I think i’ve told her like 50 times that I work at home depot and do a side hustle and she always forgets it man I just gave up. I tell her I play an instrument at least 70 times and shes always talking about how I don’t do anything in my free time that I just got frustrated and stopped telling her.
Alright, also my counselor is a problem. I understand she has 100 students, but I think I have told her over 50 times that I work a job and do even a side hustle, and she always I mean always forgets. I’ve met with her at least 100 times and every time she is talking about me not having extracurriculars. She also is so discouraging. She didn’t write me a LOR for a summer camp and ultimately I never got in the camp cause she literally didn’t write one.
Congrats to them, I always though internships were more preffered, but I’ll definitely cherish my job at home depot then
Rather than criticize your counselor, help her - when you let her know you need the college form.
Some will want her feedback. Some just school data.
That’s why you have a brag sheet - that will help her.
Yes, they are overwhelmed - and you are not alone in not being well known by the counselor.
Be the best you that you can be - and that’s it.
And btw - many colleges don’t care about ECs at all.
But fix your approach to being helpful and positive.
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An internship is a job. The difference is…sometimes you don’t get paid for an internship.
Put it in writing.
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I’m not a party to your conversations with your counselor. I do know that you’ve indicated elsewhere that you have a 3.9 unweighted GPA, so I don’t know how that can be labeled as “poor” by anyone.
Regardless, it seems as though your relationship with your counselor is broken, though you appear to be in regular contact with them (which is something a lot of high schoolers cannot claim). Can you ask to be reassigned to a different counselor, is that an option?
As others have suggested, you will need to provide any recommenders with a “brag sheet” to help inform their writing. If your high school’s guidance office is overburdened, colleges will know that and adjust their expectations on the counselor recommendation. I would advise you to make sure you have a couple of teachers who can be really strong advocates for you in their recommendations, though.
I would also encourage you to take a more emotionally mature approach to your circumstances. You seem to have dismissed your entire school community and are in open conflict with your GC. That’s a lot of negativity that’s at risk of coming through to anyone who might read your file.
What can you take ownership of and improve? You have identified some adversity, but character is assessed in how a person responds to adversity.
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I agree with this, however, this
may be an issue. That counselor is going to write a recommendation letter after all. OP needs to sell that they have an outside passion and not be thought to be dismissive of the school community.
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If it was freshman year yes, but unfortunately I only just realized sophomore year that she was not a great counselor. This was because we never met freshman year, maybe once a semester. That being said I will definitely try to be more mature and its just frustrating when it feels like your high school is just praying on your downfall.
@allenski both of my kids did most of their ECs outside of school as listed above. They had different college counselors, and BOTH told each of my kids that they would never get accepted at the colleges from which they got their bachelors degree. I’m quite sure their counselor letters were very brief.
My kids prepared a resume of what they did outside of school…and included anything they did IN school. Both were well known…one because that kid was a music soloist at every program, and the other because she was top 5% of her class and ranked I think 8th in the class.
Do the best you can do. Then prepare a WRITTEN sheet to give to your counselor.
I will add, if you have just completed your second year of high school (is that accurate) it’s not surprising that your school counselor isn’t “remembering” things related to your college application prospects…yet.
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All the other students seem to have a positive interaction with the counselor except me, maybe i’m an outlier
Yep it is accurate. What frustrates me is my counselor keeps telling me I do nothing outside of studying, but I have informed her that I probably do more extracurriculars than studying. Thanks for your positive attitude I really needed it. And yea I don’t want to do a meaningless club so I’ll stop trying to pursue that.
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My 5 kids met with their counselor at most 4 times in 4 years (they needed a form signed for AP classes, plus the 20 minute college meeting junior year). Each counselor had 300+ students.
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OP, have you ever reflected internally why you don’t like your GC and your school?
I think you need to do self reflecting to determine why this is the case.
OP, I’m not trying to place blame or accuse you of anything. But I will share my anecdote: I hated school freshman year and thought it was because my entire school hated me. I never took responsibility for ANYTHING. You have to figure out how you got yourself in this situation in the first place.
Your recs are crucial to getting into any selective school, so you better fix that relationship even if you have to suck it up a little. I don’t mean be fake, but maybe do a little a**kissing.
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Yes of course, at first I thought it was me cause thats the most reasonable. But as I said, she never wrote my LOR for summer program. And that is when I realized she isn’t a good counselor at all. Am I wrong though? I’ll definitely try to suck it up but it does hurt.
I don’t know the full situation. I can’t say right or wrong. Clearly she doesn’t like you- but you have to think why that is, considering she likes others.
So fix it. Make a resume / brag sheet - and get with her - and leave it with her - and send her a thank you note after meeting with you. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about me.
But I doubt you are a stand alone (outlier).
Do the things necessary so that she gets to know your background.
Again, most likely get very little from a counselor - when they have 100 kids, they are not writing in depth on most - as most kids don’t even know their counselors.
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So I agree you should do what you can to improve this relationship, or change counselors if you can’t, but I also want to acknowledge sometimes people just get dealt a bad hand when it comes to their counselor.
“Fortunately” in cases like that there is often a good chance you will just get a very minimal, but not actually negative, counselor report, and of course many successful applicants have that sort of report (if for no other reason than their counselors are completely overwhelmed).
But if this is really an unusually negative relationship that can’t be improved or swapped out, then I think you just need to make a real point of finding several exciting and affordable schools that are very likely to admit you based on your numbers. And those will not likely be “T20s” but that is OK, because there are way, way more great colleges than those 20ish schools, and indeed I think for most people there are many colleges that would be better for them than at least many, and sometimes all, of the “T20s”.
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Every AO we heard from at the selective colleges we visited said they are interested in understanding how each applicant would contribute to the community at their university. It’s kind of the whole basis of holistic admissions. So…maybe your counselor isn’t very good and maybe they are just trying to convey this message. Or even if they aren’t you should still heed it. How will you contribute to the community at the college you attend? You can and should speak to it in your essays but your ECs should also convey the message through your actions. So I don’t your ECs have to be at school but you still should make sure you are able to convey the value you bring to the communities you are a part of, even the school you don’t like. Good luck!
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As a former counselor, I must say I agree with your counselor. It might be hard to hear, but if you are aiming for T20 schools, you are competing with thousands of talented students who have excellent academic performance and extracurriculars that showcase their passion and uniqueness. Based on some statistics I’ve gathered from tracking past students’ application outcomes, I found that those who performed well typically had a ratio of 6:4 or 5:5 for school vs. outside school activities in the Common App’s 10 required activities. (While there are always exceptions, this has been my experience from eight years of working as a college counselor.) School activities demonstrate your involvement and impact within the community. Admissions officers use this to envision your potential involvement and influence in their university community, assessing whether you would be a valuable community member or even a leader. Therefore, yes, school activities are indeed very important.
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