While I intend to reach out to specific schools to determine their policies, I wanted to reach out to the CC community to see if anyone had any experience with this or knows what to do.
I graduated last May and am currently on a State Dept. sponsored language exchange overseas for my gap year. When I found out I had received the scholarship to take my gap year, my school counselors told me that it would be very easy to reapply to a few schools from overseas and that they would help me with the process. However, while I have teacher recommendations lined up and a way to request my transcripts, my high school is now telling me that they only submit school reports (which to my understanding is mainly just demographics to contextualize my data) for current students, which I am not. Yet every application requires this school report, and yet my high school refuses to send it.
Is this a common problem? Has anyone else reapplied to colleges during a gap year and had a very difficult time lining everything up? Do you think universities will waive this requirement since I’ve already graduated? I feel like this is even more difficult since I’m overseas and have no way of making sure everything gets where it needs to go.
Thanks!
Universities will NOT waive a requirement for a transcript. Call the school when they are open and talk to someone rather than rely on E-Mail. If you can have your parents ride herd on this. I know my DW would be more than willing to bug the school until that transcript was sent. Heck, if they do it now it is out of the way before the crush for current students happens.
Erin’s dad, I think you are confusing a transcript with the GC’s profile of the school (the school report). The school will certainly send a transcript, but they are saying they can’t compare this student to the current student body because he/or she isn’t part of it. So, for example, there is no way to say if this student is in the top 10% of the class or not because this student wasn’t in the class. Do I have that right, writeallnight?
You school has surely had Gap Year students before and are familiar with what they can send. A counselor can certainly evaluate your transcript and give you a rec even if they can’t provide the profile from your year (although I have no idea why not). The profile from the current year will probably suffice since I doubt the school changed that much in a single year. They can mention in their letter that the profile from your year isn’t available.
Once you have clarity from your school on what they can send, just contact admissions for the schools you are interested in and explain the situation. I doubt this is going to be a huge problem (but if it is, it would be good to hear back from you as to exactly what the issue is.)
I’ve never heard that schools require the school report and I can’t imagine that being a deal breaker, but you would need to contact the schools and ask.
So are you saying that last year you didn’t didn’t get a deferment from somewhere, or that now you’d like to see what else turns up given this additional year.
Looks like I may have misinterpreted the OP. I also can’t understand why the school won’t just attach the class profile from last year. Someone has to have a copy of that.
It seems a bit odd. If your parents are in town I’d ask them to make an appt. with the guidance counselor (or head of the guidance dept.) or even the principal to sort it out (even if they have to take an hour from work). The combination of a face-to-face meeting and having parents involved may resolve the issue quickly. It is unfortunate but sometimes parents have to step in because they are given more respect by some school officials.
Also, my public HS has its school profile online. Maybe you can find it and send it to colleges yourself and reference the online link.
Thanks for all the responses! I’ll poke around online and see if I can find a copy of the report. My mom already called twice, and apparently both times they said they have no problem sending a transcript but will not send a school report. Very frustrating.
My high school was fairly small and has had gap year students before, but most that I know of did not reapply during their gap year. I am currently committed to a school, but I figured given this extraordinary opportunity I might as well try again at a few schools.
Have your parents call/go in person. The Secondary School report’s School Profile attached to your transcript should be the one from your class. Simple.
