My Junior son recently met with his GC, and she said he should have at least 3 letters of recommendation from his teachers, including one from her.
He’s been a very serious violinist for the past 12 years with many competitions and other musical involvements and networks. There are at least 2-3 significant persons who would be glad to write him letters of recommendation.
He also has one college student friend who currently attends one of the HYPS schools. That’s another person who could write him a good letter of recommendation to the school she’s attending.
The total number of letters of recommendation, as it stands now is: 6-7.
My question is: is that too many? What constitutes too many or just about right? If that’s too many, i.e., 6-7, then what’s your recommendation as to where I should cut the number down? From school, music, current college student?
If, and this is a big if, the school even accepts additional recs, X+1 (where X is the requirement) is adequate, IMO. Otherwise, you know what they say - the thicker the file, the thicker the kid.
Which will all say a version of the same thing. The idea of a supplemental rec is to add a different perspective - one that the academic teachers may not have seen. Multiple recs just restating is quite simply wasting the AO’s time. While your kid will spend hours upon hours crafting the perfect application, AO’s will spend 12-15 minutes at most reading it. More stuff to read does not equal more time spent on the application; it means the rest of the application will get shorted.
Unless it’s Dartmouth, which requires a peer rec, this is such a bad idea. A 19 y/o kid does is not even know how much he does not know.
(all who either taught the kid junior year or both sophomore and senior years).
If the kid is a superstar in one area, he can get an additional rec. from his mentor in that area (usually not a regular academic teacher).
This means the GC rec, and then 2-3 (max) others.
“He also has one college student friend who currently attends one of the HYPS schools. That’s another person who could write him a good letter of recommendation to the school she’s attending.”
This is a bad idea:
Peer recs are laughed at virtually everywhere except (interestingly) Dartmouth.
Just because the recommender went to the school doesn't mean they'll like the rec. In fact, they'll most likely roll their eyes and move on. It won't help, and it sounds like "oh I have a friend who goes here - let me in!" Won't cut it for HYPS.
“There are at least 2-3 significant persons who would be glad to write him letters of recommendation.”
Uh no. It’s very silly to get multiple recs with the same perspective, it just dilutes the app.
As skieurope put it - “the thicker the file, the thicker the kid.”
I completely agree with the above comments. Students should have one letter from their guidance counselor, one letter from a STEM teacher, and one from a humanities teacher. As your son is an accomplished violinist, I think it would be acceptable to have a letter from one (and only one) person who can attest to his skills as a violinist. That puts you at four letters.
Under no circumstances should he have his friend at HYPS write him a letter. There is no way that a letter from a 19 year old kid who hasn’t even graduated from college yet would hold any weight with the admissions officers.
Ideally, 2 and 3 are from 1 humanities/soc. sci and 1 STEM teacher.
Don’t add a supplemental rec unless (A) you are CERTAIN it will add something IMPORTANT that the others won’t *and/i you are CERTAIN the schools your applying to aren’t averse to supplemental recs (some are, a la Stanford).
(IMHO) a fourth rec is OK if only A is true. I had a really important rec for my profile, submitted it (contrary to CC wisdom) to schools that are averse to extra materials but will accept them - like Stanford - and all was well. I think it helped my app.
SSR= secondary school report. It contains general demographic info about the school & community, a list of what the top courses and/or what are the top GPAs of the topmost students (i.e. is there grade inflation/deflation) and finally a spot for a narrative from the GC
(SSR is the GC’s “recommendation letter,” although it’s not always in the form of a letter–that depends on the school’s policy and the GC’s preferences.)
There is no such thing as “too many” recommendation letters, per se, but many colleges do have a limit to how many letters you can send, so there would be no point to having more than 4-5 letters. Also, the quantity versus quality question must be asked when having so many letters.
@Fossie I completely disagree. “too many” is the tipping point where eyes start rolling and the applicant is deemed annoying/insufferable/naïve. That DEFINITELY exists.
Another agreement with @T26E4 I’ve heard admissions officers complaining about getting a pile of letters that all say the same thing. They are not looking for more to read that doesn’t add to the application. And along those lines, if you do add in an extra recommendation (other than guidance counselor, humanities teacher & stem teacher) be sure that person (be it a coach, music teacher, boss etc.) has something to say about you that will be different from the academic recommendations. And don’t ask a college student to write a recommendation.
I will say that the advice given by everyone above is definitely spot on. However, sometimes exceptions happen (not saying that what I did should be followed, just that it worked out for me). I was accepted to Harvard, and had 5 letters of recommendation. One was from guidance counselor, one from junior English/Yearbook teacher, one from AP Art History/AP US Gov/AP Macroecon/AP Comp Gov/AP Human Geo/Academic Decathlon teacher (yes, I did have him for all of these classes), one was from a director of one of the extracurriculars I did, and one was from a UPenn professor.
Once again, I don’t mean to contradict the quality advice given above, but just wanted to share that you can get away with it. However, like others have said, I’d stick with 3, maybe 4 letters at most.
Also, it might be preferred to have a rec from 1 humanities/social science teacher and 1 STEM teacher, but just IMO, it’s best if you pick the teachers that know you best and can attest well to your performance and character rather than forcing the mold of 1 humanities teacher and 1 STEM teacher if it works out better that way for you.
Make sure that any music rec adds something. His competition results and awards will be in his app. It will be tedious to send a letter that just recites what is elsewhere. Make sure they focus on character, work ethic, etc rather than just talent and accomplishments. unless he’s applying to music schools specifically.
Also, I think there is an element of “can you read, can you follow directions?” in the process. While there are always exceptions, I think a lot of AOs are thinking – “we said two, maybe very rarely three if there’s something really important outside school – when you send us 5-6 and they mostly repeat each other or what’s in the app, we think that you can’t follow directions or you believe that you’re such a special snowflake that the rules don’t apply to you.” Fortunately for some kids, AOs don’t reject everyone who is annoying.