Senior - College and Career Planning Follow Up

Have your parents or you (if you are 18) signed the 2025 Authorization for Release of School Records?  Your transcripts and supporting documents cannot be sent from your counselor or Student Services until this is signed.

Official transcripts for your college applications must be requested through your Xello account. Once your transcript has been submitted, you can track it in Xello.

If you have application questions or need help, let your counselor know.  These are usually very short visits with good results.

Meet application and other document deadlines.

Have you connected your Common Application to your Xello Account?

Did you sign your FERPA waiver in the Common App?  You only need to do this for one college.

In Xello, did you select your counselor?  You only need to do this one time under one of your colleges to which you are applying.

Letter of Recommendation. Have you shared a list/resume of co-curriculars and volunteer services with your counselor/teachers? This will help recommenders to personalize your letter in a meaningful way for the college admissions office to know you. Consider your extra-curricular transcript as a starting point.  If you tell your counselor to write this LOR based only on your extra-curricular transcript, it will be a very generic LOR for you.  Counselors generally write LORs based on those co-curricular/volunteer lists they receive in order by date.

Do you need assistance with your college essay?  Come and see your counselor for help and suggestions. Counselors will also evaluate your essay for content if you like.

Remember to apply for FAFSA.  You and a parent need an FSA ID before you can do the FAFSA (no need to wait on this). If you missed the FAFSA presentation at the post high school planning night, you can reference it in the WLHS archived streams here.