<p>I'm an international student and my school doesn't have a guidance counselor. Whom am I supposed to invite then? Can I invite my school principal or my class master?</p>
<p>Yes, you can invite either of those in place of a counselor to complete and submit the school report for you. The common app says this about your situation:
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<p>Thanks a lot. Some schools that I’m interested in demand recommendation letters from my guidance counselor. If the school official I choose as counselor is also one of my teachers and I originally asked him for a teacher recommendation, it means that now I have to find another teacher to fulfil this requirement, right?</p>
<p>The School Report (submitted by the counselor) provides an opportunity to provide a recommendation but not with as much depth as at the teacher eval. Schools expect the school report to come from a different person than the teacher evaluation forms.</p>
<p>I think your class master would be the best person to ask, since s/he would be the person who would know you best. However a teacher (head teacher, principal teacher, etc) can also serve as your counselor, but CANNOT do double duty as a subject teacher.
The counselor uploads a school profile where s/he explains how competitive your school is, selection at entrance, board results, whether there’s grade deflation (ie, a 60 at your school typically means a 70 for board exams… or… the reverse ie grade inflation at your school), how many students continue with higher education past their board exams (with a distinction between schools that require credentials/specific grades to attend, and schools that anyone 18 and over can attend), what classes all students are supposed to take and whether top students take specific classes, etc. That recommendation also talks about you generally, across all subjects, for involvement in the school, if teachers respect you, what personal qualities you have… unlike teachers’ recommendation, where they focus on how well you did in their specific subject.
Then s/he writes a recommendation for you, with how you rank compared to other kids s/he’s known and other kids in your year.</p>