how many is too many? supplementals

limdelbarton
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:08:07 +0000

Along with the two teacher recommendations, is there a limit to how many supplemental recommendations you should have? I know there is no technical “limit,” but what I mean is, is there a point where too many supp. recs can hurt your application?

I didn’t really get a chance on my application (short essays) to elaborate about my commitment in debate. My debate coach wrote a recommendation, which I read. The rec pretty much covers what I would have said and more, and was very good, albeit only about 2-3 pages (although it’s the first recommendation I’ve read, so I don’t know if this it he usual length or not).

On my application, I did go in more about swimming, which is a much bigger commitment for me. I’ve known my swim coach since I was 9 years old, and we’ve always been on good terms. I’ve seen him everyday for 2-3 hours, every week, every year since then, and I’m one of his best swimmers, too. He was a journalist in NY before becoming a head coach and creating his own team, so I feel like his recommendation would be very very good.

Is it bad if I submit both supplemental recommendations along with the two teacher recs? That would be a total of 4 recommendations, twice the number of required recommendations, and I have a feeling that seeing so many would just turn off the admissions.