Do the Richmond admissions counselors also do the read through of the applications? Are they instrumental in selection process? How relevant is the prospective students relationship with his or her UR admissions counselor?
Suggest you post this in the UR subforum. They are pretty active there and I think you will get an informed response.
I’m going to answer as a general question, so you’ll see a bit of ambiguity in my response. Also, I am just an incoming student myself, so I don’t have much outside of personal research.
I’m not extremely certain about Richmond especially (funny, because that’s where I’ll be going), but I would assume the regional councilors would have first crack at it (first reading, gathering data, etc. prior to panel) at UR due to its college and major system and its applicant pool. Getting on a somewhat personal level may increase the amount of time they spend on you and the amount of care they give you, thereby putting a slightly better, more refined and justified word in for you if your application highlights go before a general panel (which seems to be common with some required deviation in some cases/colleges). This will obviously not change much if you’re a clear outlier in the negative respect, as that extra attention would probably never offset objective weaknesses and a clear lack of subjective potential against other applicants if such is the case.
A relationship may also be nice as it would allow you to potentially clear up some questions and misconceptions about what you should or should not do, especially prior to application submission. This may even help you guide your senior year in the right direction if you manage to squeeze out some important clues so close from the source (I’m assuming you’re finishing up your HS junior year). However, I would definitely advise against asking questions about campus life, technicalities/advice on your intended college pathway, and the likes; some councilors may find this unnecessary, as you can ask better people later on in in the process if you get accepted. On top of that, many colleges (UR included) offer applicants ways of contacting current students, for which those kinds of questions are better directed anyways.
My suggestion (which is not professional and can be taken with a grain of salt) is to just not be scared to contact them, be very polite and friendly, and feel free to ask questions specific to your situation if the answer will help you. I talked with mine on occasion during the process, but it was pretty limited.
Best of luck!
I was waitlisted, but I would say I had a pretty good relationship with my admissions counselor there. I met with them in person twice and communicated via email and phone quite a bit. While I don’t think its key, I definitely think my AC tried their best to make UR a home for me. After I didn’t get in freshmen year, they offered to help me transfer there and guide me through the transfer process.