Guide for Completing the College Application Process in Naviance Family Connection The Leigh HS Guidance Department uses Naviance Family Connection to submit required documents to colleges as part of the college application process for seniors. Specifically, the following documents are submitted electronically to colleges through this process: Student transcript Teacher Letters of Recommendation and Evaluation Form School Profile Secondary School Report Counselor recommendation Midyear Report Final Report (sent only to the college to which you will enroll) Students should follow this process to ensure timely delivery of these documents: 1. Link your Naviance account to your Common App account. If you are applying to a college that uses the Common Application (in your Naviance college list, the icon under submissions will have the letters CA in the monitor screen), you must link your Naviance account to your CommonApp account, and you must sign the FERPA waiver. a. Create your Common App account at www.commonapp.org b. In the CommonApp system, add at least one college that you will apply to by searching for it under the College Search tab, and adding it to your college list c. Click on the My Colleges tab d. Click on any one of the colleges you have added e. Click on Assign Recommenders (please note, you will NOT actually be assigning recommenders here, this function is done exclusively through Naviance) f. Follow the steps to sign the FERPA waiver by clicking on the release authorization link. With this waiver you will authorize colleges to contact the school with questions, and you will either WAIVE or retain (DO NOT WAIVE) your rights to review the
recommendations that are written for you and sent to the colleges. The Common Application system, and many published college admission books, such as College Admission (Mamlet & Vandelvelde), and Admission Matters (Springer, Reider, and Franck), strongly encourage students to waive their rights. Please be thoughtful in your decision about whether to waive your rights as you will not be able to change your mind later in the process. g. Back in Naviance, under the colleges I m applying to link, you should see a box saying that the Common App Account Matching is Incomplete, and it will ask you to enter your CommonApp email address. Enter that information here. h. Your Naviance and CommonApp accounts should now be matched as indicated in the box at the bottom of this screen, and it will also indicate whether FERPA was waived or not. If you are ONLY applying to UC or CSU colleges, or to colleges that do not use the CommonApp, you do not need to complete this step in Naviance, and you should click on the Not Needed link in the lower right corner of the matching screen. Instead, if required, the FERPA waiver will be a part of that college s application process directly (e.g. the UC application). 2. Identify the colleges to which you are applying. As soon as you know even one school that you are applying to, you should add this school to your Naviance list: a. Click on the colleges tab b. Click on colleges I m applying to c. Click on +add to this list d. Click on lookup, and search for your college.
e. Click on the college name, then click on the Add Colleges button at the bottom. f. Repeat the above steps to add additional colleges 3. Put together a profile about yourself for your guidance counselor and teacher recommenders. Most colleges require a counselor recommendation. In order for your guidance counselor to write their recommendation, they need to know more about you. Your teacher recommenders will want the same information. You can do this through the Leigh Brag Sheet or through the Resume function both available in Naviance under the About Me tab. The Leigh Brag Sheet has some thought provoking questions, so if you choose not to use it, at least browse through the questions for ideas on what to tell your counselor about yourself. The most important things for the counselor to know are what your college and post-college objectives are, how you spend your time outside class, and whether there are any special circumstances in your home or school life that would be important for colleges to know. If you use the Resume function, consider adding an Objective and/or Summary section to your resume, in addition to the listing of your activities. If you choose not to use the Leigh Brag Sheet or Naviance resume, you may submit a letter or resume in any other format. Be sure to have several hardcopies available to distribute to your recommenders (teachers, counselor, and others). 4. Initiate the request for the required documents. (Steps 1 and 2 must be done before this step, it is strongly advised that step 3 is also done so that the counselor can begin working on the counselor recommendation.) As soon as you are confident in your plan to apply to specific colleges, even if you are not ready to actually apply yet, you should initiate your request for documents in Naviance to give the guidance counselors time to gather the required documents: a. Under the colleges I m applying to link in Naviance, click on the request transcripts link, or click on transcripts under the colleges tab, then click on Request transcripts for my college applications.
b. For those colleges which you are confident you will apply to, check the add request box under the college name c. Click on the Request Transcripts button at the bottom of the screen Requesting the transcript in this step automatically triggers the collection of the other supporting school documents including the school profile, the school secondary report, and the counselor recommendation. You can monitor the status of these requests by checking the Transcripts and Office Status columns in your list of colleges under colleges I m applying to. The Office Status will say pending until it has been officially sent. You can also see a summary of your requests by clicking on transcripts under the colleges tab, then click on View the status of all my transcript requests. If your college application deadline is approaching, and the documents are still in pending status, please contact your guidance counselor. 5. Request teacher recommendations. Most colleges will either require or recommend at least one teacher recommendation. The UC and CSU colleges do NOT accept letters of recommendation. a. Talk to your teacher(s) to confirm that they will write a recommendation for you b. Under the colleges I m applying to link in Naviance, under the Teacher Recommendations heading, click on add/cancel requests. c. Select the teacher(s) from the pull down menu. d. Enter a personal note to the teacher, formally requesting the recommendation and thanking them for taking the time e. Click on the Update Requests button f. To request a recommendation from someone not at Leigh, please check the college s admissions website for instructions, and speak to your guidance counselor for additional help. You can monitor the status of these requests by checking the status under the Teacher Recommendations section. Once requested, the status will be In progress
until it is officially submitted to the college. If the recommendation is still In progress, and your deadline is approaching, please remind your recommender that he/she must submit both the recommendation letter and the accompanying teacher evaluation form. 6. Refine your list of colleges and complete the college applications: As you add colleges, simply repeat steps 2, 4, and 5 above to request documents and teacher recommendations for the additional colleges. In addition, you should be updating specific information about the application type (e.g. whether you are submitting under Early Action, Regular Decision, or some other type): a. In the colleges I m applying to link in Naviance, click on the pencil edit icon next to any of your schools b. For the specific schools, enter the Division (School department, campus, etc) to which you are applying if applicable and known c. For the specific schools, select the application type. This is especially important if you are applying early, as it will notify the guidance staff of the earlier application deadline. d. Click on the Update Applications button at the bottom 7. Indicate that you have submitted your college applications: It is important to keep your counselor and recommenders informed about when you submit your college applications, or if you change your mind about applying to a specific college. a. In the colleges I m applying to link, click on the have you applied? link for any of the schools b. For those colleges for which you have submitted, check the box I have submitted my application c. Click on the Update Applications button at the bottom d. If you have decided not to apply to a specific college, under the colleges I m applying to link, check the box to the left of the college name, then click on the Delete Application button. This will help the counselors determine to which colleges to submit the school midyear and final reports.
VERY IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that the application submission deadline for each college is the deadline by which your application and ALL of the required supporting documents must be received by the colleges. If you do not complete the above steps in a timely manner, if you focus only on completing your application, the required documents may not be submitted to the college in time. Please complete step 7 for your college at least 1 week prior to the submission deadline for your college.