I’m a current high school junior, so I’m just beginning to look at schools and think about/stress over my college apps for next year. I know that GC recs will be required at most of the schools I will apply to (I’m looking primarily at very selective schools), but I’m slightly worried that my GC doesn’t know me well enough to write a personal, meaningful letter. So far, the main interactions I’ve had with her have been an introductory meeting in the fall of freshman year and annual meetings in the spring to plan out the next year’s schedule. I also had an extended concussion recovery, so she was at a couple 504 plan meetings where she read glowing reviews from my teachers and got to hear a little bit about me as a person. At my school, everyone gets a meeting in the spring of junior year to discuss future plans and the like and we fill out a “brag sheet” to give the counselors some ideas of what to speak about. However, I don’t think colleges will get a whole lot of new information about me if the rec just reiterates my class schedule, grades, and extracurriculars, so ideally she would know me well enough to be able to draw from personal experiences with me (as opposed to whatever anecdotes I put on the form). While I do go to a large public school, her caseload isn’t nearly as bad as some of the ones I’ve read about on this forum and GCs do try to write letters that are as personal as possible. My question is, how can I get to know her better without feeling like I’m bothering her or sucking up just to get into college? What are legitimate reasons to see her that will also help her better know me and my future goals?
I would not worry about the GC rec. Schools know that GCs have a large number of students and do not have the ability to get “close” to all of them. Your letter of recs from teachers are far more important.
My son’s counselor got to “know” him during junior year when he asked her for help with creating a resume. He just walked into her office and asked if she had time to speak with him about the resume he needed for a summer job application. She was really helpful and this led to him checking in with her on a regular basis during his senior year. Whether or not it helped the counselor write a “better” LOR, I don’t know.
Thank you both! These are some really great ideas
The GC LOR is primarily about assessing the rigor of your classes and general stuff like that. Many, if not most, schools have large GC to student ratios, so no college really expects you to have a close relationship with your GC. If you do, that’s good, but teacher LORs count for more in terms of hearing about your personal qualities. GC recs put your transcript in perspective in terms of the school’s big picture.
To add to what’s been said: when we did college tours, almost all of them said that they look at the student:GC ratio for the school and unless it’s a small school, they don’t expect to see anything too “personal”. That will come from the teacher/s you ask to write letters of rec.
My daughter’s GC (also an overloaded GC at a large-ish public HS) provided a parent questionnaire, asking things like, “What else is important to know about your child?” I suspect that the work I put into answering this made it much easier for her to flesh out her recommendation with at least simulated knowledge of my daughter as a person, and to balance out the weaknesses in her “on paper” profile (e.g. the ability to provide examples of quiet, leadership-by-example in a kid who generally shied away from formal leadership positions). I don’t get the impression that most parents at the school took advantage of this opportunity to strengthen the CG reference, and I don’t know if many/most GC’s reach out to parents at all, but you might want to look into whether this is a thing at your school, and if so make sure your parent is prepared to supply a perspective that will complement what your CG will get from sources at the school.
I also like the idea, above, of asking for advice - whether with a resume, in that example, or perhaps with your question from your other thread about summer CS programs. Odds are your GC has no earthly idea about the latter, lol, but they’ll still learn about you from the fact that you’re seeking out that information, and maybe they’ll surprise you by at least being able to refer the question to someone more knowledgeable!