<p>My son asked a retired teacher to do a teacher recommendation for him. The teacher was working at his HS last year and taught him a core class during his junior year. She said that since she is no longer teaching, she can only do an "other" and not a "teacher" recommendation. I thought that sounded wrong and asked via the "help" facility on the common app, and they told me the same thing (!) -- that a person must be an "active teacher" in order to submit a teacher recommendation. </p>
<p>But I've read several cases here where people had a retired teacher do a recommendation. </p>
<p>Should he just go ahead and invite her as a teacher recommender anyhow? Is there some way we can get a reliable answer on this?</p>