<p>I'm going to be a junior this year and with school about to start, I really need some advice. I've seen the Common App a few times, and I know that two teacher recs and one counselor rec is required. Teacher recs, I understand, you talk to your teachers everyday, they DO get to know you.</p>
<p>However, I need advice about my counselor rec. Coming from a public high school with about 1800 kids and only 4-5 counselors to handle them, how should I approach this situation?</p>
<p>I have junior year to get to know my counselor and to make sure my counselor knows me.</p>
<p>From last year (sophomore), my counselor knows just a few things about me. she knows who I am, that I'm self-studying AP Stats for May 2013 (I'm selfstudying other classes too; she doesn't know about them though), and that's basically it. I don't even know if she will remember me after the summer, our relationship isn't exactly memorable.</p>
<p>So aid in getting the best counselor rec possible, but still keeping it honest, how often should I go in to talk to my counselor? What should I talk about? Any other advice?</p>
<p>I’d say only a handful of times. I don’t visit my guidance office very often, maybe half a dozen times a year. But every time, I make sure to say hello to my GC if she’s not talking to anyone else, and if I have a minute I chat with her, mostly about how i’m doing in my classes. Granted, my school is half the size with the same amount of GC’s.</p>
<p>I’d say start off by introducing yourself again, maybe talk to her about what classes you might take your senior year or what you want to major in. Or any kind of ice breaker. I flipped through a big book of colleges casually once while I was in the office and struck up a conversation about whether I wanted to go far away or not. Start small. I got to know my GC because I talked to her about personal and academic struggles, now that i’m doing well we don’t see each other often but even saying hi to her in the hallway is great.</p>
<p>Could you use a diffferent counselor besides your own for the rec? Because my school has 2100 students, and 7 counselors, and the one that knows me (name, PSAT score, grades, etc) isnt even mine. Sometimes some of the counselors take more pride in their job and are more approachable than others. So try talking to the one that seems friendliest.</p>
<p>@goodnoodle, I like the one that is assigned to me so I don’t see any issue there, and I’m sure you could use a different counselor for the rec as long as the counselor is okay with it</p>
<p>Just make it a point to be friendly. I hadn’t talked to my counselor until junior year and now it’s like a legitimate relationship with her. I walk in and say hi to her everyday. Whether you believe it or not counselors (if they’re doing their job right) have it all under control. My school has 4000 kids and 7 counselors, so it’s a lot and as soon as I stepped in her office she knew me. You may find yourself in there a lot though. I went in a lot last year asking for college books, SAT courses, PSAT results, and my GC is really good about giving us like Fiskars book about top school for certain majors. She’s just awesome. I would go in there and ask about volunteer opp. my relationship with her allowed me to receive a 15k scholarship. So just do things like that. You’ll be surprised at how easily relationships come!</p>