So am I not going to get into college now?

<p>Let me start off my saying my counselor is an idiot. Like she is the stupidest person I've ever met, and I hate her. She's absolutely useless. </p>

<p>Anyways, a couple of days ago I went online to check my admissions status for several colleges I applied to. Lo and behold, for each and every one of them, my transcripts had not been received. Nor my counselor rec's for those that required them. </p>

<p>Background on the transcripts: Around December 20/21, I went into the counseling office at my school and submitted my transcript request form for all the colleges whose deadlines were Jan. 15th. The lady who was in charge with transcripts told me she had too many to do over winter break already, and asked me to come back and submit them on January 5th when school got back in. I asked her if they'd get to colleges/be postmarked on time, and she said yes, even though the rules say you should submit a transcript request at least 2 weeks before deadlines. So I came back on 1/5 and submitted them.</p>

<p>It's almost a month past the 1/15 deadline, and my transcripts haven't been received anywhere. ANYWHERE. Once I saw this, I went to the counseling center and asked what was up. The same lady gave me some bull*****, and said because they had so many transcript requests, that my transcripts hadn't even been sent until around January 30th. She then continued on to whine about how it was my fault, and that I should've submitted them earlier, and then continued complaining about how much work she had to do. However, she did mention something about a letter that they included with all the transcripts, which I perceived to mean something telling colleges that they had a lot of transcripts to send and didn't get them all out in time. However, my transcripts still haven't been received anywhere. </p>

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<p>Background on the Counselor Rec's: This is what I'm the most ****ed off about. I've probably talked to my counselor 15 times in the last 2 months. Each and everytime, she blows me off, doesn't answer any questions, and pretty much just tells me to leave her alone. I needed a counselor rec for 4 schools. For each of the 4 schools, I assigned her as my counselor on the Common App, and requested that she write me a rec. I assigned her to the first app around December 15-20, and figured she would just send a photocopy/cut-and-paste for my other schools as needed. </p>

<p>As I said before, I visited her several times during December/January, each time trying my <strong><em>ing hardest to get something out of her. It was all one sided. I would come in asking for help/making sure I was submitting the right stuff/etc. My parents don't really give a </em></strong> about where I go to college, and are of absolutely no help, so my guidance counselor was pretty much my only source of college admissions info besides CC. However, she never had anything to say.
She’s new this year, and was originally assigned the ESOL students. However, due to a fluke, I was assigned to her too, along with 3-4 of my friends. Somehow, they were able to switch counselors early on even though it’s against school policy (which is pretty strict). So I’m the only non-ESOL student she has. And I hate to sound ignorant, but most of the ESOL students won’t be going to college, so my counselor doesn’t really know anything about the college admissions process. She pretty much just knows the basics I guess. When I talk to her, it’s pretty evident that she has no idea what she’s talking about. This has scared the *
* out of me all year long.</p>

<p>Like I said before, she doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t understand what she needs to do, or how to do it, although she thinks she does. She blows me off whenever I try to visit her, and acts like I’m just there to annoy her. She takes absolutely no initiative, and I must come to her myself with ever little bit of information. She’s never called me to her office herself to ask if I’m on top of things, like all of the other counselors do. Instead, I painstakingly have to schedule meetings all of the time asking if she can answer some questions, help me with something, etc just to have her hurry me out the door with nothing answered. Anyways, I’ve mentioned counselor recs before, and I believe she told me to do this and that in order to formally request one. </p>

<p>When I saw that my counselor recs hadn’t been received anywhere, I immediately went to her office to ask her about it. She told me that she doesn’t do counselor recs over the internet, and only through mail. So I was like ***, did you not see the multiple invites that I sent to your email, or that I had assigned you to be my Counselor via common app? Don’t you think that would be a good time to tell me that I can’t do that? I know she saw the invites. Also, I figured something like this might happen, so on the transcript request form, I circled YES on the part that asked if I needed a counselor rec to be included with the transcript for particular schools. </p>

<p>Anywayssssssss, she told me to bring a stamped envelope tomorrow. I still don’t know if she understood that the due dates were almost a month ago.</p>

<p>I guess what I’m asking is this: Will schools still consider me even if my rec is like a month late? What about transcripts (I’m not as worried about this because of the “letter” that I was told was included)? I’ve read in other threads about how colleges won’t fault the student if it’s the highschool’s mistake, but I’m pretty damn sure my counselor won’t take any blame. It just makes me so mad that I did everything I needed to do, and that I’m getting screwed over because of someone else’s negligence. What should I do?</p>

<p>PS: Sorry for the ranting, I'm pretty ticked off right now.</p>

<p>Sucks. Should have submitted things and go on your counselors earlier. They may accept things early. E-mail admissions and explain your counselors incompetence. Maybe they’ll be lenient, maybe they wont.</p>

<p>If indeed you have met with these people multiple times, and there has been no progress, it is time for you to bring in a bigger gun. Tell your parents. Ask for their help with getting things moving. They may need to get assistance from the president of the PTA or from your school’s principal. However, at this point it looks like it’s time to hand things over to the “grownups”.</p>

<p>Absurd! You have been patient long enough. I would email your district superintendent and cc your principal immediately. One or both of them can and SHOULD get in touch with these colleges on your behalf! And clearly, your counselor should be unemployed by noon.</p>

<p>Don’t email your district superintendent, cc-ing your principal. You (and your parents) need to start by going to the principal-right now. The GC’s conduct is unacceptable but going over the principal’s head is also unacceptable. Frankly, you should have elevated this to the principal on Jan 5, as soon as you got back to school. By waiting this long, you have jeopardized your chances. Still, it’s not too late to get the school moving so do it now.</p>

<p>I don’t really understand why the transcript lady would not let you leave your transcript request the first time. Why wouldn’t she just take the request form, put it on the bottom of the pile, and get to it in its turn? It just sounds really bizarre.</p>

<p>Here’s the second thing I don’t understand: when you assign people using the common app, the website specifically tells you if those people have elected to submit online or if they are offline providers only. If it’s the latter, you can still “invite” the person, but I think you need to print out the forms to give to your counselor. Are you saying that the common app says your counselor will submit online, but your counselor says she’ll only do it via USPS?</p>

<p>And are you the only student having these problems? Given the level of incompetence you describe, it would be really unbelievable if you were the ONLY student adversely affected.</p>

<p>^^</p>

<p>Like I said before, she told me she had too many to do over winter break. I think that the ones submitted before break HAVE to get done by the first day of 2nd semester, but I’m not 100% sure.</p>

<p>Also, I did print out the Common App GC rec and submitted it with my transcript request just in case. But either she never got it, or she never did it. The transcript requests are handled by another counselor, so idk if there was a mix-up or what. However, only 1 school was Common App, the rest were not. For the non-Common App schools I just sent the request via email as the instructions dictated. </p>

<h2>Moreover, I am not the ONLY student whose been affected. One of my friends who was able to switch counselor ended up having to back to his original counselor (my counselor) as well, and I think he said he’s having trouble with a rec or counselor form for a college whose due date is in like a month. Not sure about anyone else though.</h2>

<p>Does anybody know if colleges will still accept a rec this late?</p>

<p>Get your parents involved.</p>