Harvard Outreach Newsletter

If you are a teacher with responsibility for supporting students with their UCAS applications, but are unfamiliar with the US college application system, this section will provide you with information about what your school needs to provide in terms of  reports, student transcripts and references.

Although not all US colleges accept the Common Application Form, or ‘Common App,’ it is nevertheless used by over 1,000 institutions, including all the top research universities, so a large majority of applicants and advisers are likely to use this method.  The main documents that schools need to provide are:

• School Profile – description of the school and its community.
• Student Transcript – record of the student’s exam grades and predicted grades.
• Counselor Reference – a character reference written by the Head of Sixth Form or other senior member of staff.
• Teacher Reference – an academic reference written by one or more of the student’s current subject teachers.

The School Profile is a description of the school and the community it serves.  Context is very important for a US college application as it helps admissions officers to make sense of the numerical data.  The school profile template provided by the US-UK Fulbright Commission suggests you include the following information:

• Name of city and town and description of surroundings
• Community information (agriculture, business, diplomatic, rural, urban)
• Number of students eligible for Free School Meals
• Ethnicity of student’s year group as a percentage
• Students eligible for Education Maintenance Allowance (if applicable)
• Mixed/single gender
• Demographics of students attending the school (citizenship, gender, etc.)

To access the template – which you can adapt for your own particular school – go to ‘Applying for an undergraduate degree‘ on the Fulbright Commission website, and then click on ‘School documents’ on the side bar on the left of the page.  Scroll down the ‘School documents’ section until you reach the School Profile Template, which you can then download:

If your school needs a template to follow, you can download our example. EdUSA School Profile Template Use this template if you’re a teacher, counselor or advisor to complete the school profile for students applying to the US.

The Student Transcript is a document produced by the school as an official record of a student’s academic performance, which might include:

• Years attended
• Achieved and predicted national grades from the last four years of secondary education
• Academic honours and awards
• Explanations and equivalences of new or unfamiliar qualifications for university entry (e.g. EPQ, Pre-U, BTEC, Welsh Baccalaureate)
• Information about how curriculum reforms relate to a student’s subject choices
• Plans to resit any exams
• Extenuating circumstances
• How the choice and number of subjects compares to the average student

Different templates corresponding to the exam systems used in different parts of the UK can be accessed from the ‘Applying for an undergraduate degree‘  page on the Fulbright Commission website.  Click on ‘School documents’ on the side bar on the left of the page and then scroll down until you reach the ‘Transcript’ paragraph.  At the end of the paragraph, there are six transcript documents in Word format that you can download for the following groups of students:

• Students sitting A levels in England only
• Students in England sitting a combination of AS and A level exams
• Northern Irish A level students
• Welsh A level students
• Students in Scotland
• IB students

The Counselor Reference places applicants within the context of their entire year group and school community, and should address the student’s academic performance, extracurricular achievements and personal qualities.  In the US, this reference would be written by the school’s College Counselor, and the nearest UK equivalent of this role is the Head of Sixth Form or teacher in charge of university applications. 

The Teacher Reference should focus on the student’s qualities as a scholar: intellectual curiosity, creative thought, quality of writing, class behaviour and work habits.  The student may request either one or two teacher references from their current subject teachers. 

Differences between counselor and teacher recommendations

Although there are some common elements, such as capturing a student’s personality and strengths, there are also distinct differences between the two perspectives.  The Common App website contains a useful Writing Guide for Counselors and Teachers which provides a comparison of how to address some key student characteristics from each perspective.

The Harvard Admissions Office has also provided what it considers to be helpful recommendations from UK subject teachers and Heads of Sixth Form to enable you to get an idea of the structure and content of a good reference.