<p>This school is a safety so I'm sure I'll get in regardless but if they say reccomendations are optional should I send it in or not? Does it matter since my stats are way above their average? It is a pretty large school of 20K so they probably get a lot of applicaitons. Since it isn't on common app I just want to know if I should add a reccomendor or would I be wasting my time?</p>
<p>No. They have no one whose duty it would be to read such a thing. Follow the rules. Your case isn’t special.</p>
<p>If you are sure that you will get in, and the recommendation does not affect scholarships or anything else, why bother?</p>
<p>Just add it. It wouldn’t hurt right? You never know,</p>
<p>I’ve heard a number of admissions officers say that “optional essays aren’t really optional”, so the same may be true for optional recommendations. I’m sure you have recommendations for other schools so why not send it along?</p>
<p>
The vast vast majorities of college applications are accepted without a single word of an LOR being read. Most colleges DON’T CARE. One of the premier engineering programs in the country (every year, top ten) , said they started reading essays ONLY because they adopted the common app. The admissions dean joked about it. They were perfectly content to not read ANYONE’s essay up until 2 years ago. She said “don’t sweat it”. They STILL don’t read rec letters.</p>
<p>The OP says this is to a school that generally intakes about 20K apps, has a high admit rate, and offers the essay as “optional”. This screams: “we admit everyone who meets a minimum academic achievement level. We’ll consider the marginal applicants and your LOR might make us take a risk with you.” </p>
<p>Since this is OP’s safety school and OP possesses the GPA/scores that are way above the avg of the admitted student, I wouldn’t spend the time to click a “submit” button to electronically send the LOR to the school. really.</p>
<p>Read the instructions. Many large, public universities (including the entire UC system, Rutgers, et al) explicitly advise students NOT to submit LOR. </p>
<p>I am frequently amazed that students and parents don’t FIRST evaluate questions such as this from the institutional viewpoint, rather than their own, and then be guided by that assessment. The university specifically discourages recommendation(s), it’s large, and it has a very high acceptance rate. As @T26E4 appropriately indicates, “it screams, ‘we admit everyone who meets a minimum academic achievement level’.”</p>
<p>Who will read recommendation(s), how will they be graded, how can they be compared to other applicants when no one is supposed to submit recs, will the admissions office’s software accommodate recommendations, and so forth? It seems obvious this university has decided that the resources (staff, information systems, appraisal standards, etc.) to include recs in their application process simply aren’t necessary or cost-effective. Obviously, that is their prerogative and applicants should comply with their policy without exception or complaint. </p>