<p>I'm a rising Senior and I had a few questions about the LOR process:</p>
<p>Do I have to know which colleges I am applying to? Or can I just have generic letters written, and then send them to colleges and scholarships as needed?</p>
<p>Can commonapp recs be used universally (for colleges that don't take the commonapp)? Or do I have to get multiple recs filled out by teachers?</p>
<p>One of my teachers from last year retired. Assuming I can reach them (via email), is it in poor taste to ask for a rec from them?</p>
<p>1) No. Most write generic ones that you can send to colleges and scholarship applications anyway. The only exceptin is if you are mailing them by hand, in which case you should give the addresses of the schools you are applying to.</p>
<p>2) No, you can’t use common app if the school doesn’t take commonapp.You can most likely use the same letter, it will just require you to ask the recommender to forward the letter to whatever other application method they use, whether it be online or mailing.</p>
<p>3) If you had a good relationship with the teacher, I think it should be fine. One of my teachers who was retiring offered to write my recommendation letter before she left. I was thrilled that she was willing to do so, but eventually declined because I had a few teachers that knew me better. You have to make sure you can reach them though, their school emails might stop working after they leave the school system</p>