<p>Dartmouth's website says that a peer recommendation is "strongly encouraged." I have the mandatory recommendation letters and a very good letter from a coach, so do I necessarily need a peer rec? </p>
<p>I would rather not impose myself on any friends to write a rec for me over the holidays, since I only learned about Dartmouth's preference today. I realize that I should have looked into that earlier, so forgo the chastisement.</p>
<p>Opinions? Also, how many words would you consider to be "a page in length" for the written supplement?</p>
I’m in the same position as OP. Do you think not submitting a peer review would hurt our chances significantly? I don’t have any good friends at school so I don’t really have the option of getting a peer evaluation
I would say better late than never. Contact a friend and ask for a rec. “Strongly encouraged” sounds like it would be better to have the recommendation be a few days late than omitted.
Yeah I submitted my Dartmouth application the day after Christmas, and didn’t know about the “optional peer recommendation” until the day after New Years. Yesterday, I asked one of my close family friends (who got into Northwestern ED) to write me a peer rec, and she gladly obliged!!! It’s definitely not too late to ask for peer recs. if you’re afraid about being a burden to your friend, you won’t be. Put yourself in their shoes. Personally, I would be ecstatic and honored if my friend asked me to write her peer rec!
@outlooker I don’t have many close friends at school either! My family friend goes to high school in a different district and we’ve known each other since we were 2! You could also ask college friends who are currently on break, if they’re not too busy.
@Ambitious19 How did/will you submit the peer recommendation? Are you just having your friend send it to you and then adding it yourself through your portal?
Btw everyone, I have scoured past Dartmouth threads and found a bunch of cases of people being accepted without the peer rec even in past years when it was explicitly required, but I think I may ask someone anyway.
@Verbose In the Dartmouth section of the common app in the recommenders and FERPA area, there’s a place where you can manage recommenders. A box will pop up, where you click exactly what kind of rec it will be (boss, coach, peer etc etc) and you can type in the name of your peer & their email address.
