question on Common App and letters of recommendation

[Anonymous]

Hi all. I am a bit confused and would appreciate insight from those who have done this before. Two questions:

1. Are teachers' recommendations submitted through the Common App, or are those submitted by the applicant's HS?

2. I know most colleges ask for 1 counselor recommendation and 2 teacher's recommendations. Is it possible to submit 3 teacher's recommendations?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi all. I am a bit confused and would appreciate insight from those who have done this before. Two questions:

1. Are teachers' recommendations submitted through the Common App, or are those submitted by the applicant's HS?

2. I know most colleges ask for 1 counselor recommendation and 2 teacher's recommendations. Is it possible to submit 3 teacher's recommendations?

Thanks!

The student indicates on the Common App which teacher they'd like to do their recommendation and provides an email for that teacher. The Common App sends that teacher an email with instructions on how to upload the letter.

I don't know the answer to your second question.

[Anonymous]

It depends. Our HS used Naviance for handling the teacher recommendations, and then there was some sort of pass-through set up to the Common App site. Your second question is going to depend on whether the college has a max # of recommendations.

[Anonymous]

At least at our LCPS, the recommendations went directly into Common App. My DD had three teacher recommendations and where allowed, they were all submitted but usually it only allowed two.

[Anonymous]

2. Every college is different. Add a college to My List, and you can see what’s required and what’s allowed.

[Anonymous]

Please don’t burden more teachers for unnecessary recs.

[Anonymous]

I don't believe any of the schools DD applied to would have allowed you to skip the counselor recommendation.

For rec letters, each school is different, some allow for more than one teacher rec or for a teacher rec + another rec letter from a coach, job supervisor, etc. Three teacher recs seems excessive unless each one is adding new information. A second teacher rec could make sense if one is from an academic subject and the other is for something like art or music.