Does high school guidance counselor write recommendation letters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

That's rare in area publics. Even for magnet programs. Bravo to this counselor for actually taking meetings with students. As a previous poster mentioned there's usually little to no contact if they can help it.

[Anonymous]

At our FCPS HS we wrote a parent letter/filled out a detailed form, and our kid filled out a form and had an in-person meeting with the GC. The kid also mentions teachers he didn't request for recommendations and the GC sends out an email to those teachers from inputs. The GC letter pulls heavily from these things so take care in writing the parent letter.

[Anonymous]

Our big public (top 10 in America) has guidance counselors who write pretty perfunctory letters.

They ask for a sheet with very specific questions, so can add that "John only took three years of Spanish because he came in with advanced Spanish knowledge and started as a second year student. We don't offer a fifth year of Spanish so he maxed out what was available to him here. Starting another language would present a scheduling conflict with advanced science classes. He also works a job year round which would make a class outside of school difficult to juggle with his sports commitments".

And then they list club affiliations, will put in a plug where the record shows it (no days late!) and leave the personal out of it.

They also say, At XYZ school, each counselor has 450 students so we rely on teacher recommendations to provide colleges with qualitative evaluations. But feel free to reach out should you require anything further and I can connect you with the right person.

It's polite and straightforward and plenty of kids go off to HYP every year.