<p>Okay, so how does this whole inviting recommenders work? When should I send them the invite so that they can put in their recommendation? How does this all work?</p>
<p>You need to get started now. Many teachers already have quite a lot of recommendations on their plate and some deadlines are quite soon.</p>
<p>Assuming your school does not use Naviance, you start by creating an applicant account on the common app website. Add your colleges to it. Look on your dashboard in the recommendations section for each school to see what recommendations are required or permitted. Then talk to your teachers and ask them to provide a recommendation. Once a teacher agrees, enter his or her name and email address at the appropriate spot in the application on the common app website. When you do that and hit “invite” the teacher will receive an email from the common app explaining how to provide a recommendation for you. Each teacher provides one single recommendation and that same one is used for every school to which you assign the teacher. </p>
<p>Separately, once you invite teachers you will have the ability to assign them on a school by school basis. Your common app account will allow you to see whether the recommendations have been uploaded, but you will not be able to see the actual recommendations.</p>
<p>@niceday, I’m applying to transfer and was wondering if I could assign the teachers to a school after they’ve uploaded their recommendation. Or do I have to assign them to a school before they upload? And is there a maximum number of recommenders one can invite (not necessarily assigning them all)?</p>
<p>You can assign recommenders after they upload their recs. It is fine, from a common app perspective, to invite more recommenders than you plan to assign, but that’s certainly not polite. Preparing a good rec takes considerable time and thought. Don’t ask for a rec you aren’t going to use. I have not heard of anyone bumping up against a limit on the number of recommenders that can be invited through common app.</p>
<p>I have to do mine offline because my teachers are having a lot of issues submitting their recommendations, not sure if my college uses Naiviance. Regardless what does the red triangle with an exclamation mark mean?</p>