<p>I just want to find out if this is normal and some advice. The application process per our guidance department says that the guidance counselor HAS to sign off on my daughter being able to get teachers to write recommendations forms.</p>
<p>Also, guidance has said they will NOT show us what they have written and they do not want the teachers to do that either. Most parents I know seem to be ok with that. But I am concerned that our guidance counselor may not spin some things as positively as she could. Also, if it isn't going to be negative why not show us? To me it seems like they are trying to hard something.</p>
<p>I also just have a hard time trusting them to do a good job when my daughter is trying to get into a good school.</p>
<p>Trust them. They have no reason to behave unprofessionally. They are doing their job.</p>
<p>It’s very important for you and your daughter to maintain strong positive working relations with the GC and the teachers who will be involved in the application process. To do otherwise will cause you a great deal of angst, and will make the application process more difficult for your daughter. More important than the recommendation process that concerns you now is the possible help that you may need later – as for example in getting feedback from the colleges to which your D applied, or managing waiting list situations. Your GC can be a great help then.</p>
<p>In the business (and that includes the academic) world it is not the custom to share recommendations with the person being recommended. I personally would never provide a “recommendation” that I sense is not confidential. If the person asking for the recommendation asked to “review” it I would step aside and not provide a recommendation. I would however let the person asking for the recommendation know ahead of time whether or not I’m the right person to write one. I expect that your GC and your daughters teachers have the same view.</p>
<p>It’s not in the school’s interests for good students not to get into good schools. So in a general way you can assume that recommendations will be as good as possible for each student. Most teachers will refuse to write letters for students if they don’t feel they can write a good letter.</p>
<p>You may be able to help spin things for your daughter though. For example our school asks parents for a letter about their child. In that letter I pointed out that while my son had had accommodations in high school for some learning differences, he had chosen not to use them in high school. I felt that the particular issues explained some of the lower grades on his transcript. I don’t know if the GC used what I said, but I gave her the opportunity to bring it up. (And that’s the sort of thing that sounds much better from a GC than it does from a student.)</p>
<p>BTW although in our school recommendations are confidential, it’s not unusual for the GC or the teacher to show them to the student unofficially.</p>
This is the norm. Letters that were given to the applicants to read are considered meaningless by the schools, that’s why many schools ask the students to sign a waiver to their right to ever see the LORs.</p>
<p>This raises a red flag with me. If anything needs “spinning,” it’s probably best for the student to address it, rather than leave it up to the GC.</p>
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<p>Is there a history of conflict with this GC? If not, then your suspicions are most likely irrational. They’re professionals. Trust them and let them do their jobs.</p>
<p>You are half right. Many teachers counselors do not share letters with students/parents because if they have to worry about what the student/parent thinks of the letter, that they will not have the opportunity to be candid in given an honest assessment about the students strenghts and areas for improvement.</p>
<p>When you waive your rights, you are simply waiving your rights to inspect any letters of recommendation contained in the applicant file of the school you ultimately decide to attend (what you are waiving is your rights to go to go to the admissions office at the college you are attending and demanding to see your recommendation letters in their files) . </p>
<p>Waiving your rights does not prohibit you from seeing drafts or final copies of your recommendation letters should your recommenders want to share them with you. If your teacher is willing to share them with you, you can see them (but they are not obligated to let you see them).</p>
<p>A lot depends on the school: Some schools have very good relationships with some colleges and they have to be completely honest if they want to maintain the trust in that relationship. For example, on any given year, the val. may be smart and a good tester, but not “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” It is important for the GC not to oversell the kid. If he/she is over sold, then it will urt the chances for future vals who really are rare gems. This holds true not only for high rank gpa kids. Some students are so special, teachers and GCs only see one of that caliber every ten years or so. They want their recommendations to mean something when they really go to bat for a special kid.</p>
<p>“You are half right. Many teachers counselors do not share letters with students/parents because if they have to worry about what the student/parent thinks of the letter, that they will not have the opportunity to be candid in given an honest assessment about the students strenghts and areas for improvement.”</p>
<p>They also worry that students will share their letters with other students.</p>
<p>The best approach is to tell your teachers that you are applying to very competitive universities ask your teachers before hand if they would be comfortable writing you a strong recommendation. If there is even the slightest hesitation or lack of great enthusiasm in their response, go and ask someone else. This will help you a lot and this way, you can virtually ensure a great recommendation without ever having to even think of reviewing it.</p>
<p>Often, if the teacher wrote you a very strong recommendation letter, when you give them a thank you note for it, they will tell you about how greatly they feel about you. But sometimes they won’t and that doesn’t mean they wrote you a mediocre rec (depends on the teacher’s personality); just opens up the possibility.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I do have to laugh at this. “Relationships??” Ha ha. I don’t believe our GC’s have “relationships” with any schools. They write letters and send them off.</p>
<p>There was a cheating scandal at a nearby HS couple of years ago. School has apparently informed parents of involved students who were suspended for cheating that it won’t be on their records that are shared with colleges. Can they really do that? They would be blatantly lying on the secondary school report.</p>
<p>mathmom… My DS also has a diagnosed LD with recommended accommodations and he too has chose not to use them. I was questioning in my mind whether it would be a good idea to disclose this to colleges or just not say anything. I think for my S it would explain some of his low grades… especially in math. I guess you have no way of knowing if your GC disclosed this to colleges, but wondering if you thought, if it were disclosed, it would help or hurt.</p>
<p>Our HS, and I know many others, too, requires that a parent letter and detailed activity resume go to the guidance counselor well ahead of time. This is a chance for you to share anecdotes, background stories, share information about special challenges or obstacles and share any other information that you think would be beneficial for the GC to know. The students are asked to write their own letters as well. If this is not something your school asks for, you can ask if it would be acceptable to provide, anyway.</p>
<p>Which is why this process continues to be such a joke. Oh, look, we’ll feed you a cheat sheet and you’ll write from the cheat sheet. How very insightful … not.</p>
<p>I mean, as far as I know, there is no high school that allows you to see your reccomendations. That’s because the colleges want a fair, unbiased, objective view of your future student. You just have to accept that. Just make sure she is carefully choosing the teachers she is getting rec’s from. As far as the GC goes, theres nothing you can do about that. Every college needs a GC rec.</p>
<p>Besides, what are you going to do even if you can look at it? Tell them to rewrite it? I don’t think that is going to happen, and it has to be sent no matter what. Just have faith.</p>
<p>"Sorry, but I do have to laugh at this. “Relationships??” Ha ha. I don’t believe our GC’s have “relationships” with any schools. They write letters and send them off. " - Pizzagirl</p>
<p>For you to feel this strongly, you are undoubtedly correct, your GC does not have any relationships with any admissions committee members.</p>
<p>I know that you have a rather low opionion of GCs but at the end of the day, their job is to be the child’s advocate. The reason for cheat/brag sheets is to helpt he GC get an as full a picture as possible. This is most important for students who don’t go see or have not developed a relationship with the GC. It also puts things in perspective when the GC can explain that Egberts’s lack of EC’s is because he is helping to take care of a younger sibling, elderly grandparent, working to help the family, undergoing physical therapy or some other thing that the parent/student may not be so forthcoming in telling the GC about.
At the end of the day, it is being asked for the forms to be filled out for the help and benefit of the student. </p>
<p>No one is going to put a gun to anyone’s head to make the student/parent fill out the forms. Remember the essays and all of the other written material in the application packet is there to speak for your child when s/he is not there to speak for him/herself. If you just want a letter simply stating name rank, gpa and nothing more, that letter can easily be written too.</p>
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<p>that is really sad, because I am grateful for the relationships that I have developed with admissions people over the years beacuse each year, there has been someone that I had to pick up a phone to call in order to advocate for one of my students.</p>
<p>No, I don’t have a low opinion of GCs at all. Ours are hardworking and responsive. But they are in a no-win position; how can they possibly know hundreds of kids when their interactions are so limited? It’s not a reflection on them – it’s a reflection on the scope of the job. </p>
<p>Re relationships with colleges. There are 30,000 hs in the country. How many hs can a college really have relationships with? Once you get past the elite boarding schools, the public schools in the college’s own state, and the usual suspects of the New Triers and Scarsdales and so forth …</p>
<p>Honestly, despite my kids’ GCs having hundreds of kids to take care of, many of them far needier than my kids, I feel they did get to know them and did their very best to write letters that would put them in a good light. They used all the resources available to them - not just parents, they ask for the students to get teachers to write something about them spring junior year as well.</p>
<p>Every spring our school puts on a college fair and also a more intimate college night where panels of admissions officers speak to specific issues. (Selective admissions, the advantages of small liberal arts colleges, NY universities, public options are among the panels.) Many of the admissions officers return year after year and they specifically say they know our school very well. We are not Scarsdale by a long shot or one of the New England boarding schools, but they really do very well.</p>