I am a high school senior looking at colleges.
I had some questions about some decisions I am planning to make for my senior year schedule and extra curricular. I was wondering if it would be inappropriate to ask these questions to academic advisors/recruiters/counselors at schools that I am interested in.
Would they give me candid responses?
They get asked those kinds of questions all the times and it certainly wouldn’t be inappropriate.
Some will give candid responses depending on the question asked. Others will give you the non-answer type of response but either way it shouldn’t hurt. I asked about a course conflict and received solid advice when I was a senior. Don’t be one of those people asking personal questions to the recruiters though (“What did you get on your SAT?”). Questions relating to your academics/ECs are fine, personal questions about the recruiter can be crossing a line.
Any advice would be generic – like you’d get here on this site. If they’re competitive schools, they’ll tell you to take rigorous courses that you can still perform well in. About ECs? Do what’s authentic. That’s about the high and low of what a college admissions officer would tell you.
But that’s the conventional wisdom you’d receive here on this site as well.
I agree…they won’t tell you specific courses to take but to take the most rigorous courses you can do well in.
Same for ECs…do what is meaningful to you.
Read the book “How to be a High School Superstar” by Cal Newport with regard to ECs.