<p>Welcome aboard, ltfcoastmom!</p>
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<p>How come my teacher never showed me! :). mathmom, your son is lucky to have a teacher who cares.</p>
<p>Counting Down, thank you for posting the link to the U. of Chicago LOR information. My D. is applying EA to Chicago and despite my addiction to CC, I completely missed that thread and we never would have known about the change. Teamwork, gang!</p>
<p>Yeah, there’s not much we can do about it now; letters are either already gone or within a few days of being out the door.</p>
<p>Wish S2’s supplemental rec would send out more than two copies of his letter. Would be REALLY helpful.</p>
<p>I’m glad I lurk on this thread and saw the news about the LORs!! D had an English teacher do a rec just because of Chicago, now she will be able to send the rec from her language teacher who probably knows her the best in addition to the English one, which shouldn’t be wasted at this point. Since our recs are submitted online through Naviance, I don’t think its too late for her.</p>
<p>CountingDown –
Why in the world would a teacher restrict sending out his LOR to two colleges only? Do I understand that correctly? If so, it seems odd and punitive.</p>
<p>As I posted on the Chicago thread, my S was caught in this mistake. Its disappointing, to say the least, that all they seem willing to do is offer an apology. Im debating whether my S should bring this up to the regional admissions rep and ask if Chicago will consider the extra restriction imposed on his application. If he did this, hed have to be careful that he not sound like a whiner.</p>
<p>Why not send an extra letter? When S1 applied to Chicago he sent extra letters.</p>
<p>payfor, I have no idea why it’s only two schools, but Chicago gets one of those letters, so he’ll have three for EA – his Econ teacher, Calc and this other teacher. The drawback is that S2 has this teacher for all three of his IB social science classes this year, so it would have been wonderful to have his LOR for the other schools on his list. </p>
<p>Last year’s IB history teacher only writes recs for students whom he has gotten to know outside of class (i.e., in one of the ECs he sponsors). So, despite S’s performance in the class, no dice. Next option, should S want another social sciences teacher, is junior year TOK or soph AP US, both of whom sponsored the debate team and know S very well. He’d use that for RD apps and deferrals at EA schools.</p>
<p>Suggestion for those who want another letter in an area of strength: get another LOR ASAP. EA schools won’t start reviewing apps til mid-November because they have boxes and boxes of mail and forms to sort and load into their tracking system. </p>
<p>S1 sent four letters to his schools: comp sci, AP World Hist, mentor at UMD and director of the summer math program he attended. Each had a different angle on him.</p>
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<p>Because Chicago only discovered their error this week, two weeks before the EA deadline, and for us it was too late to request an extra letter since our high school requires that LOR requests be submitted at least three weeks before theyre due. Also, the not his best math/science LOR that it turns out was not a requirement had already been sent out, so that could not be undone.</p>
<p>And this mistake has other negative implications for students, such as in CountingDowns case where a student had to use up one of his LORs for Chicago when he could have saved it for another school had he known of their changed policy.</p>
<p>Clearly, for some students this created a mess that has unfairly affected their chances of admission. Not that Im claiming this whole process is fair, but this mistake makes it even more so. Very unfortunate.</p>
<p>I have to vent.</p>
<p>My son has two applications due in mid-November. Over a week ago I told him that he should ask for recommendations immediately, because it’s rude to give someone less than a month to write a letter of recommendation when they already have many other things to do. He agreed.</p>
<p>Yesterday he told his mother that he still hasn’t asked. I am beside myself with frustration. It takes all of two minutes to compose a short email asking if someone would write a letter of recommendation. Then it takes a couple more minutes to give them the forms on which to do so. (He sees these people every day.)</p>
<p>I’m pulling my hair out here.</p>
<p>Has he ever asked anyone for a reference before? Does he seem to do so with ease, or is it stressful for him? Im a 52 year old man and still hate asking people for references.</p>
<p>I’m just wishing this one teacher would send out his LOR to more than two schools. I’m a little concerned about how it will look to the other schools on his list when a clearly significant teacher DOESN’T write a letter. Then again, I had a similar concern about S2 not submitting a LOR from his MV/Diff Eq teacher, and that worked out just fine.</p>
<p>We have every reason to believe the TOK/debate coach will write something very complimentary, so I think S2 will go with that for the other schools. He’s just not going to ask until after the UMD deadline this week. 
The due date for Extended Essays has been changed, not because the students have apps due 11/1, but because it sounds like the teachers rose up and said it’s the end of the quarter and we have to do grades, recs are due by 11/1, and you want us to advise kids on EEs this week, too? Just not happening! Maybe now they have an idea of the extreme expectations placed on our kids.</p>
<p>In the good news department, S is doing very well on grades this quarter.</p>
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Has he ever asked anyone for a reference before?
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<p>He needed two recommendations to get into his current school and didn’t seem to have trouble asking for them, but anything is possible. Thanks for mentioning this. I’ll broach the subject with him and see if it’s just nerves, or possibly feeling unworthy somehow. (I, too, used to have that problem.)</p>
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I’m just wishing this one teacher would send out his LOR to more than two schools.
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<p>Considering that s/he could probably just cut-and-paste the same letter s/he has already written, this teacher sounds like a real butthead.</p>
<p>At our kid’s school, teachers give their LOR to the GC, and the office sends the same letters out to every school. Each student only needs to ask 2 teachers for LOR. The letters are used over and over again. I understand each school is different, but couldn’t you ask those 2 teachers to give a copy to the GC, so you would have them on file to be used for other schools?</p>
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<p>Doesn’t he have EA apps that are due Nov 1st? The EA apps for MIT and Chicago are due Nov 1st. I believe, and folks please correct me if I’m wrong on this, as long as the application (including the essays) are in before the deadline, the LOR’s may come in a few days later. Colleges will be too busy collating all the forms they received on Nov 1st, they won’t be able to really look at the apps until a week or so later.</p>
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<p>You have a good memory. He would have had EA apps due November 1st, but now he is (rightly, I think) spooked about his mid-term grades making it harder for him to apply early. I believe he’s trying to bring all of his semester grades up to at least B’s and then applying RD.</p>
<p>I say “I believe” because I can’t be sure. This kid does the craziest things. I won’t be a bit surprised if, on October 31st he says, “Dad, I need your credit card number so I can send off these ten completed EA applications.” I also won’t be a bit surprised if he’s still working on his RD applications at five minutes till midnight on the day they’re due.</p>
<p>Mid-November is the deadline for State U Honors College, and we’re treating it as the *de facto *deadline for Pitt as well, just for the sake of getting it done by a reasonable deadline.</p>
<p>Well, I like the teacher a lot and S2 adores him, so while I disagree with his policy, neither of us is inclined to make a big stink. If his letter works magic at the two schools he’s sending it to, then all is well.</p>
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<p>I don’t understand this. MIT & Chicago do not require any transcript update before they make EA decisions in mid-December. His senior year mid-term grades should have no impact for EA unless he choose to report them.</p>
<p>Teachers at our school send the LOR’s using student provided stamped envelopes. LOR is strictly between the student and the teacher. The guidance office is not involved. Separately, the guidance office sends out the transcript, school profile, and GC’s recommendation to each of the target colleges using another set of student provided stamped envelopes.</p>
<p>Most teachers would make copies of the LOR’s for all the requested schools. I heard of one teacher who actually takes the time to customize LOR for each school.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that the high school charges $ for each transcript request in addition to requesting stamped envelopes, but the two colleges that DS1 had taken classes from provide transcript mailing to multiple colleges for free.</p>
<p>Does anyone still have kids working on EA apps for November 1st? My DS1 is still working on the essays which I feel he really hasn’t given enough time to.</p>
<p>“His senior year mid-term grades should have no impact for EA unless he choose to report them.”
This is not necessarily the case. If an admissions adcom calls the HS GC and asks for a copy of the mid tern grades, which can and does often happen if there is any question about the application under consideration, the GC would have no choice but to send them.</p>
<p>menloparkmom, do you know if this is the case with MIT and Chicago? I could not find anything about these two schools checking mid-term grades of EA applicants. What are the colleges with this practice?</p>