<p>Personally, I can see the disappointment. May I make suggestions for when those tardy(I don’t feel tardy) recommendations are finally ready?
Have student personally see to their mailing and personally see that they are received by the right staffer at the college. Use that personal contact as a follow-up to show that student cares, is involved, and to once again express students’ hope to be there, qualifications, etc. This may not be the student’s error, but it can become a students advantage.</p>
<p>My S had some dual-credt B’s that one college overlooked. They saw a slightly better than average student -but no more- because they didn’t realize he got B’s in a college class while a 9th and 10th grader in high school. The opportunity to bring this clearer to their attention gave son an opportunity to put his best foot forward, without seeming a pest.</p>
<p>Thanks, OP, for starting this thread; I needed the reassurance too after discovering that one of my son’s recs hadn’t been sent. S had helped the teacher go on-line to do the rec and thought everything was ok. Two days ago I checked his common ap online and saw that the teacher had opted to do it off-line. I had a whole day of that sinking stomach feeling before S came home from school and said that the teacher had accidently clicked the wrong button. S spent lunch hour addressing envelopes to his 6 colleges so they went out 6 days late. Is it possible to do them on the common app once everything else has been submitted? I thought that recs could be done later but they mailed them anyway.</p>
<p>I just wanted to give you one more reason to relax. My son got his application in before the deadline, but his idiot school counselor couldn’t figure out how to do it on the common application. The first word we got about it was from admissions saying they were waiting on the recommendation. It took my son bringing in a paper form for her to fill out and my wife threatening to go higher up the food chain before it got done. We ended up faxing and mailing it to the school.</p>
<p>My son was accepted and is attending, so it turned out well. I don’t think they hold it against you if it is out of your control.</p>
<p>AN: I don’t think all the FA is allocated early. That wasn’t our experience. Kids waited until the last possible minute to apply waiting ED deferrals and we got a lot of FA in the RD round.</p>
<p>Situation maybe different in rolling admissions situations.</p>
<p>Perhaps the teachers or the school administration don’t realize the urgency. We found cups of hot chai and crisp bisquotti frequently applied made many more attendant to our issues.</p>
<p>Just to set the record straight – my D went in first thing to the Guidance Office, and they assured her that her transcripts and reco. letters were sent out in Dec.</p>
<p>Her GC apologized to my D and said that she (the GC) should have warned my D that she might get letters, because her records might be in “Box #232” and they haven’t gotten to it yet.</p>
<p>So I have to give the HS the benefit of the doubt for now. We’ll see…</p>
<p>Thanks for the good words, LMNOP. I keep thinking how lucky future parents are who will learn from our experiences and advice.</p>
<p>This is one point of the college process that is so frustrating. My DS’s school has a strict deadline of the teachers needing 3 weeks to write the letters. My DS gave his teachers everything the first of October in the form requested by the school. Today we found out a couple of teachers forgot to do it and others took over a month to do them. Since the school has a rule that the student cannot nag the teachers, it is so frustrating to be at this stage which my DS was trying to avoid. I like the suggestion about the postcard and will use it in the future. The colleges have told my DS to just try to get them as soon as possible. </p>
<p>Good luck to all and won’t we be so happy when this is all over.</p>
<p>did the postcard thing 6 years ago and this time, only about half are mailed back. even sent some applications by us postal service tracking and they got it but the postal service twice never scanned it from washington dc</p>