Daunting stacks of thick envelopes stuffed with college admission papers and teacher recommendations flood the desks of counselors at this time of year. With more than 200 seniors applying to private schools and each student applying to about 10 or 15 schools that require three recommendations for each school, the amount of paperwork can easily get out of hand.
For several years, the school has given students Naviance accounts where students can assess which colleges they would like. The site provides anonymous data of Saratoga High alumni based on the schools they were accepted to. Last year, guidance counselor Alinna Satake’s seniors piloted a system that linked Common Application accounts, the undergraduate college admission application used by over 450 colleges, with Naviance accounts.
“I think the online system is great,” said 2011 alumna Jenny Zhang, who was one of the students to use the new system last year. “It made the whole process so much easier for me because I didn’t have to fill out addresses and stamp envelopes for all the schools that I was applying to.”
Starting this school year, however, the guidance department is using Naviance, the online college application management system, to submit information to colleges.
The new system was a success since it takes less time and resources. Students can save money not having to pay for postage and envelopes. Teachers also save a significant amount of time because they do not have to photocopy the letters, sign them and stuff them into the envelopes.
“It’s a much tidier system and a lot more efficient,” Satake said.
Naviance condenses all of the application materials into one source for information, dates, deadlines and forms that need to be filled out, according to assistant principal Brian Safine.
“We’ve already had an efficient system. This will only make things even more efficient and less paper heavy,” he said. “As an end user, I like seeing everything electronically. It’s taking out the variable of another stack of envelopes, another stack of recommendation forms and letters, and making things much, much cleaner.”
Online submission, however, presents a learning curve for the teachers since they will have to adjust to submitting their recommendations electronically.
“Many teachers will be using an electronic interface for the first time this year,” Safine said, “so we will need to continue to give them information about how to submit their recommendations.”
Still, according to Safine, the transition is going very smoothly. The guidance deadlines, Safine emphasized, are still as crucial as they were in past years.
“We will need students to look at the instructions and the checklist on the envelopes to make sure that they are doing everything right,” Safine said. “If students are getting organized on their end, we’ll take care of finishing training the teachers and everything should be done fantastically well.”
Green Sheets
In addition to the integration of Naviance with the Common Application, teachers no longer have to physically submit a green sheet to the guidance department.
In the past, seniors have requested two of their sophomore and junior teachers to submit anecdotes about their performance in class to the guidance office. The counselors use this information to write a recommendation as a part of the secondary school report.
Starting this year, an online document is shared between all of the teachers in the school so that any teacher can write about the student and add to the document instead of the two the student selects.
“None of those comments get sent to the colleges, but if a teacher gives us a good anecdote, it allows us to write a more complete recommendation for a student,” Safine said. “What colleges will see on their end are very specific, detailed, and hopefully helpful letters about our students.”
However, some students are concerned that all of their teachers are able to write anecdotes about their performance in class. These students would prefer to choose which teachers submit information to the counselors. They argue that the new, more collaborative system allows teachers whom they did not get along with to add to the anecdotes as well.
Safine reassures students that green sheets are used to positively reflect on a student’s performance in school.
“We’re all professionals here in the office. Each of the four counselors and each of the four administrators have written many letters of recommendation,” he said. “We will be very judicious in our review. Teacher information helps us to put students in context, but I think the letter writers are all very experienced on how and when to use a particular quote.”