My guidance counsellor for high school is new this year and she doesn’t know anything about my school. When I ask her questions about classes next year she always answers “idk” or “you need to ask your teacher”. She didn’t even know that our school had a drama class… she is absolutely awful.
So I wanted to take AP chemistry next year and I asked her if I was elligible and if the school offered it. She told me “I’m not sure sweetie you can go ask your science teacher”. I have alot of questions for her and I feel like she is really annoyed with me…
Now whenever I talk to her, she glares at me and I heard that your guidance cousellor is supposed to write a letter of recommendation for college. What do I do if she writes me a bad letter?
It would indeed suck if she wrote a bad recommendation. Her recommendation might be mediocre but it probably won’t be outright bad. A letter of recommendation, by definition, is positive in nature. I highly doubt she would story you a negative recommendation for no reason.
I’m guessing the teacher recommendations carry more weight. (Anyone care to weigh in on that assumption?) They know you better, they work with you everyday. So if you have 2 really good teacher letters, I doubt the college would put much weight on a mediocre counselor letter.
Sorry to hear your counselor isn’t helpful at all!
You can manage this issue in a few ways. There should be a course catalog for your high school, and you can review it independently. It sounds like her advice would be less useful than figuring it out on your own, anyway.
You can seek advice from other adults on campus who are more experienced or more knowledgeable. It would actually be a good idea, for example, to talk over next year’s science course options with this year’s science teacher.
Finally, in the event that she is the person who will write your school letter, you can make sure that you are polite when you interact with her.
Do yourself a favor and quit peppering your new GC with questions. Maybe she is slow to come up to speed. Or maybe she’s just bad. Or maybe not. It takes time for anybody to orient in a new job. Give her a break.
Do your own footwork.
Follow her good advice and go ask your Science teacher (who is probably in charge of approving you for AP science classes anyway). Talking to teachers in advance will make schedule approval faster in most cases.
Make a list of what you want to take with input from your teachers. Make your course list for all years of HS. Your school already has a check list for college bound students as to recommended tracks. That is probably published already in policy manuals. Your individual teachers are your best source–they’ll know much more than any GC would know in most cases about their own department. If you can’t take AP Chem for example they’ll know alternate courses immediately.
THEN go to the GC with your desired schedule of courses (think about alternative courses) and ask her for possible scheduling conflicts or does she have suggestions? Give it to her in writing and give her time to get back to you. You will then be one less student for her to worry about. She’ll appreciate it. And you’ll be happier having taken control of your future.
Ask your questions in writing all at the same time (if you can’t find the answer on your own)–don’t just pop in randomly to ask a question at a time. Imagine if everyone did that? No work would ever get done. And yes, it is annoying.
Ask for a list of the AP classes your school offers–or if there is a resource that YOU could look up.
Don’t expect a GC to know everything–ever. EVER. You know there is a drama class and want it–put it on your schedule. Ask the drama teacher or kids you know about it for input.