<p>Okay, so I'm not sure how the counselor rec thing works. They get a list of your extracurrics, and your grades...blah..blah..and what you think about yourself. But do guidance counselors talk to your past teachers randomly about what they should write for your rec? In my case, my counselor knows me REALLY well, and likes me a lot, too. But I'm afraid she's going to randomly ask one of my freshman/sophomore year teachers about me, and that those teachers might tell him not so good things about me.
I'm actually a REALLY good student, but during 10th grade I had problems with two teachers. One was just plain horrible (she's done cruel things to at least 20% of the class, and is known for being crabby) and the other misunderstood something I had said about her and probably still holds it against me. Should I tell/indicate to my guidance counselor NOT to talk to some of my earlier teachers, but to rather talk to the new ones.
Maybe the better question would be, would my GC even talk to those teachers in the first place? Is that common, or do they only do that if the GC doesn't know you very well? I'm planning on indicating to my GC to talk to 11th grade/12th grade teachers only.</p>
<p>IF you have a grade or a situation that is out of the norm, it is not unusual for the GCs to ask your other teachers (their peers). They will want to know what happened in the class so that it can be addressed in the rec if it needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>This shouldn’t be an issue at all. If your counselor knows you REALLY well, then she probably won’t have a need or occasion to ask your teachers about you. The counselor rec asks for information that the counselor would have. As to teacher recs, you will choose the teachers you ask to write those.</p>
<p>If you have a great relationship with your counselor, you might offer a little information about what strengths you hope she’ll emphasize. Use your judgment as to whether she’d be receptive to this. My son’s counselor and teachers appreciated some guidance from him – they knew him very well, but hadn’t heard of the college he was applying to.</p>
<p>Edit: Cross-posted with sybbie. If your conflict with either of those early teachers was something that went beyond the classroom (e.g., you were suspended or sent to the principal’s office), then the counselor probably would talk with the teacher. If it was just teacher grumpiness in class, probably not an issue.</p>
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<p>At our school, in the info packet that the counselors ask you to fill out, you are asked to give the name of 3 teachers from whom the counselors can get further information about you. The counselors then send a little note asking the teachers for a little more imput about you. </p>
<p>Teachers will say something like, “he really worked well with others,” or “his insightful comments about XXX really added to the class discussion,” whatever. Then the GC could say in the recommendation letter…His teachers find him YYYY.</p>
<p>GCs aren’t in the business of looking for dirt on you. If you’re a problem, they’ll already know about it.</p>
<p>For most schools, the notion that GCs would go out gathering information on their own to present a more nuanced view of a student is almost humorous. GC coverage varies a lot from school to school. In most large public schools, the GC is not likely to know a student well at all – they may have met a couple of times, that’s it. And the GC has a huge burden of college recommendation-writing. In those cases, colleges don’t expect insight out of the GC. All they really want is for the GC to “sponsor” the transcript and the explanation of the school’s grading and curriculum systems, and a check-the-box assessment of where the student stands in the universe of the school’s curriculum options. And the GCs barely provide that. They certainly aren’t spending time and energy independently investigating negative information about students so it can be shared with colleges.</p>
<p>While JHS, may be right, our very large school which very overworked counselors (it’s over 200 students per counselor) manage to do a bit better than that. The counselors meet with students at least three or four times with the student junior year - first in small groups (my son’s “group” had one other student on one visit) and then once alone and once with parents. They meet at least once again senior year before applicatoins go out. They ask students and parents to fill out long questionnaires about their activities and they use those questionnaires to help them write their recommendations and also to help determine who might get some of the awards. They also ask you for two teachers to recommend you and I assume they may talk to those teachers as well. It seems unlikely to me that your GC will go seeking out teachers from freshman and sophomore year unless it’s a very small school, in which case the GC probably knows both sides of the story already.</p>
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<p>My guidance counselor didn’t even know about scholarships at our own flagship university! He especially didn’t know about application fee waivers and test fee waivers from the ACT and Collegeboard. I always laugh when students on CC say their GCs give them suggestions and such. Whaaat? I’d like to go to one of those schools.</p>
<p>Daughter’s counselor at large (780 graduating class) public high school was overwhelmed, overworked and under involved in all of it. She had never even heard of half the schools on my daughter’s list outside our home state. Seriously.</p>
<p>Son’s counselor at a small (125 graduating class) independent school not only knew him, but started having meetings with him second semester junior year. She was the one who consoled him when he was rejected from his first choice ED college when he told us he never expected to get in. She gave him schools he hadn’t thought of and guess what? they would have been great fits. In fact, the school he will attend in the fall was almost a passing thought until she pointed out all the things she knew about him and what the school offered.</p>
<p>While the moral may be, you get what you pay for, and it was good money spent. However, it is more about the relationships you build with your teachers - whether they be in the classroom or in administration. Given this relationship, not only will you have a great recommendation to look forward to you will also have a great relationship that no matter where you are in life you will look back and remember.</p>
<p>Thank you Mrs. Wood. 10th grade English</p>
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<p>Agree. We have such turnover with GCs that my son had three different GCs in this 4 years of HS. There was a new one for his senior year and he applied EA everywhere, so when the GC did his recs, she had been at the school for less than two months…sure she couldn’t have picked him out in a line up and also sure she didn’t have time to get to know the kids by talking to their teachers.</p>
<p>At our small high school (sr class ca. 125), the GCs do know many of the students fairly well. Their process includes looking at the teacher recs (especially any additional ones over the 2 which will be a formal part of the package) and also possibly talking to teachers, to help them round out their knowledge of the student. They will quote from the recs of any teacher whose entire rec will not be included in the package.</p>
<p>ETA: cross-posted w missypie. My S had a new GC his senior year as well. But at our small hs, she coordinated thoroughly with his prior GC (still at the school). Just shows you how different things can be at different schools, especially the smaller vs. larger GC-overburdened ones.</p>
<p>My main point:</p>
<p>Our head GC made a statement at one of the junior family orientations that I believe likely reflects the view of most good GCs. “We want your application to reflect you as you are on your best day.” So I very much doubt that a GC would go out of her way to incorporate outlier information from a poor performance in a particular class.</p>
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<p>That is pretty lame. Our local high school runs from poor to solidly middle class in its socio-economic range and the one thing the GCs know is how to help the kids who don’t have $$ find the money for things such as testing. Perhaps the socio-economic range in your high school is skewed higher.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS as to what the colleges are expecting out of the GC. After all, the form they fill out is called the Secondary School Report–info about the school itself, how the student fits within that setting, and vouchsafing the transcript and the rigor of the curriculum taken are key points to be covered.</p>
<p>Also the GC is looked to provide info about disciplinary matters on reconrd and any anomalies about the student that the GC thinks should be explained.</p>
<p>I doubt that many schools expect that the GC is up close and personal with all of his or her caseload.</p>
<p>I would not tell your GC which teachers to avoid or not talk to–sounds too much like you’ve got something to hide.</p>
<p>Dashboard, you might want to seriously evaluate your relationship with the GC and think, too, about his/her relationship with the school. She/he can help you. How can you help your GC?</p>
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<p>Agree with MIV…do you want to bet that these would be the 1st teachers that your GC will want to talk to?!</p>
<p>The GC knows the personality of those teachers - she works with them every day. Plus she knows you. Add these together and its unlikely she’d ask those two. Don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>I agree with MIV and ellemenope, telling your GC NOT to talk to those two teachers only raises red flags. </p>
<p>I suggest that you take a more positive approach and subtly steer your GC towards teachers that will give you a more favorable review. Let your GC know that X and Y are the two teachers that you feel know you best and that if she would like more information about your capabilities and/or personal characteristics, she might want to contact them before she writes her recommendation.</p>
<p>Well, I looked at my school’s rec packet, and in it there’s no mention of teachers that we’d like them to talk to (there’s no box for that). However, there is a list of activities that we do, and we have to indicate the leadership positions we had with that activity. One of those leadership positions (11th grade) was with the teacher I’m not too fond of. Is there a chance, you think, that GC’s will be prone to talk with club advisors?
Another thing I might mention is that my school has around 600 incoming seniors, so yeah, it’s a pretty good school where a counselor has to write a bunch of recs. </p>
<p>Would the GC’s even have a list of club advisors, or should I just say that I was not the president of that club? ADVICE, please!!!</p>
<p>And a million thanks to those who responded. :)</p>
<p>I say be proactive with your GC. Many schools - my children’s included - ask for a parent or even student “brag sheet”. Get your hands on a generic one - you can find them on-line at any HS that uses Naviance. Fill it out and give to your GC. Make their job easier by giving them things to write about you. Set the tone for the rec and make the GC aware of how fantastic you are!</p>
<p>I really doubt that your counselor will talk to these teachers for a lot of the reasons others have stated. If you were a student on my caseload (of 300+), I’d probably know you well enough by your senior year to write you a letter of rec, especially if I’ve known you all four years. I’d probably only ask for teachers’ opinions if you’re a student who transferred in late who I didn’t know too well…not your situation, I know. It sounds like your counselor is probably savvy enough to know which teachers to talk to if she needs to. I’d recommend the brag sheet as well - it’s nice to have if for no other reason than a lot of HS’s can be hit or miss in terms of the records they keep of things you’ve been involved in; ie, not everything gets entered from coaches/sponsors that should be.</p>
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<p>Many teachers are long term advisers of a certain school club, so the GC could very well know who is the adviser of your EC. If you’re the president, put it down.</p>