<p>At my school, teachers don't fill out the common app form . The school believes it gives an unfair advantage to kids who have new teachers. For example, a teacher who has been teaching for 20+ years will likely not put "bet student in my career" whereas a tracer with 2 yr experience could.</p>
<p>Since my school doesn't do teacher eval forms, do I just submit the recommendation on the common app?</p>
<p>Also, when you upload the recommendation online, can it be a PDF?</p>
<p>1.
If a school requires a recommendation, you must still invite the school official (teacher) within your Common Application (School Forms page). They can then ‘Opt Out’ of the online system and just write a recommendation. That must then be mailed to each of your schools.</p>
<p>2.
If your teachers will not complete the online Teacher Evaluation, you cannot just upload a recommendation. The entire process must be completed online or not at all. See #1.</p>
<p>The problem is, 2 of my current teachers are retiring. Therefore, they won’t be able to upload. That’s why I’m asking of I can do PDF.</p>
<p>Depending on the school, you could send a teacher rec whose name is not on the list of common app teachers assigned. This happened with my son when he applied to Syracuse which only had 2 slots for teacher recs in the common app but would allow more if mailed. He asked his counselor to snail mail the extra teacher’s rec. </p>
<p>At our HS the guidance counselors keep copies of all the teacher recs regardless of whether they are common ap ones or not so they can be mailed to non common ap schools.</p>
<p>Ask the retiring teacher to give your counselor a copy of the letter so he can mail them out for you as you come up with your final list of schools to appy to.</p>