Seniors

Attend College Visits on our Campus 

Every fall we are fortunate to have many colleges across the country (and a few international) visit our Redwood students to provide college information sessions. These are the College Admission officers that “read” for our school and are tremendous resources to help with all aspects of the application process. It is important to get to know these counselors and ask questions about their college, and a great way to preview a campus!  

College Essays

Begin working on your Common App essays, UC Personal Insight Questions and other supplemental writing required by each college. Remember that only one Common App essay is written and shared between all your Common App schools, and the same holds true for the Coalition App essay. Your one set of UC Personal Insight Questions is shared with any of their nine campuses that you apply to, and there are no essays for the CSUs. Start early and seek help in the College & Career Center .

FINALIZE YOUR COLLEGE LIST And be ready to submit applications by deadlines:

Use the Naviance SuperMatch and Scattergram features to narrow your list of colleges based on major, location, private/public, and other items important to you. Once it is solidified, you’ll know what is expected in your applications. You may have 6-12 colleges in your list, including 2-3 predictable schools, 3-6 match schools, 1-3 reach schools (or 1-3 more match schools if you do not want to apply to reach schools.) 

• Type:  Applying regular decision, early action, early decision? -- Check Deadlines!

• Submission type:  Are you using a school's application, UC, CSU, Common App, Coalition App

• Application:  What is the status of your application: submitted, pending?

Application Platforms:

If applying to any of the 9 campuses within the University of California (UC) system, the application platform will be created here https://apply.universityofcalifornia.edu/my-application/login 

If applying to any of the 23 California State University campuses (CSU), the application platform can be created here:https://www.calstate.edu/apply 

For many out of state and private universities, you may choose to apply with the Common Application with over 900 institutions one one platform: https://www.commonapp.org/ 

Another multi platform application system is the Coalition for College Access application: https://www.coalitionforcollegeaccess.org/ 

Community College Option

If your path is to go to community college, there are many opportunities to learn more about programs, certificates, and transfer pathways to UC or CSU. Please attend one of our College of Marin information sessions, and this information will be applicable to all California community colleges.

For more information, come to the College & Career Center!

SEND TEST SCORES or REGISTER FOR TESTING (only if needed) If you have decided to included standardized testing as part of your application (many colleges are test optional or test blind), you will need to determine if they need official scores, or simply allow you to self report until admitted.