Recommendation letter conundrum

Colleges and Universities A-Z Johns Hopkins University
1

<p>I have a potential problem with my recommendation letter. I want to post about it on the Hopkins Insider blog, and since I have a very unique name, any admissions officer who sees it might trace it to me. Here is what I plan to post as a comment: </p>

<p>"I asked the director of a special education school that I volunteer at to write me a recommendation letter. However, I think she only has records of around half of my hours. On my common application, I wrote the number of hours that I volunteered, which is unfortunately around twice as many as the number that I think she might have recorded. I do not know whether this is even an issue, since she might not have included the number of hours in her letter. If she did, though, it might appear as though I was fabricating some of my hours on the common app. I would have talked to her about the issue, but I only thought of the dilemma weeks after the letter had been sent. I am proud of my honesty; it is central to me. I do not want the illusion of a lie to stand between me and my dream school.
What should I do?
Thank you!"</p>

<p>Do you think this is a good idea to post? Would it cause more harm than good? Will an admissions officer even act on it if they see it at all?</p>

2

<p>I don’t think it would cause any harm to post that. If you’re worried about being “recognized” on the forum (out of the thousands of applications they receive) then use a pseudonym for your account info. Best of luck!</p>

3

<p>I would have first talked to the Director of Special Ed and told her of your dilemma. She may have not even recorded your numbers on the letter. If that is the case, then just forget about it. If she did post it in the letter, there is really nothing that you an do at this point. Even if you post that you were telling the truth, it just draws negative attention to your name. There are thousands of applications and a very long application with much detail. This is nothing serious. </p>

<p>I read from one admissions official (an Ivy League school) who admitted to not reading the entire application in detail. He said that he prefers to scan the essays if they are too lengthy due to time constraints. Someone like him is not going to take the time to match every single number on all applications and letters. There is not enough time in the day to do these mundane tasks.</p>