<p>Hi everybody,</p>
<p>I am an international student and I already graduated high school in June of 2013. I am currently taking a gap year and interning at a local radio station. Before this, I already finished a several week long internship at a local newspaper (both internships were unpaid).
I am thinking about submitting an additional recommendation letter from my internship supervisor since I see Journalism as a potential career option. During the internship at the newspaper, several of my articles got published and I got excellent feedback from the people I worked with. </p>
<p>I am aware that Columbia generally discourages the submission of extra LoRs. If I send one anyway, will the admissions committee just completely disregard it? Could it even hurt me? The last thing I want to do is annoy the admissions people by doing something they discourage.
Is there a possibility that it might actually have a positive effect, especially regarding my situation of not being in high school anymore and being committed to my internships full-time for several months?</p>
<p>I’ve been working with a scientist for the past three years, and this past summer, I went on a research cruise with him, and it’s really a big part of my application. My college counselor also suggested that I have him send one so I did anyways. I think it should be positive, especially if his letter is powerful and well written. I’d say go for it but you’d best consider how significant the internship was to you before sending it. If it wasn’t a big deal and you’ve done cooler things, then I’d say omit it, but if its your main shebang, you should definitely do it.</p>
<p>You should only send an extra recommendation if it presents a part of you that doesn’t show up in your teachers’ recommendations. Application readers have a metric ****-ton of paperwork to go through, so reading the same information twice will annoy them. But they are always glad to see new information about you (to a limit).</p>
<p>Was the newspaper internship one of the more significant things you’ve done? Did that job give you a new experience or change the way you think about something? I think you’re the one in the best position to answer these questions. :-)</p>