Are counselors really worth it?

Answered

Short answer: Yes

Detailed answer is: You can't change the college admissions process so it doesn't matter what you think about your HS counselor personally. They are an intrinsic part of the college applications process for 3 reasons. 1.) They have write an honest assessment of you as a prospective college applicant to the schools on your list. 2.) They are responsible for forward and upload your HS transcripts and school profile to the colleges. 3.) They are the first line of contact with the admissions team if they have questions about your application file. For instance, any discrepancies with self reported information that is not consistent with the official transcript or missing information from your file.

Your best solution is to fix whatever you need to get back in good favor with your HS counselor as soon as possible. There is no way you are going to come out of this unscathed because if they already have a non-relationship with you or a negative one, then there is a low or zero possibility for them to go out of their way to advocate for you to the colleges on your list. Does that make sense? They will fill out the recommendation but if they have nothing positive to say about you as a person, they will do the bare minimum to get the form in.

To conflate the value of teacher recommendations with the HS counselor and and game the system is a naive way of looking at the 3 recommendations required in the common app. They ask for 2 teacher recommendations primarily to find out what kind of student you are in class. Are you someone that tries their best, gets top marks, is engaging with the class, goes out of their way to support the view of others, presents information germane to the discussion that is garnered from outside reading and additional inquiry, and do you help make the teachers job easier and more pleasant? And so on and so forth. And they ask the HS counselor to make a recommendation to find out what kind of a human being you are. Are you friendly, open to listening to suggestions and opinions, are you kind, generous, and prepared to discuss things when you meet, do you come prepared to meetings with information like resumes to help them do their job better? Do you ask interesting questions about the college admissions process? And so on and so forth.

You can't alienate either teachers or HS counselors. Therefore fix whatever is broken as soon as possible. The take away for you 9th, 10th, and 11th graders is start engaging with your HS counselor as soon as possible. This is a necessary thing to do. It's better for them to know you for 3-4 years rather than making an introduction during your last year of HS. By then, they already know 90% of the graduating class better than you. Their efforts will be prioritized on who they think deserve a great recommendation because they have a personal connection with that student. It has nothing to do with whether you are ranked #5 out of 500 and have great stats. If you neglected the opportunity to engage with them for 3-4 years, that means you didn't take the college admissions process seriously or conscientiously.

Good luck to all of you.