COLLEGE APPLICATION CHECKLIST:

Hi, my daughters attended high school in New Jersey and have applied to colleges in various states. I found these steps to be very helpful in preparing and submitting applications to college:

1) Identify schools for sending applications for admission.
There are books that list all colleges and these can be checked for information about the schools. Go to each schools' website to check out their information about applications for admission. Make note whether the schools require 0 or 1 or 2 letters of recommendation. Make note of the deadlines and whether the schools offer early action, early decision, or rolling admissions in addition to regular admissions processing.

2) Get two teachers at high school to agree to provide letters of recommendation(LOR). Tell these teachers to send the LOR to the guidance counselor. Each week check with the guidance counselor to see if they have been received. Follow-up with these teachers since they are busy and they need to be urged to get these done.

3) Colleges will not review applications for admission until all of the components of the application are received. One of the components is a package that comes from the high school that contains the official transcript and a report from the guidance counselor and the letters of recommendation. The guidance counselors will not send out the package until they get the letters of recommendation from the teachers. Let the guidance counselor know whether any of your schools require only one LOR so that the guidance counselor can send out the package as soon as the first LOR is received.

4) Ask your guidance counselor to give you a copy of your transcript and your GPA and class rank since some of the applications ask for that information.

5) Prepare a resume of your activities and honors and work experience during high school. Keep this as a document in your computer since you will be applying online and sometimes can cut and paste from this document into the online application.

6) Prepare an essay about some aspect of your personality or life experiences or high school experiences that is relevant to your entering college. Set up the essay as 500 words but set it up so that the first 250 words could stand alone since some schools want a 500 word essay and some want a 250 word essay.

7) Prepare envelopes to give to the guidance counselor as follows for each of your schools:
a) Get 9x12inch envelopes
b) Put 5 stamps on each envelope
c) Address each envelope to the school to which it will be sent. The return address is the Guidance Counselor at the high school.
d) Prepare a 3x5 index card to include with each envelope. The index card should be stamped and addressed to the applicant at the applicant's home on one side; the other side should have a label which says (or is typed to say): "Transcript and Guidance Counselor Report and Letter of Recommendation have been received".
d) Check each college web site. They may have a transcript transmittal form or guidance counselor report form which should be printed out. If you do not see it as a separate link, download a pdf of the application and look through the application for this part and include this part or form with the envelope going to the guidance counselor.

8) Follow up periodically with the guidance counselor to see whether he or she received the LOR and sent out the package to each college.

9) Apply online to each college using the online application on the college website in the admission section.

10) Periodically, call each college to see if they have all components for the application.

Good luck.
Dave Bursik
November 22, 2007