<p>My daughter is a rising senior. The teachers whom she intends to seek recommendations from require her to turn in all materials by the first day of school. For schools using the Common App, the teachers' instructions say: "Go to commonapp dot org and create an account and fill out application. Go to school page form and choose [teachers'name]. insert subject and teacher email. Choose colleges online before submitting requests to teacher."</p>
<p>Does this mean that she has to have her application COMPLETED before she asks the teacher for recommendations, i.e. by late August? My daughter has not even taken the SAT yet, so she does not yet have a list of schools to which she will apply! and she certainly dies not intend to SUBMIT the applications before she gets her scores!</p>
<p>Is there a way to comply with the teachers' procedures WITHOUT completing and submitting the application first? School starts in late August! She certainly could provide the teachers with an overbroad list of schools by then but it seems unreasonable to require the child to have their college applications submitted by then!</p>
<p>Nothing is submitted until your daughter hits the submit button. I would HOPE the teacher can’t see the actual application - that would break all kinds of privacy rules! So she can create her account, fill out all the boring stuff (name, parent names, intended major, etc.) and choose the 20 most likely colleges. Then she can submit to the teacher. THEN she can work on her essays and narrowing down her college choices, and change major or schools as necessary later in the fall.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was wondering about this too… I want to get my SAT up about 200 points before I submit my applications, and I still need to write my essays, but is it okay to go ahead and ask for recommendations if I’m using the common app? And does the common app send one recommendation (from one teacher) to every school? I’d assume that’s how it works, but if so then why does the teacher need to know the name of the schools? </p>
<p>Sorry for hijacking your thread, but I think my questions just build on yours, so yeah.</p>
<p>Since Fall of 2008, my two kids applied to a total of 16 colleges, with a wide variety of applications, and with several generations of teachers writing recommendations. </p>
<p>The combinations of common/ not common apps and teachers with varying degrees of comfort with internet vs. paper recommendations has been interesting. The important thing to keep in mind is this:</p>
<p>EVERY ONE of those 16 applications came together in full, prior to the due date. No matter HOW those teachers prefered to do their recommendations, and what form the application took, they found each other in the chaos that must exist in every admissions office. The recommendation can arrive via snail mail a month prior to your child’s application, and it will be fine.</p>
<p>You will be notified via email when your application is complete, by each college, or via an account your child sets up with each college at the time they submit the application. Some of the college accounts will record each required item as it is received. If it seems like that notification is taking too long then you can call the admissions office to inquire. One son had one application that was missing an item, which the admissions office found while he was on the phone with them. They had received it, but hadn’t connected it to his application.</p>
<p>You can start the common app – there is a section to invite counselor and up to four teachers to submit LORS. You enter the teacher’s contact info including email and the teacher will get access to fill out an evaluation form and upload a generic letter of recommendation. I think the teacher would only need the name of the schools if they are being mailed and addressed to the school. </p>
<p>You can submit each application in your own time. Each college allows a certain number of LORs, so you pick and choose which letters you want the college to get.</p>
<p>ETA - I just looked at it. Go to the last option on the left titled “school forms” - there is a button that says “invite official.” You select if it is a teacher or counselor, then add the contact info. To add more teachers, you click the “invite official” button again. At some point you choose to send the invite to the teacher/counselor. Then when you go to the “school forms” page for each college, it will let you know how many LORS they require and how many you can choose - then you have to select which teachers LOR the college will see.</p>
<p>At our school, the teacher LORs are done by mail, so D has been instructed to print out the common ap recommendation forms and give them to her teachers, with envelopes to mail. I don’t understand why they don’t do it electronically, since the school sends transcripts that way.</p>
<p>Our school uses Naviance so the LOR are submitted there which then somehow links to the Common App. One one page of the Common App there is a note saying that we had to invite the counselor to join the app but if you go to the end of the app it says that “your school uses Naviance and LOR and school report is reported through that program” or something like that.</p>
<p>At our school, it depends upon the teacher, one of them will be submitting electronically but the other one prefers the paper version so will be providing her the paperwork w/stamped envelopes. </p>
<p>It has been 5 years since we went through this process with older child and I am amazed at the difference between the high schools. Older child’s HS – he just asked his teachers and they submitted the recs – did not get any guidance on how to go about it. </p>
<p>Younger child’s HS, at the end of the junior year, the teachers and counselors handed out their info sheet on getting recs (resume, samples of their work etc.). Teachers wanted self sticking envelopes which makes sense as some of the teachers are writing hundreds of recs – saves wear and tear on the tongue. I think one of them mentioned he did nearly 300 last year.</p>
<p>Our school uses Naviance too, and they told the students to make sure their common ap user name is the same as their Naviance name, so I am really confused why the LOR’s are not electronic. This is all new to me since the older 2 kids, school did not have Naviance and my kids did not use the common ap.</p>
<p>mamabear1234—uh oh :eek:. I hope that isn’t how it works at our school because the kids did not do that. Not all colleges accept electronic apps, etc. either so it might be some of that for your kids too??</p>
<p>It’s possibly just our wacky school! She also said this eliminates the option of making several common ap accounts to send different versions to certain schools - at our HS the usernames must match up for the transcripts to be sent!</p>
<p>“Our school uses Naviance so the LOR are submitted there which then somehow links to the Common App.”</p>
<p>Yes, this. Our local (non-academic) public HS does it this way. The down side is that no one looks at the electronic submission before it’s forwarded to colleges. Does anyone know any competitive HS (public or private) that use this blind submission process?</p>
<p>NewHope33==our high school is a very competitive public high school and submits via electronic files, I really don’t know if anyone looks at the files before submitting other than the families though. Our older 2 didn’t apply to schools that used the common app so this is all new to us. If I find out I will post(but it might not be for a few weeks).</p>
<p>Neither of my DD’s privates used blind electronic submissions. The more competitive private asked that students print out their completed Common App and give it to the school. Every application was hard copy, and every application was reviewed by the school before it was sent out. Less chance of mistakes that way obviously … though more time consuming. I was just wondering if any competitive HS’s felt confident enough about their computer systems to trust blind submittals. (To err is human. To really screw up it takes a computer!)</p>
<p>DS’ school is a public and highly competitive high school (top 10 in the country this year) and they do not use the electronic submissions. Transcripts, counselor’s recommendation and school profile are sent together – all are hard copies. We have to supply the 9x12 stamped and addressed envelope per transcript request. They want the 9x12 because the colleges want the material flat (I assume it is easier to scan). Recommendations can be electronic but it depends upon the individual teachers. One of the two teachers writing recommendations for DS is going the electronic route while the other wants the paper form.</p>
<p>Our younger daughter just went through the process last year. It was an international school and they used Naviance. ID did not need to be the same for Naviance and Common App. Everything was submitted electronically, but the GC reviewed everything before it was sent out. D2 asked for LORs from 3 teachers, the GC read all three and picked 2 to be submitted. </p>
<p>We were able to see how many kids applied to each school by using the Naviance. D2 was able to track what information was missing and resubmit if necessary. </p>
<p>We were told that sometimes it is not what the LOR says, but what the teacher checks off for each category - top 1%, 5%…For schools that do not rank, it is especially important on the GC’s LOR where he/she checks off for each category. I would suggest for you to have a conversation with the GC about it.</p>
<p>For those with schools that send hard copies, you need to check with the colleges to see how they want you to submit your app then. Several of the schools we looked at said that everything needs to come in the “same way”-meaning that if you use the common app and send electronically, the school information, LOR, etc. need to come electronically as well. If your school won’t send electronically, you can’t use the common app—well, you can, you just have to print it off and mail it in—and that could mean higher fees for apps for you.</p>
<p>SteveMA, I’m surprised to hear that. All the schools my S applied to were happy to take everything that came in in whatever form it arrived in. I seem to think the electronic common app had a way of saying the recommendation letter was coming via snail mail. I can’t recall anymore how the recs worked out, but I do know some went by snail mail (maybe the counselor’s and one teacher’s) and it was never an issue.</p>