An application progress review should record upcoming tasks, their deadlines, and their current status. Where recommendation letters are relevant, it should also show the planned writer category and any unresolved next steps. EducationUSA recommends keeping a deadline calendar and says recommendation letters may be written by teachers, school counsellors, personal tutors, coaches, or supervisors from professional experience.
What the review should contain
| Review item | What to record |
|---|---|
| Deadline and task calendar | Each identified task, its due date, and its current progress status. EducationUSA recommends using a calendar to track what needs to be done and when it must be completed. |
| Recommendation-letter plan | Whether the relevant application requires a letter, the potential writer category, and any outstanding request or document steps. |
| Unverified requirements | Any deadline, format, signature, or submission instruction that still needs confirmation from current official application materials. |
Simple status labels—such as “not started,” “in progress,” “waiting,” and “completed”—can make outstanding work visible without creating additional application requirements.
How to check the review
Each entry should be compared with the latest official materials for the relevant application. EducationUSA’s guidance supports deadline tracking and identifies possible recommendation-letter writers, but it does not establish that every US application requires a recommendation letter or accepts every listed writer category.
The review should therefore separate confirmed requirements from planning notes. A confirmed requirement comes directly from the relevant application materials; a planning note records an intention, such as identifying a potential writer who fits one of the categories EducationUSA describes.
What still needs confirmation
Exact deadlines, recommendation-letter requirements, permitted writers, submission formats, and timing must be confirmed for each application. No fixed deadline or universal recommendation-letter rule should be inferred from this general progress-review guide.