College Application Process

The Process

The college application process can be somewhat stressful for students and their families, and represents the busiest period of the year for the Guidance Office, as we process well over 1,000 requests to send supporting materials (transcripts, etc.) to colleges. In order to make the process go as smoothly as possible, parents and students should understand the procedures involved.

How it all works

•  Spring of Junior Year: students meet with their counselors to begin learning about the college application process and learn more about how to use Naviance for college and career research.
•  Early fall of Senior Year: students meet with their counselors again to discuss more specific application planning.
•  Students use their Naviance account to organize their college applications, listing the colleges to which they plan to apply.
•  Counselors write a recommendation letters for their students whose schools require this.  (The majority do.)
•  If the student’s schools require Teacher Letters of Recommendation, he or she should request these from teachers well in advance of any deadlines and should ask the teacher directly if they would be able to write the letter.  Teachers will submit their letters electronically via Naviance.  Less and less, a college or program (e.g. Art or Music programs) may require that all materials be mailed. If this happens to be the case, however, a student must provide stamped envelopes that are addressed to the colleges to his/her teacher. 
•  Ms. Sullivan, Guidance Dept. Registrar, will prepares the student’s Transcript of grades and submit it to each college on the student’s list via Naviance, along with the Counselor Letter of Recommendation, School Profile, and School Report Form. 

Deadlines

Students must inform their counselors of their application plans at least 2 weeks before any deadlines. For instance, for November 1st deadlines, students must inform their counselors by October 15th, or for January 1 deadlines, students must inform their counselors by December 10th.  Students need to indicate in their Naviance account which colleges they plan to apply to.  Telephone calls or hand-written notes will not be considered adequate notice of application plans.  If students give the office less than two weeks notice of deadlines, we cannot guarantee that we can meet the deadline.

School Report Forms

Most of the colleges that students apply to require a counselor to complete and submit a School Report Form.  Most of the time this is done through Naviance and accompanies the Counselor Recommendation Form and Transcript, however on the rare occasion a school does not accept electronic submissions, a student will need to print out the form and give it to their counselor.

Test Scores

Students are responsible for having their SAT or ACT test score reports sent to their schools from the College Board or from ACT. The Guidance Office does not send score reports to colleges.

College Timetable

Winter/Spring

Counselors will meet with their Juniors to orient them to the college application process and discuss factors that can influence college choice. In these meetings, we stress the tremendous variety of colleges and the fact that the search must be an individual one. We will also focus on the Student Data Sheet, which student fill out online on their Naviance account.  This provides information to counselors about students interests and activities, and helps the counselor write the letter of recommendation that will accompany the student’s transcript for applications.