October and November is the prime time to submit college applications for high school seniors. Most universities require students to submit their transcripts and a recommendation from their counselors as part of their application. Counselors have been busy organizing these documents for their students. 

Resource counselor Eileen Lisker has been on medical leave this year because of a surgery she had on her digestive system. All seniors in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program have Lisker assigned as their counselor. Her absence put a lot of stress on seniors with Early Action deadlines of Nov. 1.

Seniors schedule a senior meeting over the summer to meet with their counselor to discuss their recommendation and the application process. Lisker met with many IB students over the summer, but has not written most recommendations or sent transcripts while she recovers from her operation.

“I tried to contact her several times and was not successful. Even trying to plan my senior meeting, she did not respond until she was unavailable,” senior Brooke Pohly said.

Students were concerned about missing their deadlines and contacted administration. They came up with an alternative for students. They will be allowed to use another counselor to write their recommendations.

“Every IB student was sent back to their previous counselors from freshman and sophomore year, and they had to write our recommendations,” senior Chloe Yetter said.

The concern with transferring to different counselors is that the student’s old counselors don’t know them as well in order to write a well-rounded recommendation. Recommendations usually entail a student’s character and their achievements.

Lisker hopes to return in the near future to assume her work as the resource counselor.