<p>So I've looked at a bunch of threads on extra recommendations and gathered that:</p>
<p>-- Preference varies from school to school. Some don't mind extras, some strongly prefer that we don't submit any more than the required amount (I also knew this from my e-mail correspondence with an RPI admissions officer, who said that they REALLY want only one.)
-- You should submit extra recommendations only if the recommender presents a completely new view of you.
-- Submitting one more than the required amount is usually fine, but any more than that is pushing it.</p>
<p>However, I have one question that I haven't been able to gather the answer to: does the counselor recommendation count as extra, or what? The RPI guy told me that he understands that most schools send counselor recs automatically (as mine does... and wait, isn't that part of the CommonApp anyways? -- I guess he meant the letter as opposed to just the form), so what they want is (ONLY) one teacher and one counselor letter. But for other schools that require, say, two recs, does that mean one teacher + one counselor, or two teachers + one counselor? </p>
<p>I'm planning on sending three teacher letters and one counselor letter to all of my schools, except for RPI and a different school that pretty explicitly said it only wanted two teacher recs. Some require one and some require two. Am I technically submitting four, and is that wayyy overkill? (Nothing I can do about it now...)</p>