school asked her. she would be jr working cal 3/4 and done all APs offered. and she was physically with high schooler when she was in middle school full time so she literally has no friend from her birth grade becuse the covid years. she was triple accelerated in math since she was 5th grade and double accelerated in science. we knew it might hurt her but the delimma is do we stay for senior taking all easy/light class will hurt her more oe EC? i am regretting it but it is too late
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I understand. Would DE courses be an option, or is it too late? Regardless, I wish your D good luck in admissions…it does sound like she has plenty of rigor.
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cal 3/4 is DE. but beyond that she will have to drive to the community college that is 30 mis away. she is only 16. i don’t want her to drive everyday that far
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probaby does not matter at this point. i was just curious
Just read the above. I am sure they will see the rigor and she will be an outlier due to her age etc. This is actually a good not bad thing.
I had a friend’s son that by end of freshman year was basically done. He did a 6/7 grade acceleration program. He ended up doing a year in a German high school and one in China. University of Chicago was more then happy to accept him.
I wish her the best
Any clue what the school report and counselor report are like. We didn’t get a copy of this and not sure what the schools report looks like.
Here is the common app school report. It’s covered by the FERPA waiver, which most students sign (waiving their right to see recommendation forms and letters.)
Many counselors do not complete every field on this form. For example, if a school doesn’t rank, the counselor won’t answer any of the questions that could be used to give a relative class standing for the student. The counselor typically attaches a school profile to the school report…school profiles should be publicly available on the school’s website.
Here is the counselor rec form to which counselors often (but not always) attach a rec letter.
And here is the full library of common app forms: Member Support
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@Mwfan1921 listed what they might look like. Our high school school report is downloadable from their website and is Stat driven about the students and school. It’s a rigorous school. The school had our student then us meet with the counselor to give information so they had enough information to write up a report. We knew the information going in mostly. I am sure schools have different approaches.
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does school weight heavily on those. it seems nor perticular fair assessment. counselor know kids ranking, that will be about it. many kids does stuff outside school, for example, my daughter is competitive sailor, no way conselor know that.
Same with our school, my sons and then us filled out forms listing extracurriculars, etc
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The school counselor fills out the forms that I linked in addition to attaching the school profile. The vast majority of counselors use the common app forms, at least to some extent.
Teacher and counselor LoRs can be important components of a student’s app. The student completes their portion of the common app which includes plenty of room for activities. I will say that many students can benefit by building a relationship with their counselor and/or giving them a resume or brag sheet at the end of junior year, (same for teachers who agreed to write an LoR for the student)
ETA: Some counselors do check off ‘no basis’ for evaluating a student’s ECs. Some counselors don’t write an LoR for their students because they don’t have time, which is what they state on the common app forms.
As stated I suggest to students in early Junior year to have a meeting with their counselors. Some schools do it automatically. When talking to them they told me they can just write good enough on some students but if students build some sort of relationship with them then they can write deeper more meaningful things also. The Bragg sheet is one such way. Just stopping in to say hi could be another since the counselor will probably initiate a conversation. It’s really on the student to self advocate. Also if there is a drop in grades due to a sudden death in the family if they know about it they can write about it, if they know the student.
This is very helpful. Feels so subjective that your counselor needs to check a box on how your extra curricular and stuff. I didn’t even know they know all the activities my kid is in since she goes to so many clubs. Though it makes me think how the school can favor the top kids in the class just like how they have catered to the #1 in the class by doing a special program for him and my S25 came to them with an idea for an NHS project and the school said sorry that will step on what is being done by the #1 and then she did a whole website about mental health awareness and the school told her she couldn’t post it because you would be liable. Frustrated with the school support and politics a lot of public schools are who you know. We will see.
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I wouldn’t worry about this. Like I said above, some counselors will check ‘no basis’ for things they don’t know. In terms of relatively selective college admissions, the AO rating/perceptions of the ECs the kid puts in their common app is much more important than what the counselor would check off in a box.
I am a former independent counselor who now reads apps for a selective school. The most surprising thing I found when I started reading apps last year is how often I am pulling ECs out of counselor and teacher LoRs because the student didn’t mention them 
…so there is another possible benefit to the counselor knowing the student and/or having a resume/brag sheet.
So…Note to students: put all your ECs in your common app and show what impact you made. Include all your clubs and sports. Your church vol work. Your paid jobs. Your other volunteer work. Your family responsibilities.
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it gives colleges an idea on how rigorous an application is compared to what’s offered in hs, knowing not all schools are equal.
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My kids go to a large public school outside of Boston. Their school does not submit this form at all. About 5-7 kids get into Mich every year. For reference if this is helpful to anyone.
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Colleges realize that at some schools, especially at larger or under resourced public high schools, the counselor may have a large load and not personally know many students. These materials, plus the school profile, are rather important, though, because they give the college a context in which to evaluate the student.
My kids always proactively made at least one appointment each year to speak personally to their school counselor. It wasn’t a sophisticated high school and didn’t have students ever scheduled to meet with the counselor, but she was always willing to do it. Around course scheduling time for the following year, my kids would schedule a meeting, go over their current goals, discuss their involvement in and out of school, and get her input on their proposed academic schedules given their goals. We, of course, never saw her letter, but I’m confident that her assessments were better and more personal given that the kids had those meetings than they would have been if they hadn’t.
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But the AOs know the schools and have the school reports and know the rigor. Students are compared to other’s at their school /district. Can’t compare a student at the #1 school in their state to one #243. It’s always good if the student is at or mostly above their schools median. Being above, having more rigor with great grades is always good when applying to selective schools.
We have an event at my sons school which is a case study of admissions where you are given several applications and decide which helps you understand the subjectivity of the process and how institutional priorities affect decisions. A lot of admissions rep attend this event and lead the small discussions.
In that some of the letters of rec are a paragraph and others are a page. We asked the question and they said most large publics will be short because of the lack of resources and they would never hold that against a student. The AOs are well aware of the schools in their area typically.
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