The Common App School Report When Your Canadian High School Has Never Filed One

What the School Report and Counselor Recommendation Cover

The School Report is a form your counselor completes for each college on your list. It covers your school's grading scale, class rank policy (most Canadian schools do not rank, and the counselor states this directly), curriculum, and any disciplinary information the college asks about. The Counselor Recommendation is a separate letter, written by the same counselor, describing you as a student and a person. Common App's counselor page confirms a counselor submits both, along with your transcript, through Common App's recommender system.

Getting a CEEB Code First

Every school that sends documents to US colleges needs a CEEB code, also called an ATP code, a six-digit number issued by the College Board that identifies your specific school. Most established Canadian public and private high schools already have one, since it is also used for SAT and AP score reporting. Your counselor can look this up or request one through the College Board if your school has never had a US-bound applicant before. Without this code, a college cannot reliably match your incoming transcript and School Report to your application file.

How a Counselor Registers for the First Time

A counselor who has never used Common App creates a free counselor account on the platform and links it to the school's CEEB code. Once you add that counselor's email as a recommender inside Common App, the counselor gets an invitation to complete the School Report and Counselor Recommendation for your file specifically. Nothing about this process requires the school to have handled a US application before. Some Canadian schools already run a college counseling platform such as Maia Learning, Scoir, or Naviance, and these connect directly to Common App, so the counselor works inside a platform they already know instead of Common App itself.

If Your Counselor Will Not File It

Some Canadian guidance offices, especially at schools that rarely see US applicants, are unfamiliar with Common App or reluctant to take on an unfamiliar form. First, ask whether another staff member with signing authority, a vice principal, department head, or the principal, can act as counselor of record instead. Common App does not require the person filing the report to hold the title counselor, only that they know your academic record and can speak to your school's policies.

If nobody at your school will complete it, contact the admissions office of each college directly and explain the situation before your deadline. Many US colleges that recruit outside the US have handled this before and can suggest an alternative, such as accepting a letter from the principal on school letterhead in place of the standard form. Do this early. A college finding out about a missing School Report during file review, days before a decision, has far fewer options than one that hears from you weeks ahead.

The School Profile Document

Alongside the School Report, colleges expect a school profile, a one or two page document describing your school's curriculum, grading scale, average grade range, AP or IB offerings, size of the graduating class, and recent university destinations. Many Canadian schools do not already have one prepared, since it is not used for domestic Canadian applications. A counseling platform sometimes generates a template automatically. Otherwise, your counselor writes one from scratch and uploads it as an additional document within each college's own portal.

What Your Counselor Needs From You

Give your counselor a list of every college on your list, your CEEB code if you already have it, and enough time. A counselor writing a Counselor Recommendation and several School Reports for the first time takes longer than one who does this every application season. Ask early in grade 11 or the first term of grade 12, not the week before your first deadline. If your school runs a CEGEP-style guidance office rather than a US-style counseling department, the same logic applies: start the conversation with your academic advisor as soon as you decide to apply.