<p>I think 5 recommendations were sent in for me:</p>
<p>1-Guidance Counselor Rec
2-Teacher Recs (soc. and spanish)
1-Rec from the woman I interned for over the summer
1-Art Teacher Rec</p>
<p>I only wanted my art teacher to send his rec to the art departments (of the colleges that I'm applying to) that requested it, but it was sent to all of the schools I'm applying to. Since UVa's art department does not request an art teacher rec, I would rather my other recs be looked at if they're not going to look at all of them. </p>
<p>I don't think the art rec is bad, but the other teachers have known me longer. Will this amount of recs weigh down my app?/Will this decrease my chances of acceptance at all? How many recs do they look at if i sent in 5 (including guidance a counselor rec)?</p>
<p>There was one kid who sent in 30 recommendations to UVA (I believe it was somewhere around 30). I’m not saying that 5 recommendations is equivalent to 30 but… Do you really think that each additional recommendation will actually shed a different light on you? As my guidance counselor once said, “the heaviest file is the first to sink”.</p>
<p>“the heaviest file is the first to sink” - Do you know if that is true? I hope not…</p>
<p>My school told me to get 2 teacher recommendations and they may be a bit similar. The guidance and internship recs are probably different though. I think the art rec was unnecessary for submission to UVa, but, unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it :/</p>
<p>So I’m guessing the kid with 30 recs didn’t get in? lol</p>
<p>Most students should send two: one from their counselor and one from a teacher. I don’t think five recs is necessary. The internship rec probably won’t go into much depth…people outside of academia tend to write fairly brief letters that don’t add much to the application.</p>
<p>If you send more than two, the extra rec should be telling us something we can’t learn from other parts of the application.</p>
<p>I have 2 teacher recommendations, 1 counselor rec. I have 1 rec from a professor that taught me at a Physics academy for a week and he suggested me for the Science Scholars apparently (He told me by email this week, I didn’t know what he actually wrote about until then). And I am starting a Math Honor Society chapter in my school, so my sponsor wants to write me a rec about my efforts with that.</p>
<p>What is the sponsor of the MHS going to tell us? That you started the organization? You’ll probably tell us about that in your application, right?</p>
<p>Just don’t spend hours tracking down people to tell us things that we’ll already learn in other parts of the application.</p>
<p>Well, the MHS hasn’t had its first initiation yet, so I wasn’t able to say I got it fully running or anything. I only mentioned it in my Additional Info. I’m hoping that the sponsor will enlighten you more about what I have done, specifically.</p>
<p>The title of this thread is “Too Many Recommendations?” and that makes me think you already knew what I was going to write here.</p>
<p>If a school asks for something, give it to them. If they do not ask for something, think twice about giving it to them. Most of you should send the required two recommendations. I really don’t think there’s a reason to be sending us five letters. They are bound to be redundant. </p>
<p>You want your application to be thorough, but not repetitive and certainly not tedious to get through. </p>
<p>Seniors, if items have already been sent, move on and stop worrying about them. There are apt to be other things going on in your life right now that deserve your attention. :)</p>