<p>I was wondering if anyone knows what the deal is with sending extra recommendations to school outside of the required 2 teachers and 1 counselor. I asked my counselor and he told me that unless the schools specifically requests it but I wasn't able to find any information for any of my schools. If anyone can shed some light on this I'd really appreciate it. Here's a list of my schools in case you guys already know whether I can send them in:</p>
<p>UC Berkeley
UC Irvine
UC Los Angeles
UC San Diego
Carnegie Mellon Univ
Cornell Univ
U of IL Urbana-Champaign
U of Michigan
Middlebury Coll
Northwestern Univ
Pomona Coll
Stanford Univ
Washington Univ in St Louis</p>
<p>UCs and UIUC do not want recommendation letters at all. Michigan wants one and only one. These attitudes are very typical of public universities which have a great desire not to receive things they haven’t ask for. As to others don’t know but reality is that unless that extra recommendation comes from a VIP it isn’t going to add anything to your file.</p>
<p>Yeah, the UCs won’t read the additional recs… and from what I know, the following colleges MAY read the additional rec, but it won’t play a HUGE role in your admission.<br>
Carnegie Mellon Univ
Cornell Univ
U of Michigan
Washington Univ in St Louis</p>
<p>I’ve heard that depending on your major, it MIGHT play a role for Northwestern… but that would mean you need to have --like drusba said-- a rec from a VIP or a rec from a professional in that major who you interned with.</p>
<p>I’ve heard (and some of this comes directly from admissions people), that you should not send more than two (I don’t think that includes the Guidance recommendation), unless you have one that is from outside of school and is extremely relevant to your intended area of study (like one from the boss at an internship you did).</p>
<p>I remember at NYU they said that if you send more than two, they will pick two at random and ignore any others.</p>
<p>What’s the policy for sending in recs? Can whoever’s writing it just email/snail mail it to admissions with my name or does it need some other kind of ID?</p>
<p>there’s no need at all to send in additional recs… schools just ignore the extra recs. if you’re worried about one teacher’s rec being better than another, the recs are just for making sure that you’re a virtuous person. that you can make a good impression. so as long as the teachers your ask have a good a impression of you, there is basically no difference and don’t send extras. unless one of them has connection with a school you’re applying to. then that’s something else.</p>
<p>Recs can be sent directly by person giving rec. Because they receive hundreds to over a thousand emails a day it can be better to have it mailed so it will not be overlooked unless they have a specific form for recs that are to be sent electronically. Letter needs enough info to identify the particular applicant. If applicant’s name is something like “Robert A. Acoloposine” don’t need more than the name. If name is “John Smith” it better include a high school, home address or something to assure it doesn’t go into someone else’s file.</p>
<p>thanks for the replies guys. what i’m wondering at this point is whether or not sending that extra rec would HURT my chances… assuming that the school hasn’t specifically requested it.</p>