<p>In addition to being a great writer, my AP English teacher is a Stanford Alum. He wrote me a rec. letter for my Early Action application (I sent the letter in about a week before the deadline).</p>
<p>A couple days ago, my teacher got a letter in the mail from the Dean of Admissions at Stanford saying something to the effect of:</p>
<p>"Dear Mr. *******,</p>
<p>Thank you very much for taking time to write a letter of reccomendation to endorse (my name)'s application to Stanford University. Although (my name)'s application has not yet crossed my desk, I look forward to reviewing it. Best wishes..."</p>
<p>And then it was signed by hand. The real letter was longer, I just can't remember some of the extreneous stuff. I was about ready to shrug it off as some automated response that has no real meaning, but...</p>
<p>This teacher has been writing Recs for 25 years, to Stanford especailly, and he said he has never gotten a letter in response. Also, he wrote at least 7 other Stanford Rec. letters for other students at my school this year, and he only got this one letter mentioning my name.</p>
<p>So what's the deal? Is it nothing? I was a little surprised to see it signed by hand by the Dean of Admissions; I'm sure the dean can't possibly read every letter. So does the dean read the letters from only alumni, or maybe whoever first opens the letters forwards the ones they think the Dean might be interested in? I have a close friend who works at the university, and since he has some buddies who work in the admissions office, I shot him an email to see if he could ask one of them what the protocol was on things like that. What does everyone think? Anyone else's teacher get the same?</p>
<p>Maybe he wrote a really good rec. Who knows? Don't get your hopes up, though. Could just be a new policy to thank Stanford alums so they'll donate more money.</p>
<p>My friend told me about the changeover in the admissions office, but I had forgotten. So when I saw the letter, I glanced at the name, but didn't think to remember it b/c I assumed knowing that it was from the Dean of Admissions was enough. I'm gonna check on the name tomorrow. </p>
<p>On a slightly different note -- anyone know how they handle letters from outside sources? (i.e. -- an independent letter written after the application was submitted that's not one of the official Rec. letters?)</p>
<p>Thank you very much for taking time to write a letter of reccomendation to endorse (my name)'s application to Stanford University. Although (my name)'s application has not yet crossed my desk, I look forward to reviewing it. Best wishes..."</p>
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<p>I wouldn't read too deep into it. Probably some work-study student entered the names of you and your teacher into a database and a program was used later to extract the info from the database and split automated but seemingly personal response. After all, Stanford is pretty "high-tech". Good luck!</p>