<p>Well, my counselor and I are like <em>THIS</em></p>
<p>He wrote me a 4 page recommendaiton letter. I think that's kind of long. IS that good or bad?
Half of the letter is covering up for my suspension in school though.</p>
<p>but anyways, is he even important in admission process?</p>
<p>I don't think the role of the counselor is <em>that</em> important. Sure its good to have a good rec, but its very possible to do well even without a competent GC.</p>
<p>Having a good GC is important because the GC is the person that fills out all those school reports with your class rank and gives an assessment of your classes. You certainly don't want a GC that is likely to make mistakes on those forms because since you never see what is put on those forms, you will not be able to correct any mistakes.</p>
<p>wow 4 pages...dang, that might be too much</p>
<p>I would probably just read the first and last paragraphs... and the paragraphs about the suspension (red flags..).</p>
<p>The couselor is important if the college knows or values him/her recommendations.</p>
<p>he's a new counselor</p>
<p>dude the suspension really killllls your chances at these places. I mean these places all have perfect candidates that still can't get in, your suspension makes it easy for them to reject you.</p>
<p>I honestly hope counseler isn't that important. My graduating class has about 1100 students, so its really difficult for counselers to be well acquainted with their students. I read my counseler recommendation, and it was just very stale. It was like: "I strongly recommend (insert name) to your university. He has excelled in academics with a gpa of (insert gpa), participated in (list extracurriculars), and won (list awards)". It sounds so plain and insincere.</p>
<p>bball, way to be extremely cynical; people with suspensions often do get into great colleges. Sorry, not to turn the focus of the thread, but the fact is that people with suspensions often actually learn something valuable from their suspensions and end up demonstrating extreme maturity to adcoms. Often, these adcoms are impressed by them and impressed by the way their candidateshandle suspensions.</p>
<p>the suspension is a RED flag and is going to cause problems. Make no bones about that. As anon pointed out, it isn't a death sentence and people can succeed in spite of it, but a suspension is a serious academic problem and with the competition for admission to selective colleges these days a lot of schools are going to say to themselves "we can take a chance on Joe who was suspended or admit Jerry who looks every bit as good on paper and doesn't have the baggage".</p>
<p>You can find a discussion of this in the book "The Gatekeepers" in which a reporter spent a year inside the admission dept at Wesleyan, a top LAC. One student got busted for pot, and while she owned up to it and was very regretful it still caused her problems at many schools. And the OP ought to read this book to see what others tried and how the counselors tried to help. Expect your counselor to get calls from schools considering you to get the scoop. Your counselor is going to really need to go to bat for you, and unfortunately if new doesn't have the track record or professional relationships with adcoms at schools that will cause them to trust your GC.</p>
<p>yea ill second mikemac's recommendation. "The Gatekeepers" really shows how they deal with it</p>
<p>wow. thanks guys.</p>
<p>I wrote a 1 page long (very long) letter to the adcoms talking about my suspensionS. I had 2. I applied to wharton Ed already!</p>
<p>Dear University of Pennsylvania Admission Officers,</p>
<p>I, Felix Chan, am seventeen years old-a mature man in most peoples eyes. </p>
<p>I have committed not one but two terrible acts that have brought disgrace, trouble, and disappointment among my teachers, my family, and myself. Please allow me to explain my immature actions through this letter. </p>
<p>In my freshman year of high school, I was suspended in-school for 3 days. I remember the situation very clearly. In my computer programming class, everyone disliked me. I would move around the room, talking with other students and often disturbing their work. My teacher put me in the corner and instructed me to use only that computer so that I would not disturb other students. I did not take him seriously and left my assigned computer one day. For this reason, I was suspended for 3 days.</p>
<p>In my sophomore year of high school, I was again suspended in school for 3 days. The reason behind this suspension is loss of control. I was playing a game with other students (which the teacher allowed). A student and I were competing to determine who could receive the highest score. Suddenly, I caught him cheating. I slammed my hands on the table and knocked over a bottle of Pepsi, which splashed over the carpet and a desk. It is for this reason that I was suspended for 3 days.</p>
<p>It is hard for me to accept how stupid and silly I was two years ago. To this day, I cannot explain to myself why I had such horrible behavior problems. I truly regret my actions. My teachers are great people. I do not know how to make up for the meaningless trouble I caused them. If they could teach me again someday, I would show them what a different person I am now. In fact, if I could even have a serious conversation with them again, I would ask for forgiveness. </p>
<p>Ever since I could talk, my parents would continuously say four words to me: You are not a kid anymore. It is not some Chinese proverb or famous quote, but something that has fought hard to keep my family in line all these years. When I continuously failed to stand by that statement, my parents were disappointed, but they never once gave up hope. Every night in bed, I think about these six words, because these six words determine the path I walk the next morning.</p>
<p>If I ever get a chance to walk through the doors of Penn, the old childish actions will not follow me. They will be left behind in the little town of St. Louis. The students and teachers at Penn will not experience the meaningless actions that I once created. They will not see the Felix Chan two years ago. I promise that they will see a knight in shining armor.</p>
<p>I feel proud as I write this letter today, because I am no longer a kid. I have transformed into an adult, and for this I am grateful. I hope that my parents, teachers, and friends all feel the same way.</p>
<p>Thank you for understanding,</p>
<p>My counselor wrote 2 pages on my suspension, 2 pages on another recommendation</p>
<p>i'm gonna read the gatekeepers, thanks</p>
<p>my parents would continuously say four words to me: You are not a kid anymore</p>
<p>dont expect them to know that chinese words (characters) are different from english.... 4 words, i actualyl laughed.</p>
<p>its quite good, just tweak the grammar a bit.</p>
<p>OH MY GODDDD</p>
<p>4 WORDS HOLY ****!!!</p>
<p>its a mistake, yes.</p>
<p>(i already sent it in)</p>
<p>My favorite part is how you apologize, but then really just blame your actions on other people.</p>
<p>I wonder if your counselor's renditions are the same as yours.</p>
<p>chanman...i think i was a bit too optimistic in my last post...personally, looking again, your letter is basically saying yea, i got suspended...I'm sorry...it was for stupid reasons...i'm not a kid anymore..i won't be bad; where's the lesson learned? what'd you learn from your suspensions? what i see in here is probably a condensed version of what your GC probably already wrote to the adcoms; also, for your sake, i deeply hope the adcoms won't see the "4 words" thing and try to count your words...imagine how applying to the top undergrad business (tons and tons of math involved) program will look at a guy who can't even freaking count words...if you have an 800 SAT math or anything of that nature, the adcoms will think long and hard about how in the world someone under timed pressure can add, subtract, and multiply while when he has all the time in the world, can't even count; advice: get other people to read your stuff before you send it off (especially if it's something like this where you're obviously not speaking from the depths of your heart...or you really just wanna wave off the suspensions like they were no big deal)</p>