Hi, I am confused about the deadlines.
If an application is due on 11/1, does that mean the teacher and counselor recommendations need to be submitted by that date also?
More or less. Most colleges will give a few days grace period for items outside of your control. If the deadline is 11/1, you need to have your part on time, but it will not be held against you if some other items are a few days late. However, most teachers and GC’s have been through this before, so they know the drill.
That said, there have been colleges that adhere to the deadline for all aspects of the application. UMich enforced the 11/1 deadline a couple of years ago when I applied. I don’t know if that’s still the case.
Hmm. I am still a bit confused though. I just read a thread about an applicant deciding to apply to Cornell at the last minute, submitting his/her application at 11:54PM on the due date. And this person got accepted. How do the teacher evaluations get to Cornell in time if the decision to apply is last minute?
My son hasn’t started his common app. Is it that the evaluation letter is also common so that all he has to do is direct it to the right school?
The letters are attached along with the Common App. If his teacher had sent it to him before, he can just attach and send his application.
Here’s how it works in my school:
Kids were expected to request letters of recommendation in the spring. We’re asked to write them before the end of the school year, though teachers with more than 45 have the summer to get to them. Every letter should have been in by Labor Day.
We do NOT send letters to kids. Ever. Kids are very, very strongly urged to check the box on the Common App that waives their right to read the letters. (Otherwise, the letters are, for all intents and purposes, absolutely useless. Too many helicopter parents mean that teachers will temper what they write if they know a kid/parent will read it. Adcoms know that. Any letter mailed from a kid loses credibility.)
Anyway, we submit a hard copy in the spring, and upload one to Naviance. Then, after the Common App opens in August, we upload a copy there and fill out the questions on each kid for whom we’ve written a letter.
When the transcript requests go in to College Placement, they send the whole packet-- transcripts, letters, all the other pieces of the puzzle. They all go in together so the school has everything they need in one packet-- nothing gets lost along the way.
In my school, deadlines for College Placement are at least 3 weeks before the school deadline. That way, the issue you mention simply doesn’t come up.
Even if the student applies to Cornell at the last minute (December 31), The school has until mid-february to send the secondary report. The deadline is the date that the student must insure that their part of the application is submitted. It is not the same due date for the high school.
While students have a better chance of getting their recommendation letters written if they ask earlier and yes, some teachers do write letters over the summer, teachers and counselors are under no obligation to write letters over the summer when they are not working or have them done by labor day.
That depends on the school. I described the professional obligations at my school.