Common App Letter of Recommendation Q (anyone?)

[mirabillis]

I have a couple quick questions re: LOR on the Common App

1. Can you ask someone for a LOR and when it's sitting in your Common App, then choose not to use theirs? (Like someone said you can ask more people, than less, as some may not follow through, but in the CA you can choose whose rec goes to which school?)

2. If LOR writer has an affiliation with top choice school (alumni, etc), can you have LOR writer write a school-specific (mentioning the school anyway) recommendation?  And then have them write a generic version too to send to other schools? Possible?

3. If school asks for 2 TEACHER, 1 OTHER (optional), but says on their website that for homeschoolers if academic is only online, never met you people, they'd prefer community leaders and other - then do you have your 'other' recommenders uploaded in the Teacher slot? (B/C it only allows 1 "Other" and requires 2 "Teacher")

THANKS!! Anyone else in the middle of Common App?? Weigh in! Love to hear from you!

[saw]

2 hours ago, mirabillis said:

I have a couple quick questions re: LOR on the Common App

1. Can you ask someone for a LOR and when it's sitting in your Common App, then choose not to use theirs? (Like someone said you can ask more people, than less, as some may not follow through, but in the CA you can choose whose rec goes to which school?)

2. If LOR writer has an affiliation with top choice school (alumni, etc), can you have LOR writer write a school-specific (mentioning the school anyway) recommendation?  And then have them write a generic version too to send to other schools? Possible?

3. If school asks for 2 TEACHER, 1 OTHER (optional), but says on their website that for homeschoolers if academic is only online, never met you people, they'd prefer community leaders and other - then do you have your 'other' recommenders uploaded in the Teacher slot? (B/C it only allows 1 "Other" and requires 2 "Teacher")

THANKS!! Anyone else in the middle of Common App?? Weigh in! Love to hear from you!

 

I'm pretty sure I saw your question 2 posed recently on an email list serv I'm part of but can't locate the exact email. I believe the solution was to have the LOR writer send that particular recommendation directly to the school, and have the other recs from that writer made generic and uploaded through the Common App. 

As for 1, it's the recommender who uploads the rec, so pretty sure you would not be able to decide not to use the rec once invited. I'd say start very early with recommenders as some of them don't upload until super-late and it's super-stressful!

As for 3, I'm not sure but on the basis that the grades/academics are the most significant criteria in admissions, I would say pick people who can speak to your DC's academics. I would avoid having three recommenders who are community leaders/other who can speak only to your DC's extracurriculars, or leadership skills, or music/sport talent. I think the school is trying to avoid situations where the recommenders says, gee DC was in my non-live online class, turned in the papers on time, did a good job on the test, but I've never had a convo with them irl. So if your online class was live, and DC had significant interaction with the teacher, I'd go with the online teacher and be sure the teacher gets the point to emphasize the personal interaction with DC that have allowed them to get insight into DC's abilities, outside of assignments and tests. I hope that makes sense! I think the key point is to ensure that the recs are balanced in terms of the insight the recommenders can give into your DC's talents, personality and ability, and that at least one (preferably two) speak to their academic abilities. But ofc that would be possible with ECs -- a recommenders could say, well DC volunteered many hours for our project and showed a real flair for writing well and persuasively. 

[Mom0012]

Well, I can answer the part about not using the recommendation — You invite people to be recommenders and then you link their recommendations to the schools you want to use them for. So, just don’t link them to a school if you don’t want to use their recommendation. If you already linked them, you can delete that link.

[mirabillis]

Perfect thanks both of you!

And then do I just choose 1 school and invite all of them (no need to specify all 8 or so colleges to them, right?) It will just populate that recommender's letter in the other colleges, right?

I also found out that you CAN invite a recommender to pen both a school-specific and generic LOR, by inviting them twice to 2 different email addresses. This is if they are willing. We will ask.

Still trying to figure out how to request a non-teacher to be a 'teacher' evaluator, but in all I've read about specific colleges and what they want from homeschooled applicants, they prefer academic LOR, but if the only academic teachers are online classes with no direct contact, then someone who knows applicant personally is better. It's just weird, b/c then the recommender will be invited as a teacher, and will have to checkmark whether high school/college professor and school name. Luckily, said LOR writer is affiliated with a school, but not as a teacher... so still not sure about this. Might call the AOs on Monday.

[Mom0012]

I haven’t seen a college ask for an “other” recommender in place of a teacher. I think you are right to follow up with them and see how they would like you to handle this. Two of my dd’s teacher recommenders were from online classes, but these were small classes where they got to know her well. One of the teachers taught her for 4 years and the other was for a writing-intensive discussion based class where the teacher to get to know her just because there was so much interaction.

[mom1720]

I would contact the school(s) in question directly. I know Duke states the following regarding recs for home schooled or cyber-schooled students:

Although your parent may complete your school report to provide context for your academic choices, we encourage students to provide two additional letters of recommendation from non-relatives and preferably from individuals who have worked with the student in an in-person academic setting.  Employers, religious leaders, sports coaches or other adults can write these recommendations if all academic instruction takes place in the home.  Letters from an on-line instructor are less helpful if he/she has not had direct contact with the homeschool student.

But on the Common App Duke has slots for 2 required teacher recs, one additional (optional) teacher rec and one optional "other" rec.

Good luck.