<p>Hi all!</p>
<p>My teacher, who I know VERY well, said that she was going to write me a really really good recommendation letter. I thought that this was good, until she said that she was planning to write at least 2 pagesprobably 2 ½ pages. I wanted to tell her not to, but I felt sort of bad. </p>
<p>Will this excessively long recommendation letter hurt me? I know her for a long time, but I think that it will, because it may irritate the admission officer. </p>
<p>Thanks so much</p>
<p>I think it's delicate to say anytihng to your teacher, and I don't think admissions will hold it against you, though they may wish for brevity! :)</p>
<p>I have a similar problem, only worse - my teacher's already told me that my recommendation letter is six pages long (@$<em>&^</em>&$^!!!!!).
Uh oh. But she has known me for AGES, has been teaching for AGES, and is known for writing good letters.
But yeah - what should we do?</p>
<p>There's no way a glowing recommendation could hurt your chances. Be grateful that you're getting a nice letter that will probably HELP you.</p>
<p>why would a long rec letter hurt you?</p>
<p>it shows that the person cared so much about recommending you that they spent the extra effort to write a lot.</p>
<p>though the admissions officer may have preferred a shorter letter, he or she definitely can't say that a long letter isn't a complete and honest endorsement of the applicant's candidacy, especially when compared to some of the shorter and less than sincere letters that admissions officers sometimes receive.</p>
<p>seriously?</p>
<p>yeah, seriously?</p>
<p>I don't think the question is that crazy, although the answer is no. I'm guessing that someone told the OP that overkill is a bad idea, and didn't define overkill. It's true that including a bunch of long, useless recommendation letters can make Harvard question your judgment. They do not want to slog through 15 letters from the senator from your state who met you once, your mom's boss who's a Harvard alum, etc. etc.</p>
<p>But one of your teachers, in one of your official recs, raving at length about how awesome you are...that's not the kind of overkill you need to worry about. That's good.</p>
<p>OH NOOOOO!!!! I think I forgot to mention something!</p>
<p>I will have 5 recommendation letters--councilor, 3 Teacher, one mentor.</p>
<p>Will that change things?</p>
<p>everyone has at least 3 - counselor and 2 teachers. The rest is supplementary information, and Harvard gives more latitude than most in this area. Just make sure that the extra ones add something unique to the app, and don't just repeat information they get from the required 3.</p>
<p>Yep, seriously. But I'm not too worried about it. I have other things about which to worry...</p>
<p>My D, who's a sophomore, had a four-page letter of rec from a reference who thought she'd hung the moon and went into great detail about it. Apparently it didn't hurt!</p>