I am an RD applicant to top-tier colleges (Ivies and some others) and I was wondering whether I should send in an additional letter of recommendation written by a researcher who mentored me while I completed an internship at the NIH. I talked a lot about this internship in my application, and I feel like the letter could add some concrete proof of my work there (especially since the researcher seemed quite impressed about my skills). On the other hand, I’ve already sent 3 other recs (2 good ones, 1 probably excellent) besides the counselor rec, and I heard that admissions officers get annoyed when too many extra docs are sent. What should I do?
You don’t need to send the rec as proof. If they don’t trust that you did the research they’ll contact you asking to verify it. They trust that you were honest on your applications, so unless this extra rec will tell admissions something about you that isn’t already represented somehow in your application you shouldn’t. Colleges really don’t want to waste their time reading the same thing they already have with thousands of applications to attend to.
No. Do not send another rec. Most colleges, esp top tier ones, specify that one additional rec is allowed. This will annoy them.
I thought so. Thanks for your answers!