Operation “Soaring Eagle” : The Pre-Application Glossary – Part 2

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I apologize for the delay in releasing Part 2. I was busy submitting my own applications.

Letters of Recommendation

These are also known as Teacher Evaluation. Essentially, these are documents provided by your high school teachers. Luckily, this is the one part of the application procedure that you does not require much action on your part. You need to simply carefully choose the teachers who you think know you well, not only as a student, but also as a person. As usual, the specifics of letters of recommendations will be covered in a future post.

Secondary School Report

The secondary school report or SSR is a term which is often seen on the admissions portals of universities which accept Common Applications. This is a document which is submitted by your school counselor, which consists of an objective appraisal (usually in the form of a series of checkboxes), a letter of recommendation and your school transcripts. The midyear report and the final report are nothing but extensions of the SSR to update the admissions offices about your progress through your senior year at high school. Specifics about the secondary school report will be covered in a future post.

Essays

Also known as Personal Statements. This is possibly the single most time-consuming section of any college application. This is because the rest of the application consists of reporting facts. Your name, address, school, grades are all well-established facts that just need to be typed/written onto the form. Essays consist of one (or more) prompts (read as topics) on which you can base your essay and, most likely, a word limit. Topics are vary from application to application, so don’t expect that you can write a one-size-fits-all essay (literally and metaphorically). You’ll also need to get some proofreaders for your essays, to analyze your work with a completely new perspective and offer you feedback in terms of both content and grammatical correctness. I am dead certain that there will be a lot of posts about essays in this series.

Standardized Tests

Standardizes tests is the name given to those universal tests which are given by all applicants. The real reason universities ask for standardized tests is to see how you stack up against other applicants. This is because it is next to impossible to compare several thousand applications just on the basis of school transcripts and grades sent from a multitude of different schools following possibly very different result calculation systems. Standardized tests offer perspective to this madness. A student who does exceptionally well in standardized tests but does not score well at school may be seen to come from a relatively competitive school.

There are 3 kinds of standardized test:

• SAT and ACT – These two tests offer applicants and equal footing in almost all admission procedures. The SAT I (also known as the SAT Reasoning Test) tests you on writing, critical reading and math, whereas the ACT tests analyzes your proficiency in English (primarily grammatical concepts), Math, Reading, Science reasoning and Writing.
• SAT II – These are commonly known as the SAT Subject Tests and are designed to test your proficiency in specific subjects, such as Math, Physics, US History etc.
• TOEFL and IELTS – Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and International English Language Testing System (IELTS) are a means to check an applicants proficiency in the English language. This test is mainly for those students who wish to attend US universities, but will matriculate from non-English medium schools. The universities need to know if that student can thrive in an English-medium environment and the tests mainly put forward those scenarios to test takers that they might encounter in everyday college life.

Note on the English testing requirements

If you qualify any or all of the  following criteria, you may be exempt from taking the English proficiency tests:

• You are currently attending an English-medium school and have been doing so for several years.
• You have given (and scored well in) a English certification examination conducted by your country’s education board. For example, CBSE Class X English board examination
• You have already given (and scored well in)  the SAT I’s critical reading and writing sections.

There are 3 situations you’re likely to encounter under this category of requirements:

• You are automatically exempt because of the fact that you’ve covered some or all of the pre-requisites listed above. Please make sure that the admissions requirements say so explicitly.
• You are required to give these tests.

Even if you come under the second category after fulfilling some of the pre-requisites, you may send an e-mail to the admissions offices of the universities you wish to attend, highlighting your already-proven proficiency in the English language and if they would be oh-so-kind as to waive the testing requirement for you. Most universities don’t have a problem. However, there will always be some which will stick by the book. For example, Carnegie Mellon University is very strict about its rules for English proficiency for international students. It was only because of this university that I had to shell out $160 for the TOEFL.

Additional Music/Art Supplements

Please do not confuse these with the Common Application supplements. Those are very much a mandatory part of your application. The Music and Art supplements are usually mandatory for those students who are applying for an undergraduate course in the arts, and remain optional for those who aren’t. Art undergrads of course, are required to demonstrate their work portfolios and other works that they’d like to share with the admissions committee.

The reason why even non-arts students are allowed to submit these supplements is to allow them to demonstrate their interest/proficiency in their non-academic fields. Not only is this used to gauge whether a student is able to demonstrate a wide variety of interests, its also used to forward the students application to the concerned department for further consideration. Its usually not a decisive factor for non-arts students unless you submit something which is of appalling quality. My advice is to only submit it if you feel it’ll add real value to your application.

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