<p>I have a teacher filling some Common App forms for me.</p>
<p>In the ’ How long have you known this student and in what context?'…is it politically correct if he writes ‘I was his physics teacher and mentor’? The ‘MENTOR’ part that is.</p>
<p>The reason is because I couldn’t get my guidance counselor to write my Counselors forms and recommendation and so instead got my physics teacher. He was really my mentor, so I to encourage him to show that there is a counselor like relationship even though he was not the school counselor npr was he assigned to me as a counsellor.</p>
<p>Is it correct if a person refers to himself as a mentor or is it up to the person being mentored to acknowledge him?</p>
<p>“Mentor” is fine. But colleges may not accept it in lieu of a counselor’s recommendation, which generally explains more about the school and the student’s place within it than it does about the student him/herself.</p>
<p>Check with the colleges you’re applying to in order to verify that you do not need a counselor’s recommendation.</p>
<p>Why won’t the counselor do it? It’s gotten much quicker than it has in the past, with the ability to refuse the narrative statement, so all the cnounselor is doing is really verifying your schedule, discipline issues, and giving a school profile (how many advanced courses do you have, size of school, etc.). At a lot of big public schools, the guidance counselor isn’t a mentor, and they still fill out the app with the basic facts.</p>
<p>Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, there are options this year (for the first time, I believe) for the guidance counselor to skip the narrative on the basis that s/he doesn’t know you well enough and/or s/he has too many students to write a narrative. So have the guidance counselor do the counselor rec and then your physics teacher can write you a really strong teacher recommendation.</p>
<p>It was a actually a case of the counselor flying abroad for some time. So the colleges will not consider a counselor form and recommendation filled by a normal teacher?</p>
<p>Your school should have someone else designatedto serve a your counselor. It is not your choice. Your teacher does not have the authority to speak for the school. I would be surprised if your teacher has that kind of access to your records.</p>
<p>You need a school official then, because they will be asked about how you compare against the stuedents in your school in terms of course rigor nad other factors, as well as disciplinary records, and your physics teacher cannot know that.</p>
<p>Well…the courses we did in my school are the same for all students and they are the toughest. They don’t even let those who will want to do courses like Nursing which don’t require the hard Math in my country take the easier option Math subject called Maths B.</p>
<p>So the teacher does know the course rigor and comparison. There’s nothing a teacher knows that another doesn’t.</p>
<p>You’re also missing the point. They are trying to find a semi-objective person for this, to provide objective information about your school and your academic work. It needs to be a school official, not a teacher/mentor.</p>