<p>The process is to email a teacher and they type up a recommendation and send all electronically through the common app, and I assign them to schools. But my school has a form to where I can send my transcript and recommendations through my high school. Do I have to go through the common app, as in, is it the only official way colleges will recognize recommendations?</p>
<p>I’m interested in this as well, since my D’s teachers are not able to get recommendations entered into the Common App</p>
<p>SoofDad, did your D finish the Education part of the Common App and have her schools on her list actually released their questions with (possibly) their writing supplements?</p>
<p>If not, that’s probably why they are not able to get recommendations entered.</p>
<p>You don’t have to do everything electronically. You can do your part and then have the school deal with recommendations and transcripts. In my daughter’s case last year, the counselor gave her a sealed envelope with this material and she had to mail them. She did everything else online. </p>
<p>Mailing costs money of course, and there is always the danger of the envelopes getting lost (unlikely, but who knows) or admissions officers displacing parts of the material. This happened at one college, but they did contact my daughter about it. The counselor had to fax everything – lucky he had photocopies of the letters. </p>
<p>In any case, to answer your question, yes you can do stuff separately.</p>
<p>But I cannot send my common app application to anywhere without everybox being checked, and that includes recs</p>
<p>When you invite a recommender through the common app, he gets an email notifying him that you requested him to submit a rec for you. The email gives him the option to submit electronically or not. If he opts to not submit electronically, that option holds true for every student who invites him through the common app this entire application season, not just for you and your recommendations. Once you invite and assign all your recommenders through your common app account, your box will be checked and the rest is up to the recommenders you have invited. If they want to submit by mail, they certainly can. You won’t see the status of those recommendations through your common app account. But, many schools will give you a log on so you can track the bits of your application online. </p>
<p>The key here, I think is communication between you and your recommenders about their preferences. If they will be submitting by mail, it is customary to provide pre-addressed envelopes and stamps.</p>