No teacher evaluations required. So do not send 100%?

Applying to College
1

On the Common App, all of the colleges my son is applying to do not require teacher recommendations/evaluations. First are teacher evaluations the same as a recommendation (that’s what his high school calls them). And do we absolutely not send them? Is that a “Do not send teacher evaluations” or is it a, “You don’t need to but please feel free!”

My son is a student who will benefit from all “extras” such as good teacher recommendations. Any ideas? All but one of the schools does ask for the Counselor Evaluation/recommendation.

Thanks for any insight.

2

Yes.

This totally depends on the college in question, and they will be very upfront with you if you ask them.

3

Most colleges have no mechanism whatsoever to read & process rec letters. They simply don’t use them whatsoever in order to make their admit/deny decisions.

4

Do not require but if they accept LoRs and you expect good ones, it would not hurt to send in 1. For schools that do not want any (e.g. UIUC, not on CommonApp though), they would just ignore it even you send any to them. If they absolutely don’t want any, you should have no option to assign recommender.

5

I really appreciate the responses. Thanks to all.

6

The common app will tell you if they are allowed if not required. If they are allowed and your kid has good ones, why not send them?

7

The common app isn’t the best at this. For instance, for many schools, the common app will allow a student to send four LoRs – when the college’s website clearly says ONLY TWO or else!

Don’t rely on what the CA allows you to do – check each college’s preferences.

8

^ That did not happen to the 5 schools my D applied on CommonApp though. Perhaps for some schools that changed their requirement recently.

9

Double check college web sites, sure. But I also found them consistent with the CA last year.