College Application Recommendations

I’m currently in the process of applying to colleges. My school uses Naviance to submit teacher recommendations, transcripts, and school reports. For some reason, my school asks us to submit our part of the application 15 days before the deadline to give counselors and teachers enough time to submit their portion by the actual deadline. The reason they do this is because apparently transcripts and recommendations must be submitted AFTER the applicant’s part of the application is submitted? Is this true? Or can recommendations and transcripts be submitted to colleges even BEFORE I submit my part of the application? Just as long as all the materials get in by the deadline, does it matter the order they come in? Submitting 15 days before the deadline is a lot and I want to make sure what my school is saying is true.

I think your school has the ability to set whatever policies they want. Some schools limit the number of applications a student can submit. They may be able to reduce their own workload by verifying students applied everywhere they said they were going to and therefore sending only relevant materials. I’m not sure why you would risk materials being sent by challenging their policy.

As @helpingmom40 points out, it’s not wise to challenge your school’s policies, especially given how hectic college admissions are. If this is through the Common Application, documents will be stored and can be assigned to as many schools as you want and are able to, but Naviance likely functions differently, as it’s not using the native application system.

Hope that helps! Good luck with admissions!