College Planning Guide
College Visitation Schedule
Standarized Testing

College Planning Guide

Steps In The Application Process

  • Take the appropriate college admission tests: two sets of SAT Reasoning Tests and two sets of SAT Subject Tests. Please consult your college advisor for an appropriate testing timeline. Some students may want to sit for an ACT. At the time you register for your test, be sure to have your score report sent to the colleges in which you are interested by listing the school’s code.
  • As you visit colleges, pick up applications (if available) or be sure that you are on the college’s mailing list to receive an application as they become available. Complete an application for each school to which you are applying (or use the Common Application as detailed in the next section of this guide). Become aware of the expectations of each college by reading their application instructions thoroughly. Some expect you to complete the application and give the entire application to your college advisor for further processing and mailing. Some may have preliminary applications to filebefore a certain date. A few require that the entire application and all of the supporting documents be mailed in a single envelope. Most, however, expect to receive parts of the application from several sources mailed separately--some forms that belong to the student and which are mailed from his or her home, teacher recommendations mailed by the teacher, and "secondary school forms" processed by the Registrar and college advisor containing academic information and mailed by the school.
  • If you are required to submit teacher recommendations, do so as early in the process as possible so that each teacher has plenty of time to compose the letter (typically 3-4 weeks). Ask each teacher in person ratherthan leaving requests and forms in their mailboxes or e-mail. Teachers who agree to recommend you are indicating to you that they believe they can describe you and your classroom performance favorably. If teachers feel they cannot write a favorable enough recommendation, they will suggest that you seek out a different recommender. If your college has not provided a special teacher recommendation form, tell the teacher, and he/she will write a letter on Rudolf Steiner letterhead. If your college has provided a form, fill out the top portion of the form and give it to your teacher. As previously noted, you may also wish to place a post-it note on the envelope reminding the teacher of the due date.

4. Prepare "blue sheets" for each application. A blue sheet is a cover sheet, available in the College Guidance Resource Room, providing information about the application and any action that must be taken by the Registrar and the college advisor in support of the application. There are due dates for college sheets, but students should submit college sheets as far in advance of the due dates as possible. There are three "scenarios" involving college sheets:

(1) The college sheet is accompanied by no other forms. In this case it is merely a request for a transcript to be sent to a college that will receive all other application materials directly from the student.

(2) The college sheet is accompanied by the student's completed application, because there is information required on the application that must be completed by an official at the Upper School. In this case the application is sent to the college by the Guidance Office when it is completed, and not returned to the student.

(3) The college sheet is accompanied by a form usually labeled "secondary school report." The form will be processed by the college’s due date (usually within three weeks of its receipt), and it will be forwarded to the college along with the official transcript. The Guidance Office does not expect stamped envelopes for the materials it processes. We will mail this information in an official Rudolf Steiner envelope.

***if teacher recommendations are required for any of these scenarios students should indicate this on the college sheet, including the names of the teachers from whom the recommendations have been requested. The College office will include with appropriate mailing.

  • Continue the steps above until all applications have been filed.
  • Maintain your grades throughout the senior year. Most of your college acceptance letters will tell you that your acceptance is conditional upon the successful completion of your senior year. In other words, a college has the right to revoke the offer of admission if you do not do well during your senior year.
  • Keep your college advisor informed of any communications you receive from a college. Most college admission offices track a student's application through its process and are not sensitive to the interval of time that elapses between the arrival of the student's application and the arrival of supporting documents. Therefore, you will likely receive a postcard telling you of "missing documents," and you will assume that your teacher recommendation or counselor materials have not been sent. Rest assured that most times, by the time you receive this card from the college, the college has already received your supporting documents. You can consult your college advisor for assurance if you receive one of these cards. In fact, we prefer to hear about all such mailings, because sometimes the time interval suggests that the college has had plenty of time to receive the material and may have misfiled it. Colleges make many filing mistakes, so we are interested in following up on all reports that a student's folder is in some way incomplete.


Special note : When you mail something to a college from home, include a stamped, self-addressed post card that indicates on it the name of the college and the materials you sent. When the card is returned to you, it is proof that you submitted the materials. We use this system in the Registrar's office. When a college calls us and tells us that a student’s school records are missing, we pull the card and report to the caller, "Our records indicate that we mailed the information onNovember 20th, and we received an acknowledging postcard on December 5th. According to thecard, S. Smith in your office received the transcript, along with the secondary school report and thecounselor's recommendation, on November 25th. "At this point the caller apologizes for the mistake and says he/she will get back to us for duplicates if the records aren’t located. Most of the time callers find what they thought was missing.

***We recommend that you keep copies of all of your paper applications and

e-mail confirmations for electronically submitted applications.***

Occasionally, colleges lose items.

 

 

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