The Letter You Will Never Read: Inside College Counselor Recs
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George Ning ’26
There is a moment in every college application season when seniors start to panic. You’ve written your essays. You’ve chosen your teachers for recommendations. But then there’s this other letter:The one from your college counselor. What are they saying about you? Do they even know you well enough?
I set out to answer these questions by talking to Sam Fleming and Anne Atkins, two counselors navigating the chaos of October application season.
Fleming came to NMH this fall after four years reading applications at Tufts. “The student writing is the best way of really showing who you are,” Fleming said. “Teacher recs are important because they talk about the impact a student has had in the classroom setting. And the counselor letters serve to sell you as an overall person to colleges.” Not just your performance in classes. Not just how well you do athletically. Everything. Who you are in the broader community. Some aspects of you that don’t show up anywhere else on the application.
The comprehensive view is exactly why counselor letters carry weight in the admissions office. Fleming described a conversation he had in the Tufts admissions office about a student whose transcript raised questions. The admissions team had concerns about one difficult semester. “Looking at the letter, we were like, oh, the counselor said how the student had joined in mid-year and had a hard time transitioning, and they’re doing better now too,” Fleming recalled. That student got in eventually. “We rely on counselor letters,” Fleming said. “They can be very helpful for adding context.”
The Naviance surveys that everyone groans about, the long ones asking you to write about activities in detail, to reflect on summers, to explain yourself — those are how your counselor learns your story. “We can only help you with what you tell us,” Fleming said, and he’s seen too many students hide things out of fear. The test score wasn't what they hoped for. The semester was hard for reasons they don’t want to admit. “Some students are so worried about being seen or being judged that they stay silent about the very things that could help them,” he said. “Judging student is not our job. Our job is to support you as much as we can.” That support only works if counselors have the full picture.
When counselors gather together around the circular table in the Social Hall, Fleming would have Joe Latimer, the director of the college counseling program, review all his letters before they go out. The collaboration extends to every letter, creating a system where no student’s story gets told alone. You have an entire team working for you, not just one person. Even though Fleming is new to NMH this year, still learning names and faces, his four years at Tufts taught him what matters in these letters. Seniors who got Fleming as college counselor should feel lucky, especially if you are applying to Tufts.
Atkins, on the other hand, had served as a college counselor at NMH for seven years. Talking to her feels easy, natural, like you’re just having coffee with someone who genuinely wants to hear what you have to say. There’s something about her presence that makes students open up and share things. Maybe it’s because she always responds to emails within two hours, even on weekends. Maybe it’s because when you walk into her office, she’s already pulled up your file and remembered what you talked about last time. Whatever it is, students trust her.
Atkins doesn’t write letters in one sitting. She can’t actually. She reads first. Your surveys, progress reports from every single class, and teacher recommendations. She doesn’t want to repeat what teachers had already covered. She takes notes, then she walks away. “Lots of times I'll come up with something really interesting later in the day,” Atkins said. “Or in the car. And I’m like, oh yeah, I want to put that in.” Atkins is thinking about her students while driving. While making coffee. At random moments throughout the day, trying to find the right way to describe who students are. “If you sit down and do it one straight away, that might not happen,” she said.
When asked about the pressure seniors face in the application season, she leaned forward slightly, her voice becoming quieter, more serious. “I think a lot of students know that a student at one of our peer schools lost his life,” she said. The room felt heavier, and she paused, choosing her words carefully. “If a student has pressure whether from family or peers or just from themselves, pushing them to a level that is clearly dangerous. They need to talk. They need to share.” Atkins has watched the college applications season unfold for seven years, seen students spiral, seen the toll this process can take. She doesn’t want that for anyone. Not for a perfect GPA, not for admission to a dream school, not for anything. If the pressure starts feeling like too much, if you’re breaking down, if you can’t sleep or can’t stop thinking about it, get help. Talk to your counselor. The health center. A teacher. Someone who can help you step back and breathe. The people in the counseling office aren’t just there to send your transcripts and write your letters, they also want to make sure you’re okay.
Atkins has another message for every stressed senior reading this, and she said it to me twice because students never believe it the first time: “Most colleges want most students.” Everyone focuses on the super selective schools saying no to most of the applicants, but that’s not how the majority of the colleges work. “We’re going to present you in the best possible light,” she said. “It’s not as a serious thing as the student thinks, that it is going to decide their remaining life.” She’s watched students obsess over dream schools, pin everything on a 7% or even lower acceptance rate, and she calls it what it is: focusing on winning the lottery. Find places where you can genuinely see yourself thriving.
“I think that in the end, college is what you make of it,” Atkins said. Go to Harvard or University of Vermont — either way, you’re beginning yourself at that school, and you’ll do what you’re going to do wherever you end up. “Plenty of successful people go to colleges you and I have never heard of,” she said. “Becuase that’s who they are. The school doesn’t make you. You make the school what it becomes for you.” This is the reassurance Atkins wants every senior to internalize. You are going to be okay at the end of the day, no matter where you end up.
October continues in the counseling office. Atkins keeps checking her email, making sure she covers every last-minute email from her students. Fleming keeps sitting at the circular table with student files spread out in front of him. Letters keep getting written, with careful construction of who a student is and what they’ve overcome. The version of yourself that exists in your head, the one that hasn’t done enough, the one defined by that one bad grade, the one that's somehow not ready; that’s not the version your counselor sees. They see someone fuller, someone who’s grown over their years at NMH, someone whose challenges make their experiences more meaningful, not less. They see someone worth advocating for. Your letter is in good hands. Better than you think.
