<p>Hey guys, I'm applying Early Decision to a college with the Common Application and it totally snuck up on me; I was paying way too much attention to my studies to realize that it's due very soon. Now that I've started doing it I realize that I have quite a few questions and, frankly, my counselor isn't good enough for me to rely on him.
1). Is it better to do the application online or should I print it out? If it's better to do online (as I would assume), do I just fill out everything on the common app website under the My Colleges section or do I fill out the form somehow and email it to the ad com of the college?
2). I talked to some teachers and a non-teacher mentor early on in the year about writing me a recommendation but (as I mentioned before) the whole process completely slipped my mind. How do teachers fill in their recommendations? This question is more for if I fill it out online. Do I have to complete the application, give them a digital copy and then let them fill out their rec on the same form? If you could give me a brief description of this whole process that would be very helpful.
3). How does a non-teacher recommendation work? I haven't seen any paperwork for this on the common app website. I participated in a mentor program with a particle physicist (Ph.D) and I really want to use his rec because it would look more impressive than the standard teacher recs and he could write a very personal letter. I was told by the ad com of the college to which I'm applying that they allow (and enjoy receiving) non-teacher recs but I'm not sure how this works with the common app...</p>
<p>I'm sure I'll have some more questions later but this is a start. I appreciate any help offered because I feel like an idiot at the moment... Thanks.</p>
<p>It’s generally easier to do it online. To do this, you add the colleges that you are applying to, then you fill out the common app once and the supplement and future plans for each school. You do not email it, you submit it through the common app website.</p>
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<p>For recs, you go to the School Forms section and add the names and email addresses of the counselor and teachers. They will get an email and will have the choice to fill out and submit the rec online or print out the forms, handwrite them, and mail them to the colleges. If they choose to submit online, you should give them a copy of the necessary forms and addressed envelopes with stamps.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure about supplementary recommendations, you can contact the school directly and ask how they do it.</p>
<p>Think carefully about how much time your teachers need to do a thoughtful recd. If your deadline is coming up quickly, think twice about asking them, as you will be “stuck” with those quickie recommendations for all future common app colleges. If they don’t have a solid amount of time to do the work, you might want to bump over to regular decision.</p>
<p>At my DD’s school, they require 4 - 6 weeks to do it, and they make the kids do a pretty detailed 8 page form. She was unprepared for the difficulty level of the request for recd form, but in retrospect it was great because the teachers/counselor had a lot of info to draw from in the recommendation besides her classroom participation. Some of the paragraphs she wrote for the common app were actually expansions of things they asked for on the recommendation form, which was a nice bonus…</p>
<p>If the recommendations are rushed (which would not be good), you can ask others to fill out a CommonApp Recommendation and then assign the different recommenders to different schools (you won’t be “stuck” with those for RD, though it’s still not a great idea for your ED school)</p>