<p>so for northwestern app i had to get my counselor to fill out a "secondary school report" which contains info about my high school as well as a counselor's recommendation for me. god, i honestly would never want my counselor to write me a recommendation--not because she would write me a negative one, but because the counselors at our school are notorious for being incompetent and really just downright unintelligent. my counselor is no exception. she already filled out and sent the secondary school report, and she gave me a copy of the recommendation she wrote me. </p>
<p>ugh. its terrible. its just a mindless acknowledgement of my accomplishments and praise for my character rather than an actual evaluation of me. plus its just terribly written. she didnt even take the time to spell check--i caught a typo, "observantion" instead of "observation." </p>
<p>for my two recommendations i made sure to select two really intelligent teachers who knew me very well, so im not too worried about those. but should i be worried about this secondary school report thing? think itll bring me down? im kinda nervous about this, and id appreciate an honest response.</p>
<p>Well, if it's just one or two typos I wouldn't worry that much. If you get two great recs. from your teachers, I really wouldn't worry about it. Northwestern, along with many other colleges, realize that some GCs are imcompetent. I wouldn't worry about it too much, as long as it wasn't a negative report, it should be fine.</p>
<p>You don't need to worry about it. Colleges realize that counselors have a lot of recommendations to write for students. At my school, some of the students have never even met with their counselor, yet they are still writing a letter for them. Colleges place more emphasis on the teacher recommendations, considering you are the one choosing the teacher that knows you best. You have nothing to worry about in regards to your guidance counselor's recommendation.</p>
<p>yea dont worry bout guidance. their only job is to clean up your app and to write your grades on the app. I'm quite sure a well trained computer could do the same job.</p>
<p>A good rec is one that talks about more than just your achievements, ie your personality and leadership skills.</p>
<p>A bad rec is one that retells the information that can already be seen from your transcript. If a teacher only mentions numbers or awards, it's bad.</p>
<p>sorry for jumping in, but my counselor mentioned that i took "rather demanding" courses when in fact i took "most demanding" courses! when i tried to tell her, she says it's school policy not to mark the "best" in any category.</p>