Counseling Update: November 23-27

ADVISORY: We will meet as house league teams during advisory time. Alison will send an update about the purpose and tasks to be completed. Hydra RULES!!!!

All Groups Meet in the Plaza at the Beginning of Advisory

Shenlong

Naga 

Wyvern

Hydra

TEACHER  COLLEGE RECOMMENDATIONS HELPFUL TIPS AND GUIDELINES:

The teacher letter of recommendation should focus on the student’s personality, academic performance, contributions etc. within your classroom.  it is okay to mention some extracurricular activities, but the focus should be on your direct observation of the student in your classroom. The reader is trying to get a sense of the type of learner the student is and his/her contributions to the academic and social milieu. Here are some writing tips and guidelines for the format of the letter.

Please use electronic letterhead and format to write your letter (see attached).

FOR UK RECOMMENDATIONS: Students should submit their completed UCAS Referee Request Form to teachers by deadlines listed above. As the purpose of the UCAS reference is very different from the U.S. system the guidelines for an appropriate rec are listed below. For those of you writing to both UK and US systems for the same student you may include a paragraph or two in your U.S. letter that addresses the below criteria. The counselors will extract this content from your U.S. letter and include it for the UCAS reference which will possibly include content from another subject teacher and/or counselor.

What to include

• The context of the student performance in your classroom compared to other students.
• Their academic performance and their potential for success in higher education.
• Why they’re suited to their chosen subject and career path, plus their attitude, motivation and commitment.
• Skills and qualities like aptitude and enthusiasm, plus current or past achievements that will help with their chosen subject area.
• Achievements, work experience, and extracurricular activities that relate to their chosen course(s).

To submit the letter of recommendation: 

1. Sign into Naviance (SSIS link-Faculty-Naviance)
   1. ACCOUNT: saigon
   2. USERNAME:
   3. PASSWORD: (ask one of us to reset password if you forget this information)
2. Click on “manage and complete the college recommendation”
3. Select the student you are submitting documents for
4. Click on “prepare forms”
5. Scroll down to teacher documents and select the drop down menu titled “add new document”
6. Upload your letter of recommendation to Naviance
7. Complete the Common Application teacher evaluation (For U.S.)

Once the letter of recommendation and Common Application are submitted the counselor will mark the recommendation as completed.

Please let us know if you have any questions or experience technical difficulty while trying to submit.

STUDENTS OF CONCERN: Thank you to all teachers for participating in the grade level student of concern meetings. We appreciate your feedback on how to continue to make these meeting more productive. One suggestion was to embed links to each grade level SOC meeting notes in the counselor corner, thus starting today you will find links to the SOC notes in the below images. Thank you for your continued engagement.

UNIVERSITY VISITS: A key part of the college decision-making process is finding a good fit. A key part in the admission process is demonstrating fit and interest. The university representatives that visit SSIS are often reading our students’ applications and making admission recommendations. Therefore, it is important for students to participate in university visits. Please encourage students to attend information sessions, which occur in the HS library unless otherwise indicated.

We currently do not have any university visits scheduled for the week of November 23-27th