This school year, Rockwood is introducing a new platform for college, career and post-high school planning called SchooLinks for students in grades 6-12.
In a Parent Square announcement, Dr. Shelley Willott, assistant superintendent of learning and support services, said students can use SchooLinks to take surveys to analyze career interest and strength, explore colleges and trade schools virtually, search for scholarships, create digital portfolios/resumes and communicate with counselors.
In addition, seniors can track college applications and request transcripts and letters of recommendation.
Dr. Willott said there isn’t a parent view currently, but one will be released in the future. For now, parents can access their student’s account through their ClassLink account.
Applying to around 20 colleges and universities, Aryan Valsa Pradeep, senior, has utilized the new SchooLinks program many times throughout the past month.
Valsa Pradeep said he first found out about SchooLinks at the beginning of September, and scheduled a meeting with Paula Ake, college counselor, to learn more.
“She showed me how to request recommendation letters, and then from her side what it looks like for submitting transcripts,” Valsa Pradeep said.
Ake also told Valsa Pradeep that SchooLinks makes it much more efficient to submit transcripts, as she can send transcripts all together rather than individually for each student.
Valsa Pradeep said he has only encountered one issue with SchooLinks: when trying to submit a letter of recommendation from his mentor from an internship at a SLU AI lab this summer, he accidentally put his mentor in the “Teacher” category rather than the “Other” category for his UChicago application.
He said his mentor submitted his letter before Valsa Pradeep was able to change the selection, meaning that letter took up a spot he had reserved for a teacher. This may or may not impact his chances of getting the school, Valsa Pradeep said, as he is unable to submit all of the letters he planned to.
“I’m glad I only requested him for one college, because if I had requested him for every college and he had taken up a teacher spot for every college I’d be cooked,” Valsa Pradeep said.
Valsa Pradeep said he hasn’t had any problems with SchooLinks otherwise, and said he thinks the process will be smoother now that he has submitted his application for some schools already.
Dr. Cathy Farrar, science teacher, has used SchooLinks once already to submit a recommendation letter.
Farrar said the program was introduced to the teachers during a summer Professional Development day, and has found it to be easy to use.
“You log in, you click on the button and it tells you you have a request,” Farrar said. “So that seems pretty straightforward.”
SchooLinks is similar to Common App, Farrar said, but can be used to submit letters for some programs that aren’t included in Common App, such as University of California school applications.
“We had to submit all those extra rec letters independently, and now it will all go through SchooLinks,” Farrar said. “So I think for seniors, it’s probably a good thing. So it’s good for students, it’s good for the district to spend money on.”
