Recommender mistake!?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

I submitted my transfer app but just ran into a problem.

Apparently, I made it too clear to one of my recommenders that Penn was my first choice. I ran into one of them today, and she informed me that she wrote that I was only applying to Penn. It was the only school I talked about with her since I asked her a while back and hadn’t made decisions about other schools to apply to, so I understand why she put it, but I ultimately decided to apply to more schools. I haven’t submitted the apps for the other schools yet, so it’s not a problem for those schools. I’ll figure that out.

I’m concerned about my Penn app though. Won’t it make my transfer app look less legitimate if they think I’m only applying to Penn? It seems to me that my application will not be nearly as strong if they know that. Or will they not care, and I’m just overanalyzing it? If I’m right about it being a matter of concern, should I somehow let Penn know that my recommender is not correct, or would that make the situation worse? I think I wrote I wrote a convincing essay about the academic need of transfrerring, but that seems undermined if they think I’m only applying to a single school.

Any advice or comments are appreciated.

2

It’s probably fine for Penn. It’s those other schools I would worry about!

Although, don’t recommenders usually sign an agreement (on the Common app, anyways) that they shouldn’t refer to specific schools in their letters of recommendation? I believe this was put in place for the same reasons you mentioned, plus so it puts everyone on the same playing field since one recommender can’t overemphasize a certain school and spend a lot of time writing tons of different letters emphasizing every school you apply to, thereby giving that applicant an unfair advantage over others with recommenders who don’t have time to do that.

3

It should not negatively affect your chance to Penn.

4

Thanks for your comments! I guess when they see the logical inconsistency in the app – a recommender saying that I’m only applying to Penn, and then me saying that Penn is my first choice (which doesn’t perfect sense to say if you’re only applying to one school, it would be my only choice in that case!) – they’ll realize that I maybe added schools later.