Does high school guidance counselor write recommendation letters?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know if high school guidance counselor writes a recommendation letter? A friend mentioned that many colleges would ask for a letter from guidance counselor as part of the application.

Anyone who has knowledge of this process, could please advice.

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes

Thank you! Does my child need to request this? Child only asked two teachers.

[Anonymous]

Child had very limited interaction with the guidance counselor. Any suggestions please!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Child had very limited interaction with the guidance counselor. Any suggestions please!

They didn’t ask your kid to fill out a form? Or you?

[Anonymous]

They do. At big publics it seems a little silly but it is what it is…I have friends whose kids were assigned a new counselor sr year and had never met the counselor when they wrote the recommendation.

My sr has had the same one all the way through but has met with her for a total of less than ten min on three occasions.

[Anonymous]

Our high school requested the Juniors to fill out a form at the end of junior year. They also sent one to the parents. (FCPS). Then they met with the students and made sure to have it ready by the student’s first deadline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if high school guidance counselor writes a recommendation letter? A friend mentioned that many colleges would ask for a letter from guidance counselor as part of the application.

Anyone who has knowledge of this process, could please advice.

Thank you!

Do HS guidance counselor's get to know that many students well? Not if they can help it.

[Anonymous]

The guidance counselors recommendation letter is mainly facts that give context
Around the rest of the application. They will put in things that the parents want and they also mention extenuating circumstances, disciplinary actions, and on a high-level, other things about your student that may corroborate things your student has mentioned in essays.

Admission officers know that the guidance counselor of a large public likely does not have a personal relationship with your student.

[Anonymous]

Yes. The letter of rec from the guidance counselor, as well as the two teacher recs, is one of the most important components of the application. It tells admissions officers how this student is perceived, how they have contributed, what kind of person they are, from persons of authority.
Regardless of how your school does it, IMO your child can send an email to their guidance counselor (different versions highlighting different things) giving them info that they can cut and paste into their rec letter. They will appreciate and will most certainly use it as a primary resource. It gives you some amount of important input.
You can google this but give them lots of descriptive information about who you are, what motivates you, how what you did in HS will influence the kind of contributor you will be to the college community, why particular classes were so meaningful for you (for teacher recs), etc.
Do this generally in late spring of junior year but now is not too late
good luck

[Anonymous]

My understanding from when my older kid graduated in 2021 is that the letter is mostly based on a brief meeting/conversation fall of senior year, the student record (grades, course rigor, disciplinary issues, etc.) and the contents of a parent questionnaire, if submitted. It’s meant to support the transcript and school profile more than actually “recommend “ the particular student. A lot of schools didn’t even require it as part of the application process.

My current junior has had three counselors in three years. There’s no way anything personal is going to be in that letter. I’ll be putting a lot of effort into the parent questionnaire just to provide some context but I’m not overly confident or concerned about the impact.

[Anonymous]

At our private, it’s a very long meaningful letter filled with important info/facts/descriptive data sourced from student, parents, grade heads, progress reports.


Parents and students submit a 5-10 page single spaced response in mid to end of Junior year. We spent weeks on it.

[Anonymous]

Our magnet MoCo public school counselor was awesome. They are among the least utilized resources in school by parents and students.

My kid was very organized and scheduled meetings with him several times each year and discussed ECs, grades, opportunities and mapped out courses with his input. The counselor was immensely helpful throughout the years and was an absolute rockstar came time for college application. At the same time my kid was very clued in (because I am extremely clued in) and remained super organized. Also, did not hurt that my kid was a super achiever with no disciplinary problems.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the very helpful information.

[Anonymous]

Seems like all the schools want a counselor letter, which seems strange to me as counselors usually don't know students well especially at big public schools like ours. As others said, kid fills out a brag sheet or sends a resume to give counselor something to write about.