<p>My sons' school hired a full time college counselor/chairman of college counseling this summer. We just got a letter with lots of info, and this:</p>
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Although our college counselors work hard...to know each student individually, no one knows your son as well as you, his parent. Please take a moment to write a letter telling us about your son. How has your son made you proud? What motivates/excites him? What is your son passionate about? Away from school what does your son do with his free time? What adjectives would you use to describe your son? Because stories can often speak volumes, please provide anecdotes about your son.
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<p>I don't know if this is common anywhere else. It occurred to me, though, that any of us could do this for our children. Maybe it would make the difference between getting the standard treatment, or just a little extra effort.</p>
<p>The school where I went does this and it seemed to work fine.....I mean the least it could do is give the parents a say....some input....because the college application process really belongs to the student applicant which my school also made clear to the parents.</p>
<p>My college counselor handles 400-500 college bound seniors a year, and as nice as a thought as it is, her only role isn't as a college guidance counselor, and I highly doubt that she would enjoy reading all these letters. I think this sounds good at a smaller or private school, but I think it would just annoy her here.</p>
<p>My children's non-public high school asks parents to write a letter to the admissions counselor covering essentially the points your school's new admissions counselor mentions; the parent letter is due at the end of the summer before senior year, about the same time that students need to turn in their autobiographical essays to the counseling office. It is my impression that the counselors make substantial use of both the parent letter and the autobiography, but each of the counselors only works with a couple of dozen kids, so there is also some personal knowledge behind their work.</p>
<p>Our private school GC does this as well, requesting such letters from both parents. It's an interesting exercise, and we've saved copies for posterity.</p>
<p>S's boarding school asks that the parents do a statement about their kid as well as fill out a family information survey on Naviance. The kid also has to write a "self-assessment" essay over the summer before senior year, which is used to help the counselor with the recommendation. S and I used a lot of the same stuff we used to get him into the boarding school. My son's advisor/coach.teacher, who is the most wonderful person in the world, tells me that the recommendation the counselor is crafting is a work of art. (S needs it.....)</p>
<p>D's (public) high school asked for a brag sheet from the students and a letter answering similar questions from the parents. Both were due before the end of junior year. GC also coordinated the students community service projects in sophmore year, junior year internship and had each student for senior insititute so she really did get to "know" each student.</p>
<p>My S went to TJHSST in VA...there was an extensive set of forms for both students and parents to fill out for the GCs at the very beginning of senior year. The GC--who became a mentor to my S and whom my S really loves--said the more in-depth the responses, the better...she wanted all the anecdotes we could provide, so she could write original, informative, thoughtful recs for "her" kids. She was a jewel (she retired last year).</p>
<p>One of my Odyssey of the Mind kids asked me to write a rec letter for him...and asked me to talk to his GC (different school) about what it should contain...turns out she used big chunks of my letter in her letter, because the kid's school didn't use rec letters except from one teacher and the GC...the GC and I corresponded quite a lot about creating "just the right" rec for "my" kid...the school in question was a reach, and he got in...he's there now, and very happy...</p>
<p>Bottom line: it's a very good sign (I think) when a GC asks for in depth info and anecdotes...means you have a good GC!</p>
<p>Brag sheet isn't the term for what we were asked for. Bio doesn't work, either. It was more than that, but H and I each produced around 3 pages. It was a "parent's recommendation" letter, and it was fun to write.</p>
<p>My kids' school gives us the opportunity to write in response to a series of questions about the kids, all geared toward giving the counselor insight and anecdotes. On one page, we are also given a chance to write a letter of recommendation for kid. Resume-building is "taught" when the counselor meets with groups of juniors, which gives the students a format and the counselor lots of information.</p>
<p>My kids' private school college counselors also ask parents to answer a series of questions about the student. Most challenging moment in high school for your child? Most satisfying? Anything else we should know about your child?</p>
<p>We had to fill them out on our kids as well and the kids had one to fill out themselves. They also give their GC a resume as our school has about 435 per class and the counselors barely know most of them.</p>
<p>My kid's ginormous-public-school GC suggested he come in and talk to her so she could get to know him. </p>
<p>just playing devil's advocate here, but isn't there something a little canned about the parents/brag sheet etc, telling the GC what to put in the letter as if s/he had personally gleaned the info from familiarity? Seems like the GC is just kinda a middle-man, passing along the insights from other sources.</p>
<p>"Filling out" doesn't describe what we were asked for either. We were asked to write an essay about our child. I don't think our words or ideas were passed on verbatim, but I think they provided solid ground for a GC to write a school rec in conjunction with teacher comments.</p>
<p>At our kids' HS, each junior & parent is asked to write a bit about the student & turn it in by the end of junior year, so the counselor can help advise on appropriate schools. We're supposed to tell the counselor a bit about the student & of course we have insights to different aspects of our kids' personalities & lives than the one shown at school. Many of our kids are taught "not to toot their own horn," so we can help let the counselor know about some annecdotes student might not otherwise bring up.</p>
<p>I see how the process works, still think it seems formulaic. The "anecdote" that the GC put in S's rec (she told us later) was told to her by the band director. So she could put in the letter "I was talking to the band director and he told me this story...." It came out naturally, because it was not looked for or planned. So in all the above cases, how do they frame it? I can't imagine it's "well, his parents told me..."</p>
<p>I get that this works, obviously, but it just seems to circumvent the point of it being the GC letter. It seems like the GC is a conduit, not an evaluator.</p>
<p>I confess that I did not do the part asking me to write the rec. I agree that that part seems a bit much. In fact, the whole exercise seemed a little awkward, just to me. Still, I know that this GC asks the faculty and others for ideas, so she is just garnering facts from as many places as possible.</p>
<p>Hey, but what do I know? We did everything wrong: the wrong HS, the wrong summer programs (or lack of), the wrong approach to standardized testing, the wrong way to contact (or not) adcoms, the wrong way to (not) include resumes or "brag sheets"... I could go on and on. I shouldn't be allowed near this site!! LOL.</p>
<p>It's a wonder my kids ever got into college at all! :D</p>