Hi all! First time posting, just panicking a little and would appreciate any advice you could give.
My guidance counselor has been extremely unresponsive for the last ~7 months, so I’ve been figuring out how to apply to college largely on my own. I’m asking for recommendations from a history teacher, which I expect to be a 7 or 8/10, and a language teacher, which I expect to be a 9 or 9.5/10.
My EA deadline is on November 1st, and because I wanted to give my recommenders ample time to do their letters/evals, I added them on Naviance around October 8th. When I added them, I checked off “send to all schools,” because all of my schools allow two letters and I planned on using those two for all of them anyways. As of today, my history teacher has submitted his letter, and it shows up in the Common App for every school I plan on applying to RD as well as my EA school.
Well, I had my meeting with my guidance counselor today, and she said that I shouldn’t have done that. Basically, she told me that because the letter has been sent to all of them already really early and cannot be rescinded, my RD schools will know I’m applying ED and will think I’m not actually interested in going to their schools. Because my language teacher hasn’t sent anything yet, I fixed hers so it only goes to my ED school, but I can’t do anything about the history teacher’s rec.
She even went so far as to say that my RD schools might rescind their consideration of my application.
Is there any truth to what she’s saying? Assuming I don’t get into my ED school (which I probably won’t, it’s super selective), does this ruin or significantly diminish my chances at my RD schools? I thought that if my RD schools received just a letter and no application they would just assume I sent the letter I used for an early app to all my other schools.
Sorry if this was confusing, and thanks for any advice!!
Huh? My D had had all of her applications done before 10/1 and didn’t apply anywhere ED.
How does submitting materials early indicate that you are applying ED somewhere?
I have no clue, but my guidance counselor made it sound very dramatic. She compared it to how when her daughter posted on social media about her acceptance to her number 1 school, two other schools apparently emailed her and said they were taking her out of consideration for acceptance. Isn’t that a false equivalency, though?
Thank you for replying. I’ve been worried all afternoon. My guidance counselor isn’t known for being particularly good at her job anyway.
This doesn’t make sense to me. I think your GC is confused.
When her daughter posted on social media about her ACCEPTANCE to her number one school - and if by that she means her daughter applied ED and was accepted ED - then it would make sense that the RD schools took her out of consideration for acceptance. ED is binding, and if you are accepted, you are to withdraw applications from the colleges to which you applied RD.
However, this is not the case with you. You just applied ED, you weren’t accepted yet. I see no reason why those recommendations can’t go out to everyone. I don’t think your RD schools know if you applied anywhere ED, and so what if they do…they aren’t going to not look at your application because you applied ED somewhere else. That makes no sense at all. It is only after you get accepted somewhere ED that the RD schools have to not consider your application because ED is binding.
D20 had all of her applications done in mid-October and her LORs went to all schools, too. She did have an ED application, as well as an EA. She had no issues. She actually submitted all of her applications in October and ended up withdrawing all of them after acceptance from the ED school. Every college assumes you are applying to multiple schools and knows you might get in to some of them.
Don’t sweat it, you’re fine. Colleges don’t know what other schools you’ve applied to unless you tell them!
Hello I believe I am having a similar problem as the original poster. I requested for a teacher to submit a letter to only two of my schools through Naviance that were on the common app, but they instead went to all of the schools on my common app. I must have unknowingly clicked send to all schools when making the request through Navaiance. Would it be safe to assume this and should I cancel the request and send them again or what else do you suggest I do? Thank you 
My daughter did the same thing, she had thought it meant it would be available to all colleges and she would select which one to send too. She realized her mistake after her first recommendation letter was sent and quickly canceled her other requests and assigned them each to a school. Hoping it won’t be an issue.
My D20 knew her December would be extremely busy so had everything done early. While she did apply, ED, I’ll note that even a few very competitive schools where she applied RD but submitted in October/November accepted her - unfortunately a few schools did not successful cancel her app after she contacted them about her ED acceptance. They seemed to not mind at all that she applied in October.
I really question your guidance counselors thought process here - I think that there are many many kids who use the summer to finalize their apps as they know the fall will be busy, so the jump to assuming a kid will ED seems like a big leap.