Optional Letters of Rec

Applying to College
1

LaptopKid just decided to apply to a couple of places Early Action, and when he added them to Common App – which was, like, yesterday – it turned out they could also have used optional letters of rec (in addition to what he had arranged.) Boing, surprise!

Well, the deadline’s too late, really, to ask someone else at this point. I’m just wondering if NOT submitting optional letter of recs, but only the minimum, is seen as a negative. I assume the surprise optional essays are not really optional :slight_smile:

2

Optional letters are just that - optional. It won’t hurt LaptopKid at all not to have them. Ideally, any optional letter of rec should be addressing things that were not addressed by the other two recommenders which is why that 3d rec is generally not from a teacher at the HS, but rather from a coach, employer, mentor, etc…

3

Yep. They really are optional.