School Profile

What it contains

A typical school profile is 1-2 pages and includes:

• School identity: name, location, public/private, number of students, whether it's an international school, IB/AP/honors offerings
• Grading scale: is the transcript on 4.0 GPA, 100-point, 1-9 IB, or another system? How are grades weighted?
• Class rank policy: does the school calculate class rank? If not, why?
• Course offerings: which AP, IB, honors, or advanced courses are available? How many students typically take each?
• College matriculation list: where did last year's graduates enroll? This is the single most important line on the profile for US admissions readers evaluating an unfamiliar school.
• Curricular context: is the school on a block schedule, a standard 7-period day, a tutorial system? How long is a "semester"?

Why it exists

US admissions readers see thousands of transcripts every year from every kind of high school in every country. They need a way to interpret a single transcript in context. An A- at a school with 20 AP offerings where 80% of students take AP classes is different from an A- at a school with 3 AP offerings where only the valedictorian takes them. The school profile provides that context.

For US high schools this is a standard document that's been around for decades. For well-established international schools it's also standard: any competent international school has a school profile and the counselor knows how to update it. The profile usually goes out with every student's transcript automatically.

Why this matters most for students from less-known schools

A student at a well-known international school has a profile that US readers have seen many times. Admissions committees already know what a rigorous course at that school looks like.

A student at a local high school outside the US often has no school profile at all, or one that has never been translated to English. This is a real gap. Without a profile:

• US readers have no idea how your grades compare to your class (many non-US high schools don't publish class rank, but readers don't know that unless you tell them)
• They can't calibrate your course difficulty (is your physics class equivalent to AP Physics 1, or something different?)
• They have no idea whether other students from your school have applied to US universities before

The best you can do if your school has no profile: ask your counselor or guidance office to create a 1-page English summary that covers the standard items above, even if it's informal. Your counselor will submit it through the Common App along with the transcript.

What a student can do

Technically, the student does not write or upload the school profile. But the student can:

• Check whether your school already has one (ask your counselor)
• Request a new one if none exists, providing a template
• Review the existing profile for accuracy and make sure class rank policy and AP availability are correctly stated
• Confirm that the counselor uploads it through the Common App, not separately by email