Find out how counselors really feel about these common rec letter issues. https://insights.collegeconfidential.com/hs-counselors-reveal-their-biggest-rec-letter-pet-peeves
The second part of the article (“Process Sparks Peeves”) explains how the use of letters of recommendation creates an uneven playing field in terms of the quality of letters that students get, based on what high school they attend.
But then that may be part of what parents are paying for when they send their kids to academically elite private high schools.
Adcoms know some GCs have no idea. It just doesn’t help when a kid fills out his activities, goals, etc, on the application and the GC can’t do better than repeat a dry list of those ECs. Or that Johnny is a nice guy.
Our hs GC set target dates for these letter requests and those from teachers. I do not get the impression from CC kids that they ask at the last minute.
Adcom at one college, after explaining the very specific way that school wanted the GC rec written: “I know you might not have a relationship with your GC - some schools might have 200-300 students per counselor” audible gaps from parents in the room " but we expect you to schedule a thirty minute meeting with yours to explain what you want them to write."
My kid, whose GC has a load of ~1,200 kids and who had already submitted my kid’s rec to that school, was so turned off that she didn’t bother finishing her application.
True, I asked two of mine in junior year.
The national HS average is 311, so probably more than “some”.
https://edtrust.org/resource/school-counselors-matter/
1200 is just irresponsible on the school’s part.
My D asked for recommendations at the end of Junior year. As it’s probably Jr. year teachers who give recs, this seems to make sense. They don’t need to write them until the fall, but getting agreement to write it, and given the teacher substantial time to think about it seems to help everyone.