What Is SchooLinks?

If your high school has recently told you to start using SchooLinks, you may be wondering: What is this? Is it replacing Naviance? Do I request my teacher recommendations there? What happens in Common App?

You are not alone. I am seeing more schools move to SchooLinks, and because families are already juggling Common App, transcripts, recommendation letters, school portals, testing, and deadlines, adding one more platform can feel confusing.

First: Did SchooLinks Buy Naviance?

No, I don’t think so! I believe that SchooLinks and Naviance are separate companies and competing college-and-career planning platforms.

What is happening, however, is that some school districts that previously used Naviance are choosing to transition to SchooLinks. SchooLinks openly positions itself as an alternative to Naviance, and the company has published examples of districts that made that switch.

So if your older child used Naviance but your current senior suddenly has SchooLinks, you aren't imagining things. Your school or district may have changed platforms.

So, What Is SchooLinks?

SchooLinks is a college and career readiness platform used by school districts to help students organize postsecondary planning.

For college-bound seniors, one of its most important functions is its College Application Manager. SchooLinks integrates with Common App and can help schools manage items such as transcripts, recommendation letters, school reports, counselor forms, and application-document tracking.

Think of it this way:

Common App is where the student completes and submits the college application.

SchooLinks may be where the high school manages the school-side pieces of that application.

SchooLinks + Common App

SchooLinks is an official Common App integration partner. Common App announced the SchooLinks integration partnership in 2020, and SchooLinks currently describes its platform as having direct Common App integration with application and document-status syncing.

Students still complete their actual Common Application in Common App — Profile, Family, Education, Testing, Activities, Writing, and each college's individual questions and supplements.

But when a student's high school uses SchooLinks for college application documents, the school may require students to request transcripts and school-based recommendation letters through SchooLinks instead of handling those pieces independently through Common App.

That is why following your own high school's instructions matters.

What About Teacher & Counselor Recommendations?

This is one of the biggest areas of confusion.

At schools using SchooLinks for the recommendation workflow, students can request recommendation letters through the platform, and teachers can submit the materials needed for colleges. SchooLinks' College Application Manager is specifically designed to manage recommendation letters along with transcripts, school reports, and counselor forms.

Ask the teacher personally first.

Do not let the first time your teacher or counselor learns that you want a recommendation be an automated notification from a computer system!

Once the teacher says yes, follow your high school's directions for making the official request in SchooLinks. And remember, a lot of schools are just now training their counselors on SchooLinks, so please be patient with them!

Depending on the college, the high school may need to send the transcript, school report, counselor forms, and possibly a counselor recommendation. SchooLinks is designed to organize and transmit these school documents as part of its college-application workflow.

Also remember that a counselor recommendation and a teacher recommendation are not the same thing.

The counselor typically provides broader academic and school context.

The teacher recommendation usually gives colleges a more personal look at how the student performs and contributes in an academic classroom.

Does SchooLinks Send Transcripts Too?

It can.

SchooLinks' College Application Manager includes transcript-request and document-management functions, and the platform states that students and staff can track the status of documents sent to colleges.

This can actually be one of the most helpful parts of the system because families often become anxious wondering:

Did the counselor send the transcript?

Did the teacher submit the letter?

Did the college receive everything?

A centralized tracking system can make those pieces easier to follow.

But there is an important distinction I remind students about every year:

“Submitted by the school” and “received and processed by the college” are not necessarily the same moment.

Once an application is submitted, students should still activate and monitor each college's applicant portal.

What If I Have an Outside Recommender?

An outside recommender — perhaps an employer, coach, mentor or community leader — can be different from a teacher employed by the student's high school.

Whether that recommender is invited through Common App or handled another way depends on the college and the school's particular SchooLinks setup.

Always check two things before sending an additional recommendation:

1. Does the college accept an additional or “other” recommender?

2. Does the college actually want another letter?

More recommendation letters are not automatically better.

One Important Warning: Every School May Use SchooLinks a Little Differently

This may be the most important point in this entire article.

SchooLinks is the platform, but your school district determines how it implements that platform.

SchooLinks itself notes that districts can configure different features and access options. Even guardian access, for example, can be provided differently depending on the district.

So a friend at another high school may tell you, “This is how I did my recommendation.”

That does not necessarily mean your school wants you to do it the same way.

Follow the instructions from your own counseling office.

My Quick SchooLinks Checklist for Seniors

Before you start clicking buttons, make sure you understand your school's specific process:

• Complete your Common App account and FERPA requirements.

• Follow your high school's instructions for connecting or coordinating Common App and SchooLinks.

• Personally ask teachers before submitting recommendation requests.

• Request teacher recommendations through the system your school tells you to use.

• Follow the school's procedure for transcript requests.

• Know whether each college requires a teacher recommendation, counselor recommendation, or neither.

• Do not send duplicate recommendation requests through multiple systems unless your counselor tells you to.

• Monitor SchooLinks for school-document status.

• After submitting each application, monitor the college's applicant portal to make sure required materials are received.

If your school has switched from Naviance to SchooLinks, don't panic. The names and screens may be different, but the basic college-application responsibilities remain the same.

SchooLinks is intended to bring many of those moving pieces together — including Common App integration, transcripts, recommendation letters, school forms and application tracking.

At Williams Educational Consultants, we tell our students all the time: college applications have enough moving parts already. The goal is not to click faster — it is to understand the process, stay organized, and submit the right information to the right place at the right time.

Helping You Choose Wisely.