What does a HS college counselor do with student applications?

Parents Forum
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Does anyone know specifically what a high school college counselor has to do with student applications once a student starts submitting applications (e.g., via the Common App) to colleges?

I have heard that they do the following and these these are manual processes (and, shockingly, often even involve the use of the US Mail):

  1. Literally mail recommendation letters to schools.

  2. Literally mail transcripts to schools.

  3. Literally mail a high school profile to schools.

Again, this is what I have heard and I can’t really believe that this is true. I mostly hear, “my child’s college counselor forgot to mail recommendation letters to the school,” and similar complaints.

It seems like these things should be completely automated. Can someone please give me the real scoop?

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The GCs should be submitting all of those things digitally through the common app.

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Thank you. That is more what I would have expected. Do the counselors do anything else with applications that I did not mention?

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In addition to the above, they have their own form / rec to fill out.

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Likely depends on the schools. Commmon is most ‘common’ but some still don’t use common - the UCs, CSUs, GTOWN, etc.

Each will have its own practices.

As for LORs and Common, the recommender uploads. They receive a link once your student has it sent.

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Note that UCs and CSUs do not require any counselor involvement at all at the application stage (no recommendations and no transcripts (applicants self-report courses and grades, to be verified on matriculation)), although they do provide resources for counselors to advise students who have questions on the applications.

Many counselors are overloaded, and not exclusively focused on college matters. Teachers whom students ask for recommendations may also be overloaded, and practice recommendation rationing. Recommendations implicitly advantage students in well resourced high schools where counselors and teachers are less overloaded, so that they have more time to write good recommendations and not practice rationing as much.

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I haven’t heard of any counselor mailing physical forms, but probably could happen in very isolated situations.

Some students might have outside recommenders physically mail a rec letter for certain schools, but that’s not common.

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This was 10 years ago, but neither of my kids used the common app, and most things were submitted by mail.

They had to pick up copies of their transcripts, which were sealed, and then send them in themselves. I think the profile was attached to the transcript. They had to ask teachers for recommendations (if needed) and have the teachers send them in or do the same ‘in a sealed envelope’ process. After graduation, the school sent a final transcript to the school the student was headed to.

I think for the big Florida publics, the guidance office sent a couple of groups of electronic transcripts out before the application deadlines (one in October, one in February), but all other schools were snail mail, and mostly the responsibility of the student to submit.

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Over the past decade all of that snail mail went away. Covid expedited any of the hold-outs either at the high school or college level.

There are things that can/could be sent via mail, but then the college has an intern or staff who have to scan it in and match to the applicant.

To the OP, the school counselor or college coordinator or other support staff at the school will have access to the software that interfaces with the common app, colleges not in common app, etc
 most of those systems require that person to log in and hit send in batches. The counselor will have the ability to review the teacher letter of recs before they are sent which can be helpful for new teachers who may not understand what is needed in those letters for the highly selective schools.

They will send the transcript from the end of the 11th grade year, one mid-senior year, and the final at the end.

Any DE college classes will need transcripts directly from the college. Your child will need to request those.

The other critical part is their recommendation form/letter. There are some common app questions that they answer for this.

And then they will assist with similar docs for some higher stakes scholarships that are separate from admissions.

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They “send” (via online platforms), not “mail” (at least not typically).

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I heard they did it all figuratively. :wink:

Like all things it probably depends on the HS. There are plenty of ways for them to submit these things digitally and many do. Are there some high schools somewhere in the country to don’t use any of those tools? Maybe?

But the method of delivery does not change the fact that is it still a human process and yes sometimes counselors/schools and teachers fail to submit recs or transcripts to some students. Usually students have one or multiple ways to track this and follow-up/nudge. Most of the colleges have application portals which indicate if something is missing. You can see some of it on the Common App. And if the school uses a service like Scour or Naviance it often has tracking info too. My S23 had to follow-up with a teacher who was late with his rec and with the school that was late with transcripts. Happens, despite all of that being digital.

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Yes to all this. It is fundamentally the responsibility of the student to keep on top of the various application components and deadlines for each school. Obviously the more schools a student applies to, the more difficult this can be.

Additionally, some schools allow a grace period for non-student controlled materials, while some do not
this is another aspect that a student has to understand for each school on their list.

Michigan is an example of a school where all application components must be received by the deadline of the round the student is applying. For example, if the teacher LoR comes in after the EA deadline the app is rolled to RD.

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