Looking at applying to U of M this fall. On their CommonApp, it says that 1 teacher rec is required, 4 are allowed, and that 0 “other” recs are required, 2 are allowed.
I already have my wrestling coach who coached me for 6 years as one of my others, and my band teacher who has also taught me for 6 years as an “other” because she isn’t an academic teacher. I believe these are both important recommendations to have.
I also have the required counselor recommendation, but I want to add 2 teacher recs instead of the one required, my Gov’t/Economics teacher/football coach and my Biology/APES teacher. This would put me at 5 recs including counselor. Is this too many??
If the LORs may cover different aspects of you and is within the allowed limit, then you are good. The adcom is not interested in reading the same letter with a different signature.
So you think I should have a recommendation from one teacher of one class and one from my counselor? No others even from the people who have been in my life for 6 years instead of teaching me one year?
Correct. UM wants only one teacher rec. They want to evaluate your academic potential. UM gets tens of thousands of apps. If everybody sent an extra “just in case”… well you can imagine how they would view that.
Teachers trump other recs in all but a few cases. Colleges are primarily interested in how you can perform inside the classroom and the rest is supplementary. It’s like if you were applying to a position of an organization, let’s say a literary editor. You wouldn’t send them a billion recommendations from soccer teams you have coached or been on, would you? No you would only list the most relevant information. The rest is all extra
My D did submit 4 teachers’ LORs to UMich a couple years ago though including one chemistry, one math, one language, and one former teacher who was also the NHS advisor. The key thing is to let the adcom know more aspects about you in as little supplemental material as possible. There is no point in sending an extra letter saying the same thing. It would not help but may potentially annoy the adcom.
I am perfectly following instructions since you are allowed to have 7 recommendations including the counselor. Are you sure that it wouldn’t be good to have recommendations from people in different aspects of my life who can talk about how I have been successful at leading and excelling in completely different activities? I think it would be worse or more suspicious for them to see that I was in band for 6 years and I won’t put my teacher down for a recommendation.
U run the risk of annoying the adcomm who already has to read hundreds & hundreds of applications.
Unless each additional rec has something of tremendous achievement to report (e.g., cured cancer, solved world hunger, halted climate change), then I advise against submitting more recs than specified.