Recommendation Confusion?

Apparently I am supposed to ask for recommendations right around now, the end of my junior year. But apparently recommendations do not roll over from year to year on the common app. How am I supposed to get my recs done if the common app won’t even take them until the beginning of Aug?? I might as well ask at the beginning of my senior year. My school is very small so I don’t believe teacher’s will be swamped with requests for recs whatsoever. Should I just wait until Aug?

At my kids school, you asked this time of year in junior year to get a commitment from the teacher. The teachers then could use the summer or next fall to write your recommendation. Many have a lot to write in addition to their full-time commitment to teaching (and family obligations!). Out of courtesy to them, you should ask now. DOn’t worry about when it actually gets entered into the common app online. That’s a really easy process to do once your in your senior fall. So, no, don’t wait. You want your teachers to not feel rushed or that you delayed in asking when they sit down to think of nice things to say about you.

You ask your teachers now so that they have time over the summer to write the recommendations.

In your other post you said you were a rising junior. Now you say you are at the end of your junior year (which would be a rising senior). What year are you in? If you are a rising senior now it the time to line up your teacher recommendations.

My kid was stupid enough to wait until September to ask his APUSH teacher and what happened? He said he already had too many commitments. Not only that, two of his other teachers unexpectedly left the school. He was left with his AP Chem teacher whom he didn’t like and his AP Calc teacher where he got a B.