Are you supposed to receive quarterly counselings prior to your NCOER?

As an NCO you NEED to get into the regulation and DA Pam on evaluations. Your evaluations are the bread and butter of your future promotions. You need to understand when and how you are supposed to be rated. As for your question, you can't receive a negative NCOER without being formally counseled for whatever you did. The NCOER for a SGT is pretty forgiving, it just says that you did or did noteet the standard. Your NCOERs at higher grades are more detailed and you are rated on how well you did.

Yes. Yes you are. You should get an initial counseling within 30 days at your unit or whenever you get a new rater. Then quarterly.

In my 16 1/2 years I have had one rater legitimately counsel me every quarter. On the actual NCOER Support form. She was a civilian at that point but had been an Army CPT.

However, I have written the gist of my bullets for every NCOER I have ever had as well.

The rater is only doing themselves a disservice by not doing the counselings. Missed opportunities and lack of documentation for bullet points.