My Councelor has not answered me!!

My recommendation at this point is to go to your head of school/Principal or Vice Principal and explain to them that your assigned counselor is not completing her responsibilities and duties. Hopefully they will intervene before your application is deemed to incomplete.

HS counselors have to:

1. Supply the colleges with current transcripts and the school profile ( which includes how the grades are calculated, (grading rubric), how many APs/IBs/Honors are offered by he school, graduation rates, and schools avg. test scores for ACT and SAT and other pertinent information).

2. Disclose anything in the school file such as expulsions or derogatory behavior that was recorded like starting fights or outbursts in class that led to detentions etc.

3. Supply the colleges with the Mid-year report when they are due in February.

4. Supply the colleges with the Final transcript at the end of Senior year.

If you reached out to her in August why did you wait until January 1st or 2nd if she hadn't done anything? As a side note to 10th and 11th graders reading this make sure you are not in this position when you apply.

My advice to all of you that haven't applied is the following:

- Since counselors have role to play in all college admissions, make sure you have a good working relationship with your HS counselor that begins in 10th grade. Schedule meetings with them and share what you are doing. Also engage with them for advice whether or not you require it. It makes them feel wanted if you ask them their opinion. Since most counselors are assigned any where from 75-200 students each, most of them do not know their students so it's up to you make a good impression with them.

- Once you have your college list finalized whether it's August or October, send them a copy of your college list directly to their email. Also if your school uses Naviance or something similar, make sure all your info is up to date. That includes demographics, resume, ECs, college lists and make sure all your GPA, test scores etc are updated. If they are not, contact the admin. who is in charge of Naviance to make sure it's updated. Having an updated current Naviance account streamlines the process for the HS Counselor who can upload transcripts to your college list well ahead of when they are due. At my HS, my counselor sent 20 transcripts to my college list in Oct. I only applied to 1 ED school but she was proactive to get that off her plate. (if you have taken an Dual Enrollment courses that should be on your official transcript, make sure your counselor has the correct updated transcript to report, otherwise you will have to upload the add'l DE transcripts manually from your Community College directly to the University you are applying to.

- If you work on the Common, Coalition, or other Apps Portals ( UC portal etc), and have to select your teachers and recommenders, send a letter of requesting recommendation first, so you know besides your HS Counselor that your teacher recommenders are good with assisting you. If you have a good pro-active rapport with your recommenders beforehand, they will appreciate your consideration and take that into account when they write their recommendations. Too often, I read that students have not invested any time or effort into knowing their schools admin staff or felt a need to have a personal relationship with their teachers. This is a sure way of backfiring your college admissions process. If you contact your recommenders without confirming that they are good to go, your recommendation output might not turn out the way you want it to be.

-After you confirm your recommenders including your teachers and counselor, send them a thank you and a follow up email with your "brag sheet" or "current C.V. (resume)". That way they have some context to what kind of student and human being you are outside of their classroom. Informing them of your passions, ECs, community service, job, and other duties helps them understand who you are and how you fit into that college you are applying to.

-About a week prior to your applications are due, send a thank you email to them for agreeing to complete the recommendation prior to the deadline. It only has to be a couple lines. Since most people apply RD, it's going to fall right around Xmas time so write something short and sweet like, "Thank you again for being my recommender. I hope you were not inundated with last minute requests and had some quality time with your friends and family. See you in the New Year. Cam"

-Optional - After you find out where you got into college it's a nice thing to inform your recommenders and thank them one last time. Some people write them a card, or enclose a Starbucks or Barnes & Noble gift card or some other small token of appreciation. Again, this is completely optional.

Good luck.

Just message her again kindly saying that the deadline is closing in and it is really important for your education that you get those documents quickly. I would recommend talking to her through another method. Maybe you could text or call her. Just be insistent in a non-rude way. Good Luck!