<p>So in preparation for ED/EA applications this coming fall, I have already gone to my teachers and secured recommendations. However, I also want to include recommendations from people outside of school (specifically, my piano teacher BUT not for a music school/music program). I know most places ask for a counselor rec+2 teacher recs, but what about other recommendations that the applicant considers important? Is there a line that separates unnecessary recommendations and important ones? Do most schools (like UChicago) dislike receiving extra recommendations?</p>
<p>Most colleges and universities are happy to have an extra recommendation if it adds something important to the applicant’s file, but they don’t want five or six extra letters.</p>
<p>Last year, my daughter used paper and the U.S. Mail for her extra recommendations.</p>
<p>I don’t know what colleges would think of official recommendations from people outside of school, but it sounds like what you want are in-house recommendations- the people you want write a little about you informally and send that to your counselor, and the counselor uses those to write his/her recommendation with more rounded information.</p>
<p>@Sikorsky- that’s a relief, thanks. So would you recommend just electronically submitting my application and sending all of the recommendations together? Also, just wondering, but where did your daughter apply?</p>
<p>@smwhtslghtlydzed- well, I don’t really want my counselor to synthesize information gathered from several people who know me outside of school. There is more of an intention to show how someone has seen me change, etc. and not to say that I am good at x,y, and z. It would be a personal recommendation.</p>
<p>Numbergenerator, if I were you, I would submit my application electronically, but give a printed version of the recommendation form to my music teacher, along with an addressed, stamped envelope for every college or university I was applying to. The music teacher can complete the form, make copies, and send a copy to each of your colleges. The colleges will put those forms together with the rest of the stuff in your file. They do that all the time.</p>