I’m applying and trying to get everything in by the October 15th Early Action date for engineering.
My high school is on fall break so I will have trouble getting in contact with my teachers for LORs.
I have word documents of what they wrote for common app and a signed PDF from my employer, but what do I do? Do I turn in unsigned LORs to Texas A&M through their AIS?
Also, to qualify for Early Action, what is required? Do all the documents need to be sent in or do they have to be received and uploaded to my application by A&M?
It would appear that having recommendation letters and resume have little impact on receiving admissions decision. Your qualifications will be the deciding factor.
Copied from the engineering admissions webpage
OPTIONAL
Optional documents traditionally have very little impact on the admission decision.
Letters of Recommendation
Once submitted, letters of recommendation are not viewable by the applicant. No more than two letters will be considered.
PREFERRED > upload through AIS
OTHER METHOD: mail
Resumes
Resumes are not to be used in place of a complete application. All space on the application must be utilized prior to supplementing with a resume.
PREFERRED > - upload through AIS
OTHER METHOD: mail
My daughter is also trying to meet the Oct 15 deadline, but she wasn’t planning on submitting any LOR given their optional status and minor impact on admission decision.
Do you know if they can be uploaded later, assuming they are used to help with scholarship decisions?
She has everything else done and plans to submit tonight, but is also concerned about whether her transcripts (sent weeks ago) and SAT scores (rushed last week) will make it on time.
For early action, all of the documents need to be received by A&M before the 11:59. To the best of my understanding, if your application is not complete by the early action deadline, then you fall into the regular decision category with the deadline of Dec 1 and notification mid January.
Sometimes things take a while to show up in AIS. You could call admissions on Friday to see if the scores and transcript have been received, just AIS hasn’t updated. You can actually upload the transcript through AIS if they don’t have it.
It is my understanding that LOR can be used in admissions, honors consideration, and scholarships. This is the first year with an early deadline - normally you can add any info up to the deadline for applications even if you are already accepted. LOR are normally out of the applicants control - so you could have them written & submitted after the Oct 15 deadline, just be sure they arrive before Dec 1. Both of mine submitted LORs, one was geared to express interest not really highlighted in application and the other tailored to Business Honors program (which required a rec). It use to be only one rec allowed, now it is two. To me, that increase says - yes, we do look at them & find them of importance.
I will pass on advice we received from our HS guidance: always give the writer: a resume, a profile sheet ( we had a questionaire provided by our HS that gave personal info via Q/A), and specific area you would like addressed in the LOR ( leadership qualities, interest in school/program, problem solving ability, shortcomings overcome, etc.).
Let’s face it, anything deemed optional on a college application is code for : do it if you’re really interested.
@Thelma2 Thanks for your great responses, it really helped and we followed your suggestion to call them.
Given we don’t have access to AIS yet (and won’t for another few days, as it takes several days to get it enabled after you apply), we called to see if they had everything. They didn’t!
Ironically, the one thing we did the earliest, sending the transcript, was the one thing they didn’t have. Although we made the request and paid the fee to send the transcripts at our High School on September 28, they had’t sent it yet! I’m still not sure why (my wife is looking into it and the high school will be changing their process as a result of their mistake here).
Bottom line is the high school owned up to their mistake and is over-nighting the transcript. The bad news is it won’t get there in time. So, it looks like we will be one of the first regular decision applicants as the transcript won’t be there by the deadline.
We are very disappointed in our high school, but the lesson here is to not wait until you have everything done to apply. Apply with the bare minimum stuff as early as possible so you get access to AIS so you can monitor things better.
Too late of a lesson for us, but hopefully somebody else can benefit from it.
If everything else is in the file, they MIGHT give a little allowance on the transcript date since you have called looking for it. OOS have to mail the transcripts ,while instate can just upload it from their HS. Sometimes the mailed transcripts don’t make it and have to be requested again - even when your HS has sent them. If they are scheduled to be there by Monday - you can call again to double check they made it to the file. On the plus side, the differences between the two dates are NOT as drastic as once proposed ( the first draft of the Engineering application change stated only the first wave would be considered for College Station campus - that was changed- now it is just a later response date and all campus options are available until the Dec 1 cutoff). Based on your posts, I assume your D is an academic admit. The first step is acceptance to the university (in the past this has been done without a transcript on file from another OOS student due to lost transcript, just used the statement on the application of rank),so don’t give up hope yet!