Disclaimer: Signet Education does not provide school reports.
Many parts of the college application and admissions process are very visible to students and parents—grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities come to mind. Because of their visibility, these components tend to take on the utmost importance in students’ and parents’ minds.
Don’t get us wrong; these are very important factors. But it’s also important to remember that there are other factors that aren’t directly under your control. For example, teacher recommendations, counselor recommendations, and a student’s context (school, region, state, etc…) are all factors (among many) that play a part in the assessment of an application.
By acknowledging and remembering this, you can take a bit of the burden off of yourself. Whether or not you get into a given school has to do with things that are under as well as out of your control, so focus on controlling what you can and not perseverating on what’s beyond out of your hands.
Today, we’d like to shed some light on one of the most important but least-discussed elements of the college process: the school report. There are technically two school reports that go to colleges. One is a document put together by your high school that gives admissions officers an overview of the school (number of people in a class, breakdown of student demographics, number of advanced/AP classes offered, etc.). If you’re curious, you can likely find this school report right on your school’s website. This report is often submitted with a college application.
The other school report—what we’re going to discuss today—is a portion of the Common Application that is filled out by the school counselor. The two reports contain a lot of the same information. The difference is that one is in a format chosen by the school (so sometimes contains more information), and one is a form that the school counselor fills out within the Common Application.
Today’s article is by Liz Adams, a former Harvard Admissions Officer and one of Signet’s Admissions Consultants. We hope you find it helpful in expanding your understanding of the many factors in the admissions process.
What is a School Report?
Already subscribed? Log in
