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Choosing a college starts with knowing your options!
The Opportunities guide helps high school students choose the right college, understand admission requirements, identify types of financial aid and more.
The Opportunities guide helps high school students choose the right college, understand admission requirements, identify types of financial aid and more.
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Accessing College
| accessing-college-as-an-undocumented-student-va-english.pdf |
| accessing-college-as-an-undocumented-student-va-spanish.pdf |
| accessing-college-as-a-student-living-with-a-disability-english.pdf |
| accessing-college-as-a-homeless-student-spanish.pdf |
| accessing-college-as-a-homeless-student-english.pdf |
Letters of Recommendation Process
When to Ask for Recommendations
Make sure to give your references at least one month before your earliest deadline to complete and send your letters. The earlier you ask, the better. Many teachers like to write recommendations during the summer. If you apply under early decision or early action plans, you'll definitely need to ask for recommendations by the start of your senior year or before. Remember that some teachers will be writing whole stacks of letters, which takes time. Your teachers will do a better job on your letter if they don’t have to rush.
Whom to Ask
It’s your job to find people to write letters of recommendation for you. Follow these steps to start the process:
- Read each of your college applications carefully. Schools often ask for letters of recommendation from an academic teacher — sometimes in a specific subject — or a school counselor or both.
- Ask a counselor, teachers and your family who they think would make good references.
- Choose one of your teachers from junior year or a current teacher who has known you for a while. Colleges want a current perspective on you, so a teacher from several years ago isn't the best choice.
- Consider asking a teacher who also knows you outside the classroom. For example, a teacher who directed you in a play or advised your debate club can make a great reference.
- Consider other adults — such as an employer, a coach or an adviser from an activity outside of school — who have a good understanding of you and your strengths.
- Perhaps most important, pick someone who will be enthusiastic about writing the letter for you.
- If you’re unsure about asking someone in particular, politely ask if he or she feels comfortable recommending you. That’s a good way to avoid weak letters.
Letter of Recommendation Forms: Provide each recommender a copy of the Student Self-Evaluation Form and the Parent Brag Sheet.
MAKE SURE TO SEND YOUR SCHOOL COUNSELOR ALL THREE FORMS LISTED BELOW.
| student_self_evaluation.pdf |
| brag_sheet_for_parents.pdf |
| school_counselor_recommendation___secondary_school_report_request_tucker.pdf |
College Application Site: Common Application
Common App® is a non-profit membership organization representing more than 1,100 diverse institutions of higher education. We connect applicants and those who support them to a wide array of public and private colleges and universities across all 50 U.S. states and 18 countries.
Click icon to go the Commonapp.org
STANDARDIZED Exams: SAT, ACT, AP
College Essays
When you apply to college, you’ll need to complete an essay as part of your application. This is your opportunity to show admission officers who you are and to provide information about yourself that didn’t fit in other areas of your application. The essay also reveals what you can do when you have time to think and work on a writing project.
The number one piece of advice from admission officers about your essay is “Be yourself.” The number two suggestion is “Start early.” Check out these other tips before you begin.
Choose a Topic That Will Highlight You
Don’t focus on the great aspects of a particular college, the amount of dedication it takes to be a doctor or the number of extracurricular activities you took part in during high school.
Do share your personal story and thoughts, take a creative approach and highlight areas that aren’t covered in other parts of the application, like your high school records.
Essay Tips: Be Yourself and Start Early
Keep Your Focus Narrow and Personal
Don’t try to cover too many topics. This will make the essay sound like a resume that doesn’t provide any details about you.
Do focus on one aspect of yourself so the readers can learn more about who you are. Remember that the readers must be able to find your main idea and follow it from beginning to end. Ask a parent or teacher to read just your introduction and tell you what he or she thinks your essay is about.
Show, Don’t Tell
Don’t simply state a fact to get an idea across, such as “I like to surround myself with people with a variety of backgrounds and interests.”
Do include specific details, examples, reasons and so on to develop your ideas. For the example above, describe a situation when you were surrounded by various types of people. What were you doing? Whom did you talk with? What did you take away from the experience?
Use Your Own Voice
Don’t rely on phrases or ideas that people have used many times before. These could include statements like, “There is so much suffering in the world that I feel I have to help people.” Avoid overly formal or business-like language, and don’t use unnecessary words.
Do write in your own voice. For the above example, you could write about a real experience that you had and how it made you feel you had to take action. And note that admission officers will be able to tell if your essay was edited by an adult.
Ask a Teacher or Parent to Proofread
Don’t turn your essay in without proofreading it, and don’t rely only on your computer’s spell check to catch mistakes. A spell-check program will miss typos like these:
- "After I graduate form high school, I plan to get a summer job."
- "From that day on, Daniel was my best fried."
Do ask a teacher or parent to proofread your essay to catch mistakes. You should also ask the person who proofreads your essay if the writing sounds like you.
Adapted from The College Application Essay by Sarah Myers McGinty.
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Johns Hopkins University - Essays That Worked
The essay can be the most important component of your college application. It’s a chance to add depth to something that is important to you and tell the admissions committee more about your background or goals. Test scores only tell part of your story, and admissions counselors want to know more than just how well you work. They want to see how you actually think. Go to "Essays that Worked". |
