if it was written, sealed, and placed in the right stack. I also know that most schools or teachers do not like to share the contents of their recommendations. </p>
<p>My main recommendation is to not abdicate the responsibility of making sure the process is completed on time. This requires starting early and making the process as easy as possible for the teachers and officials. It may also require to offer help when needed. The biggest danger is to procrastinate and hope that magic elves will appear to save the day.</p>
<p>I don't think your GC's letter hurt your D. In fact, I shudder to think what kind of letter someone like that would write if he were indeed pushed to give more information. The adcoms will shake their heads, and know exactly what your D has to deal with.</p>
<p>The problem comes when you have GCs writing letters with no idea of what certain keyword signify. For HPY schools, words like "diligent" do not help the candidate. Unfortunately, well meaning counselors can sink a kid with poorly chosen examples, and wording. Though giving a resume and a sample can help a counselor who may get writers block or not know your student well, I doubt it would have helped this fellow with his 3 sentence repertoire. </p>
<p>Personally, I prefer this sort of fellow than someone who tries to be "totally honest". tries to gatekeep and is too verbose saying the wrong thing. His three sentences thell the adcom exactly what they and you are dealing with. What a contrast to you D's essays! And hopefully the teachers recs ring beautifully. Better you got a null rather than a negative, which some kids end up getting with their GCs.</p>
<p>Jamimom, I was just wondering if you would reply. You speak the truth!</p>
<p>We had problem that S's guidance counselor left at the end of his junior year. She wrote a letter of rec for him, but it seemed slightly out of date by the time he was applying (e.g. mentioned his three APs when he now has 6) so we asked his new g.c. to add an addendum and explanation. She was happy to do that but the head gc got upset with that (not sure why) and the whole thing became a political mess. When son's friend left new gc a note that he needed to see her about sending in midyear reports, she wrote him back that she would send the reports right away, no worries. Except she didn't have the reports. Don't know what she was sending. The new gc is a lovely lady, really quality person, but she knows nothing about college applications and has other learning curves at least as important for the students in our big (non-suburban) high school. I don't want to breathe down someone's neck, and S has already been accepted EA, but now he thinks another school may be his first choice, so we would like a nicely descriptive midyear report, but not planning on it.
For teacher recs, S gave teachers a copy of a rec written for brother.
It was really helpful for the math teacher, who formatted his letter like the example. But what a difference in their writing style and emphases.</p>
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Northstarmom writes "I strongly suggest bringing your concerns to the principal and providing the principal with some examples from books and web sites about what GCs are supposed to do with those forms."
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I endorse this, and since the OP has written that the GC is a relative of the principal you should escalate this to the school board. In the end your tax dollars and those of your neighbors are paying for this school, and they deserve better for their children.</p>
<p>However I suggest you don't take any action until admission decisions are made. It may be that the colleges realize that some GC's don't understand the purpose of the rec or how they will use it, and will follow up on deficient ones with a phone call or letter. The last thing you want to do at this stage is build enmity towards your child when a malicious GC or principal can cause some harm.</p>
<p>But what about younger sibs if GC isn't fired or re-assigned?</p>
<p>For the current school year, my senior year, the school tried giving me a new cousnler. Well I would have been ok with that, however, the counsler I had put in me in a unqiue situation. She was a perr counsling teacher and I was in her class. So she was able to see how I work first hand. I pushed and was able to be switched back to her. She wrote, surprisingly, a great letter. Unfortunatly not everyone has this situation. At most schools there are some cousnlers who are excellent. Most people do not care who thier counsler is, but if you do make sure you ask to be switched to the better cousnler. Talk to parents and students to see who the better counslers are.</p>
<p>I read your post regarding what your high school guidance counselor had to say about your daughter. This type of writing angers me, because I see this as a reflection upon the educational institution, and teachers across America. Maybe, this a one of the reasons teachers hate the "No Child Left Behind." Heaven forbid that they would need to put forth some effort to educate students! Also, this guidance counselor is in the occupation of educating young people, and this letter is a poor example of educating. </p>
<p>Educators today need to realize that because they have a license to teach also comes responsibilities to set an example for students. We preach to our teens that when they are given a driver's license they are expected to accept certain responsibilities; such as drinking and driving, exceeding speed limits, and the list goes on. This counselor should be ashamed that he is representing his school district in such an unprofessional manner.</p>
<p>What is sad about this letter is that this person is making educators look like 6 year old students with no skills what so ever. I would be furious if my tax dollars were being paid to this person. This is in excuseable, and tenure does not grant anyone, including Ward Churchill, the right to be irresponsible.</p>
<p>Here Here, I agree.</p>
<p>My SS have been fortunate in their GCs, but I realize the situation in our hs is different from other schools. We have 12 GCs for 1800 students. In many schools of this size, there may be only 2 or 3 GCs. They have to handle many issues besides writing recs for college-bound students. I'm a little concerned that, as we focus on the needs of our own college applicants, we may underestimate the workload the GCs face.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I have always thought that GC letters must be discounted by colleges.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>for the life of me, I can't figure out why colleges even want these letters from GCs. Most of them (in public schools) don't really have much knowledge of a student beyond their course selections each year. When DS needed letters (only two of his schools required a GC recommendation), he gave the GC a list of his accomplishments for her to include in the letters (both in and out of school). She would have NOT known about them (even the inschool ones...she was CLUELESS). We also gave her info that we wanted included. For example DS didn't take precalc but instead took economics and statistics his senior year. Boston University was very clear about their strong recommendation for precalc. We asked the GC to put a comment in her letter that spoke to DS's course choice in math as being more appropriate for a music performance major who might someday be self employed. We never saw her letters, but DS did get accepted at both places requiring the GC letters. Why do the schools require these GC letters? Do they really think the GCs know the students and can writing intelligently about their accomplishments?? What a waste of time.</p>
<p>I do not want to underestimate the many many trials high school guidance counselors face each day. I live in a school district with a high rate of poverty income, and I know that writing a letter for a college bound student might not be a priority for that day, but please take the time to draft a letter that can be a little more professional than a 3 line unprofessional representation of the school district.</p>
<p>Quoting Thumper:</p>
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<blockquote> <p>We asked the GC to put a comment in her letter that spoke to DS's course choice in math as being more appropriate for a music performance major who might someday be self employed. >> For the majority of students, a GC letter may not be very useful. But students who are special cases can be helped by a letter from the GC which puts the student and his/her performance in perspective. In your child's case, I think the GC's letter was very useful. A teacher would not be able to write this kind of letter. A student might not have the opportunity to explain on the app why s/he made that choice or why s/he performed poorly (or might come off as engaging in special pleading or even whining).</p> </blockquote>
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<p>12 GC"S WOW. My school has almost 2000 and we only have 4</p>
<p>That's precisely why my S's GC was able to explain why my S took the courses he did and why so many of his so-called classes were described as "directed study": my S was auditing college courses. He volunteered to write the letter; he also happened to know quite a lot about my S, since he had to deal with my S's unusual schedule. But if you have very busy GCs whom you do not see regularly, it helps to write a letter that outlines the things that should go into a rec and will personalize it.<br>
A busy GC might not know why you had a meltdown in 9th grade (family or health problems?) or know anything about your ECs. Literally, unless you've had dealings with the GC over issues such as course seclection and scheduling or discipline issues, the GC may know only what's on your transcript. The GC may not know that you have a passion for journalism or music, that you spend your summers volunteering, or attending an academic camp, or that you work 20 hours a week on top of the rigorous course load. Even the best and most conscientious and least harassed GCs need some help.</p>
<p>Thats ok, my frosh yr. I had a different counsler than who i have now. She was an all freshman counsler. Is that stupid or what?</p>
<p>Different schools distribute GCs differently. In some there are college counselors whose job it is to advise seniors; they may not know a lot about individual students. In our school, the same GC counsels the same students over all four years. But knowledge about colleges varies from GC to GC. One GC seems to know a lot more about athletic scholarships and state universities than another who knows a lot about LACs. So it's a bit the luck of the draw who gets assigned to whom.</p>
<p>At our school there is one counselor for every 400-500 students and many students don't meet their counselor until their senior year. But at least there is a formal system in which seniors are given a form to detail their in-school and out of school activities so the guidance counselor will have something to go by. My kids also gave the GC their activity sheets they had prepared for their applications, but most students at our school do not prepare these summaries. I have criticized our GCs for not being knowledgeable about the types of schools my daughter was interested in, but now I realize that he is much better than some, such as the GC who wrote the 3 sentence letter.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>A teacher would not be able to write this kind of letter. A student might not have the opportunity to explain on the app why s/he made that choice >></p> </blockquote>
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<p>Actually, my son's statistics and economics teacher (same person) was also the teacher who recommended him for precalculus after having had him as a student in Algebra 2. This teacher who knew him VERY well, also fully supported and understood my son's math choices for his senior year. That teacher wanted to write a letter, but the college insisted it come from the GC who didn't even KNOW that the photo on my son's transcript was of another kid (no kidding.....but that's another story).</p>