<p>I really think I will be certifiably insane before this is over. I am trying to put together the materials for son to give to the two teachers and the guidance counselor so they can send their forms (the rec letters and other school forms). Son is applying to eight schools, so that's three packets each with eight copies of the form, plus an addressed, stamped envelope. So what I am obsessing about is what to put all those papers and envelopes in. My goal is to make the process as easy as possible for the teachers/counselor.</p>
<p>So far my two competing alternatives are: 1. A binder with eight page protectors--one for each college, and 2. eight file folders inside some some sort of large clasp envelope. Anyone want to comment? How have you given forms to teachers? (Oh, and online is not an option.)</p>
<p>My other nit-picky issues are: what size envelopes, and should the forms be stapled or paper clipped?</p>
<p>For GC Secondary School forms, paper clip each college’s forms together with its own 9x12 clasp envelope. Be sure to address each envelope with the Admissions Office’s address and put enough postage on it (we put 3 stamps–GC will often put in extra papers like transcripts and school description booklets, if they have them). Leave the return address blank (or put in the school address). Don’t use your own address. Put all GC forms into a file folder.</p>
<p>For teachers’ evaluations, paper clip each college’s forms together with its own envelope. Some schools don’t want you to fold the papers, so require you to use a 9x12 clasp envelope. Otherwise, you can use a business envelope. Be sure to address each envelope with the Admissions Office’s address and put enough postage on it . Leave the return address blank (or put in the school address). Don’t use your own address. Put all teacher forms into a file folder, one for each teacher.</p>
<p>Here’s what we did for my son’s 3 Common App applications:</p>
<p>For GC </p>
<p>3 9x12 strip & seal envelopes, each addressed to the Admissions office of a college with the high school’s return address. Each contained (inside) a self-addressed, stamped postcard to my son with the college name on the back. Each had $1.17 in postage. One binder clip holding the 3 envelopes together along with a single copy of the following:</p>
<p>the school’s Secondary School Report + the common app version of the Secondary School Report, both filled out (top portion) and signed by son. </p>
<p>Son’s resume, game plan and senior self-report from Naviance</p>
<p>Son’s “My colleges” page printed from Naviance</p>
<p>Son’s draft essay</p>
<p>Parent brag sheet</p>
<p>All of this went into a very large manilla envelope provided by the GC.</p>
<p>For Teachers</p>
<p>A packet similar to the GC’s, but with the Common App teacher evaluation form rather than the Secondary School Reports. Three envelopes, one copy of the evaluation form; the teacher fills it out once and makes 3 copies. Each packet (one for each teacher) was held together by a single large binder clip.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. I have a fear that some seemingly small thing (the wrong size envelope, stapling or not stapling, etc.) will totally mess up this whole process.</p>
<p>Elle: No folding?! Where would one find this information? All of son’s colleges use the Common App and so far I have not seen anything about no folding. Should I perhaps use 9x12 envelopes for everything just to be on the safe side?</p>
<p>V: Did the teachers tell you to give them just one copy? Son attends a public school that seems never to have enough school supplies so I am hesitant to not give the teachers enough copies. I had not thought about including a postcard but it would be great to know when the colleges receive the letters. Did you give the teachers the postcards too or just the counselor?</p>
<p>I planned to provide only the original Teacher Evaluation Form as I assume they would only want to fill in teacher portion once before copying and mailing. I also plan to provide the stamps seperate from the pre-addressed envelopes in case they decide to fill out the online form instead. Several colleges sound like they have a strong preference to receive all application materials electronically.</p>
<p>The teachers at my son’s school don’t do electronic submissions (don’t get me started ) but we figured they’d only want to fill the teacher evaluation form out once and make copies, rather than putting the same information on 3 identical forms. Less writing that way. You might ask your GC (or the teachers) how they want the forms.</p>
<p>S put postcards in every envelope, including the teacher evaluations. He didn’t note which teacher it was from, just put the college name/teacher rec.</p>
<p>I think it was the GC who recommended the 9x12 envelopes - I can’t remember, as I’ve gathered information from so many places. It might have been here on CC that I first read it. I know for sure it was on CC that I got the idea about including self-addressed postcards.</p>
<p>My kid did a pocket folder for each teacher with rec form and envelope for each school clipped together and a cover letter with list of schools. Some schools didn’t have actual rec form; she then made a cover sheet with her identification. </p>
<p>Most of her schools indicated online that they had received the materials, so I don’t think the postcard is necessary.</p>
<p>The ones who are particularly picky will tell you up front that they want 9x12 clasp envelopes (Stanford comes to mind) for all admissions paperwork sent. Stanford also requires you to file the common app electronically unless you get specific permission from the Admissions Office to send paper copies of the application. I can only assume that this is so that the Admission office can scan/copy the information quickly without messing with the folds.</p>
<p>I know you’re trying to help your busy offspring, but IMO, the best thing that you can do to help your offspring is to guide your kid as they gather the materials for their teacher.</p>
<p>This also will allow your kid to get the knowledge that will be useful as your kid applies for grad school and employment.</p>
<p>Incidentally, whatever your kid gives teachers/counselors is likely to put them way ahead of the game since most college bound students give teachers/counselors nothing except their applications.</p>
<p>My perspective comes from having helped my older S in the same way you’re helping your kid. Older S, a very bright guy, merrily went off to the college of his choice, had a great time doing everything but classwork, and dropped out after freshman year with the worst average I’ve ever seen. His average was below 1.0.</p>
<p>Younger S, another bright guy, said he was applying to college as a senior, but somehow didn’t get around to it. However, after his college deadlines passed, on his own, he quickly found an Americorps volunteer job. During his Americorps year, he applied for and paid for his college apps, and now is a soph at the college of his choice – high grades, excellent ECs there, good friends, and he has great appreciation for the experience.</p>
<p>No matter how busy students are, I think it’s realistic for them to be expected to do the bulk of their college app work including things like organizing materials for teachers and counselors. Students think they’re busy now? Wait until they are adults and have to juggle family obligations with job obligations.</p>
<p>I had my son do his ‘resume’ w/info the teacher/GC didn’t see (e.g. out-of-school extra-curriculars & volunteer stuff, reiteration of son’s academic turn-around, etc.) in the form of a respectful -letter- to the teacher/GC. It started w/a thank you to the teacher/GC for taking the time to help, etc., summarized his academic trajectory (big improvement jr year) then did a bullet-point list of his ECs. He mentioned how interested he is in his planned college major. It closed with another, appreciative paragraph, thanking the teacher/GC for their help.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, I think you’re absolutely right…they are going to have to learn to make their own mistakes and the worst thing that can happen if they mess up all their applications is that they have to find something else to do, which turned out to be a great experience for your son.</p>
<p>Must run to office supply store to get more color coded folders and paper clips! And call admissions office to make sure the supplement was recieved!</p>
<p>We had all common app schools. One teacher requested the following, so we provided it for all teachers:</p>
<pre><code> The reference form for each school with Teacher’s information FILLED IN
A copy of the student's unofficial transcript
A letter to the teacher, talking about the class(es) they'd had and what they'd learned, and anything they were particularly proud of, etc.
Student's "brag sheet"
A list of schools, in order of due date, to which materials should be sent
</code></pre>
<p>GC asked for a copy of ONE application, completed, mainly I think to read essay(s)</p>
<p>We used white 9 x 12 envelopes; stamped; addressed (HS’s return address)</p>
<p>We gave each teacher a manila file folder with the materials inside.</p>
<p>As a professor who does a lot of recs (for grad school), I always admire organization and neatness when someone brings me their materials. But the most important thing is simply to make it transparent what is wanted and when it is wanted. (These days we do most things on line, which we love; but our HS still is tied to mostly paper.)</p>
<p>My D is applying to 10 colleges so back in May she gave her teachers 10 addressed and stamped envelopes for the recommendations along with printing off 10 copies of all the forms. Most of those envelopes, papers and stamps ended up being thrown away. A few weeks ago we figured out that the school returns every document in a sealed envelope to my D and then she is supposed to put all the documents together into one big envelope and mail it. So the stamps on the individual envelopes were wasted. One teacher used the envelopes my D provided but everything else is in sealed school envelope. So even the envelopes were wasted. </p>
<p>Regarding the Stanford applications, the teachers and counselor ignored the larger envelopes my D provided and put the Stanford documents in sealed business size school envelopes like all the other documents. Do you think my D should take those back to the counseling office and have someone who works there witness her opening the envelopes and putting the documents into the special Stanford envelopes? The counselor was very particular about having everything in sealed envelopes with a stamp across the back. Fortunately my D is applying to Stanford RD so has a little time to figure this out.</p>
<p>I wanted to add to the above that one problem we had was that the teachers didn’t follow the procedures set up by the guidance counselor. When I attended the mandatory parent-student-counselor conference a few weeks ago, the counselor went off on a tirade about how the math teacher refuses to follow the proper procedures for packaging his recommendations. I thought my D handled it well in that she just patiently kept going back and forth between each teacher and the counselor to work out the details. My D and I had a laugh in private about the “rebellious” math teacher since in my parent-teacher conferences with him his complaint about my D was always that she didn’t follow directions closely enough.</p>
<p>dsultemeier–we never had to worry about that problem because our counseling office doesn’t give anything back to the student, but mails everything off themselves. The upside for you is that you know for sure that recs, etc. are mailed off.</p>
<p>Huh??? I’ve read all these posts, and all I can think is that I live on a different planet.</p>
<p>My kids hit “send” and common app (and any attached supplements) were sent to the college via the internet.</p>
<p>My kids told their GC “I’m applying to _______ [fill in all colleges] and they have these dues dates…” GC then compiled GC rec, all teacher recs (which were submitted to the GC by each teacher), school report, transcript, etc. GC sent package to each school indicated by student.</p>
<p>What’s up with the all the folding, envelopes, and binders?</p>
<p>Your GC sounds like Wonder Woman (or Man)! :)</p>
<p>The student part of the Common App is relatively easy; it’s the GC and Teacher part that has so much variation depending on how willing the GC is to manage the rest of the paperwork. And it also depends on how willing the GC and teachers are to use online forms vs needing everything printed out. For example, it was the GC who asked my son to print all of the Naviance pages out and hand them in with his Secondary School Form. Why can’t she and the teachers log in to the Common App & Naviance websites and pull down everything they need? As I said, don’t get me started ;)</p>
<p>Seriously, I’m completely floored. In particular, about two things:</p>
<p>(1) If I’m a teacher, and a student comes to me and says “will you write me a recommendation?” I will either say “yes” because I know this student, I know this student’s work, and I can write a decent rec, or I will say “no” because I cannot recommend the student based on my experience with him or her. If I don’t know the student well enough, all the “brag sheets” and transcripts in the world aren’t going to change my recommendation. What kind of teacher needs a student resume to write a recommendation? What kind of recommendation would that be? Would any of YOU write a rec for somebody, based on the “brag sheet” they gave you when they asked you to write it???</p>
<p>(2) If a student came up to me and said “will you write me a rec?” and I agreed to do it, and then the student said “by the way, I’m applying to 16 schools, will you write the same thing 16 times for me?” I’d quickly say “find somebody else.” There’s this new invention out there…it’s called a xerox machine. It copies something over and over again so that you don’t have to write it over and over again. It’s truly amazing!!</p>
<p>I’ve written reccs for college students whom I’ve taught. I found it helpful when they supplied info about accomplishments in my classes and in the EC that I advised. That helped me include specific and relevant info. Having a general brag sheet wouldn’t have helped because the grad schools and employers were interested in info about things that I had personally been involved with the student.</p>
<p>As for students who needed lots of reccs, no problem as long as the student realized I’d send the same recc to each place. I wouldn’t write reccs individualized for each place the student was applying to.</p>
) but we figured they’d only want to fill the teacher evaluation form out once and make copies, rather than putting the same information on 3 identical forms. Less writing that way. You might ask your GC (or the teachers) how they want the forms.</p>