Hello, I was wondering how rec letters work if I want to ask my teachers during JUNIOR year? And if one of my teachers will be in another country next year is it alright to ask him/her? How many teachers do I need to ask? Do counselor recs count for most colleges?
It depends on the school. Most schools require the school report that is completed by your guidance counselor which is sort of like a recommendation plus your transcript, a description of your high school, etc. Most of the schools that my daughter applied to required two teacher recommendations in addition to that school report. Since she was going into a STEM field, one of the recommendations had to be a math or science teacher. One college only asked for one teacher recommendation but it had to be a math/science teacher. A couple of the schools that she applied to allowed her to have a couple of extra recommendations. She did ask two teachers at the end of her junior year because she knew she would be applying early action to several schools and would need their recommendations early in the school year. Since all of the schools she applied to used the Common Application, she put the contact information in on her account and Common Application contacted the teachers with their process.
For a bunch of local outside scholarships that she applied for this spring, she asked teachers to prepare a recommendation, print several copies and put them in envelopes that the teacher signed over the seal that she could use for these applications. That way she wasn’t constantly asking for recommendations.
In my school, everyone asks 3 teachers as Juniors. They hand in a list of requests to College Placement, and 2 of the 3 teachers are asked to write the letters-- College Placement tries to prevent particular teachers from being too overloaded.
If you have fewer than 40 to write, they’re due by the end of the school year. More than 40 gets you the summer. (This is my lightest year in AGES-- I only had 2, which I did over the weekend. 
But next year I’m due to get clobbered!!)
Yes, it is absolutely OK to ask a teacher who will be abroad next year, but ask SOON!!! Those letters, or at least the well written ones, take a bit of time to write.
What we do is submit a copy, on school letterhead. And we upload a copy to Naviance, so it will go in with the applications.
Your school has a system. Why not stop in at Guidance/ College Placement today and find out what the system is?