high school counselor - when and how often to talk to them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then how do these counselors write letters of recommendation when they never talk to the kid. Every college my son is looking at wants a letter from the counselor. He is a sophomore but I said "guess you better get to know him" I'm just not sure, how.

Get in trouble??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then how do these counselors write letters of recommendation when they never talk to the kid. Every college my son is looking at wants a letter from the counselor. He is a sophomore but I said "guess you better get to know him" I'm just not sure, how.

I think the counselor letter of recc are partly about the rigor of coursework and partly based of the activity/brag sheet you fill out. I can there are kids where the counselor letter would be important but I would be surprised if colleges are expecting most kids to have a personal connection with their counselor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then how do these counselors write letters of recommendation when they never talk to the kid. Every college my son is looking at wants a letter from the counselor. He is a sophomore but I said "guess you better get to know him" I'm just not sure, how.

At our gigantic public school, the parents have to fill out a 'brag' sheet the summer before senior year. Knowing our kid's counselor, I would guess he probably just copies sentences or even paragraphs from the sheet. At least I hope he did that, 'cause I bragged away.

[Anonymous]

We are at a large public HS but I feel like my kid has had plenty of face time with counselor and so have we. Honestly having a 504 is blessing in disguise because we automatically have at least one face to face meeting each year. Also we’ve had some other issues with teachers and other things that have required communicating with the counselor and my kid has met fairly regularly with counselor to discuss scheduling and other school related issues. I am actually happy to have the counselor write a recommendation because she has known and interacted with my kid almost as much as anyone else over four years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then how do these counselors write letters of recommendation when they never talk to the kid. Every college my son is looking at wants a letter from the counselor. He is a sophomore but I said "guess you better get to know him" I'm just not sure, how.

Brag sheets.