<p>I know that most schools only require 2 recommendations.However,does one of them have to be from my guidance counselor?(becuz im quite sure that my GC won't write me a really good rec......,only my teachers are going to write me a good rec.)</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m wondering about this too…</p>
<p>My GC is not helpful in any way, and I’ve been trying to get switched for about 2 years now… I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even know my name.</p>
<p>The two teacher recommendations definitely come from two academic teachers. However, your guidance counselor fills out your secondary school report and a lot of other information. Part of that is a recommendation, and so yes, one of your written recommendations will be from your guidance counselor.</p>
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<p>That’s a problem that thousands of people have, and it doesn’t stop them from getting into great schools…I think that colleges know that a lot of counselors either don’t know what they’re doing or can’t connect with each of the hundreds of kids they’re charged with (or both).</p>
<p>My GC is in charge of like 400 students…so she will probably just ask me for a resume and ask my teachers about me…but it won’t be as informative in terms of anecdotes as any of my teachers.</p>
<p>In hs, my GC was in charge of 2000+ students so the rec was obviously not very informative – to help out with that though, she asked my teachers for info about me so that the letter did not come off quite as vague…</p>
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<p>I totally agree that at many high schools, the GC’s are charged with hundreds of kids and can’t possibly know them beyond meeting them a few times and gaining some general insight into them. </p>
<p>So why do colleges persist in this charade of having GC’s write recommendations? What possible insight does it provide when a GC charged with hundreds of students writes some vague niceties about Tiffany Top Student culled from looking at Tiffany’s transcript, remembering that Tiffany’s English teacher likes her, and figuring that Tiffany seemed intelligent enough from the few times they met?</p>
<p>Yeah, the counselor rec is separate from the two teacher recs. </p>
<p>It won’t really hurt you since colleges know many counselors simply have too many students to know all of them, that said, try to get to know your counselor and meet her regularly.</p>
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<p>I think because the guidance counselor is the only one who can really say (other than Tiffany) that Tiffany tried to take AP Physics C but that it conflicted with Art, and so she chose Art and did Honors Physics instead. I don’t think that colleges are necessarily looking for real insight into the student from the guidance counselor rec (unless the student is in a private school and the rec is meaningful), instead they are just valuable for the information they can give about the student in the context of the school.</p>
<p>^ that works when your school has a low GC/student ratio, but in DS’s school there is no way the counselor would have the slightest clue about any of that. We send them a resume and they crib from that… fairly useless.</p>
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The answer given by WishyWashy is the benign reason; the counselor is the only one who can see the big picture. </p>
<p>However there is also a darker reason; it can be a way for colleges that want to claim they meet the financial aid of admitted students to make sure they don’t accept too many needing lots of aid. If you can find a proxy for wealth and admit based on that you accomplish your goal. And ask yourself: where are the kids going to get to know their counselor? Is it at the overstaffed public? How about at the private HS, or the public HS in a ritzy area where high property taxes pay for great schools?</p>
<p>If you think this isn’t happening, take a look at this.
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