Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation serve to enhance the "personal" side of an application and share with colleges a student's participation within the school community, the classroom and within their living community.
Letters of recommendation are most likely to be requested by colleges from a counselor and/or one or more academic teachers (preferably from the 12th or 11th grade) but for some colleges, letters from other recommenders might be accepted. Be sure you know the letter of recommendation policy at each school where you intend to apply. It will be posted on their Admissions webpages.
Letters of recommendation are NOT REQUIRED for UC* or CSU schools but some private and out of state public/private schools may ask for them.
(*In rare circumstances UC Berkeley may request a letter of recommendation from an application, but this request would be made by the university AFTER the application is received. No other UC's currently follow that practice).
Due to the volume of letter requests, SRVHS counselors and teachers require three weeks advance request in order to be able to meet a student's application deadline. See your Naviance Student home page for a link to access the "packet" that needs to be completed and submitted to your counselor and/or teacher at least three weeks in advance of the (earliest) application deadline. Click on "Document Resources" at the bottom of your Naviance home page and download the all 4 documents (Doc #4 Instructions).
NOTE: SRVHS uses the Naviance Student software to send letters of recommendation to the colleges, and only counselors and teachers may upload letters to this program. If you will be requesting letters from other sources, check with each college to learn how to most appropriately send those types of letters to their admissions offices.
