<p>My son can't figure out how to upload a recommendation letter from the music teacher for the Arts Supplement portion of the Common App without compromising the integrity/privacy of the letter? My S says he can't submit the Supplement without the letter, and so can't have it sent separately directly from the teacher -either by email (as the academic teachers do) or by snail mail. Advice?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, never had experience with the common app as son's 2001 apps were done when most schools still had paper, and electronic submission was the exception.</p>
<p>There's a Common App subforum under the College Selection forum where you may get some feedback.</p>
<p>We did use the common app for some schools but back then they allowed you to have the teachers mail in the letters separately. Does the common app allow you to read the letters after you have submitted the application? If not, the following could work:</p>
<p>1) Buy a cheap thumbdrive (under $10 for a 2 GB model these days)
2) Give it to the teacher and request that he put the letter on it and bring it to school
3) Have son log into the common app from a computer at his school
4) Have teacher upload the file from the thumbdrive
5) Have son submit the application without reading the letter while teacher watches
6) Have son log out
7) Tell teacher to keep the drive as a thank you</p>
<p>Using one of those USB things is a clever idea. Unfortunately, this teacher is a professor at a university, not at my son's high school. It still might be possible to go to his office and have him upload the document there. But it seems so odd! Are we missing something in this application, such as an instruction? Why would they ask a student to upload a recommendation? It's not that I think the professor would refuse, but it just doesn't seem right.</p>
<p>For some supplements, we took the low-tech approach of having the teacher seal the rec in an envelope and then signing his name across the seal. Then we just put that sealed envelope in with the supplement. I don't think the teacher was really concerned about my son reading the rec, though.</p>