School Counselor Recommendations

[Anonymous]

How important are they? We're at a large public and our former school counselor retired. The new person does not know any of the seniors at all.

[Anonymous]

Students generally fill out a questionnaire or write up a summary about themselves for the Counselor. At D.C. large public school, the parents did the same. The counselor used that and presumably the school record to write the recommendation.

[Anonymous]

Not very, for a typical applicant coming from a large, affluent public school, barring something flagged in it.

Colleges know the counselors usually don’t know the kids well. It’s a place to provide additional information and context, which for some applicants might be very, very important, but for many it’s not.