<p>So my school will be using the online recommendaiton form, where teachers need to only fill out them once and then the system send them out ot colleges automatically. But if I want a adult out side of my school to send me a rec to the 10 colleges that I’m applying to, do I need to give him ten stamped envelops and tell him to put one in each? Or is there any convenience way of doing this? I really don’t want to annoy recommender by making him copying the recommendation 10 times and put into different letters.</p>
<p>Can’t you just invite him the way you invite your teachers? That’s what my homeschooled son did, and they were able to submit recs easily and online. They were teacher-flavored recs, though. I don’t think there’s a Common App non-teacher flavored rec.</p>
<p>I don’t think making ten copies of a form and putting them in pre-addressed stamped envelopes is such a big deal. I’ve done it. You only have to write it once, that’s what takes time. Also, if your recommender is okay with it, s/he could just give you the letter and you could copy it and send it out. One of my son’s did that.</p>
<p>Well, I think if I use the old way my recommender will also have to change the headings ten times for ten different schools. I just want to reduce my recommender’s work as much as possible. </p>
<p>Geekmom63, that’s a brilliant idea! But my couselor said the teachers outside of my school can’t use our internal recommendation system:(</p>
<p>My kids attend a large public hs where the teachers write the rec - copy it as needed - and then mail it to each college in the stamped, addressed envelope provided by the student. There is no heading - the rec is generic and is designed to be sent to any college. Many high schools in the nation do it this way - so an outside recommender would be the same. Just be sure he puts your DOB and full name on the letter so that the colleges can match it to your file.</p>
<p>Why DOB not SSN? Anyways, printing out 10+ letters with a seperate letter head for each seems an aweful lot of work for my busy recommender:(</p>
<p>You can use SSN if you want - my kid’s schools don’t all have his SSN, so we didn’t do that. To repeat what rockvillemom said, your recommender doesn’t have to print out 10 separate letters - just copy one 10 times. You give him or her stamped, addressed envelopes to mail them. We have a recommendation from a summer program that my S will copy and mail to his schools - no need to change the letterhead for each school.</p>
<p>S attended a small hs with a great guidance staff. They submitted everything for him that couldn’t be done electronically. He asked one of his dual-enrollment university professors for a supplemental LOR. The university department sent a single copy of the letter, on letterhead stationary, to the guidance office, who submitted photocopies of it with his other materials. (S provided the department with one stamped envelope addressed to the guidance office.)</p>
<p>This really isn’t a big deal. The recommender will address the letter to Sir or Madam or To whom it May concern and refer to “your undergraduate program”. If he wants he can personalize them, but colleges don’t expect letters of recommendation to be different for each college.</p>
<p>My d was advised by her college counselor to use “teacher” and then select “other” (for the subject area) on the common app for a letter of rec from an outside person (non-teacher). Is there a problem with doing it this way? Thanks!</p>
<p>S1 had two external recommendations – one prof submitted the letters directly to the schools. She printed sent them on her school’s letterhead and mailed them herself. The other professor had S prepare envelopes, the prof stuffed them, sealed them and signed the outside of the envelope. He then gave them to S to mail. Since S wound up sending some print materials to almost all of his schools, we wound up putting most of them in the envelope with everything else that was being mailed.</p>
<p>The second prof shared his letter with my S. That was the only rec we saw in the entire process.</p>
<p>S’s rec writers did not customize the letters for each school. It’s way too much work. Colleges know this and are fine with it.</p>
<p>Cocoa, there shouldn’t be a problem. This way the college knows there will be an extra rec coming.</p>
<p>I agree with all the others here. Not a big deal. Give your recommender pre-addressed envelopes with postage on them. If he or she does not care enough to make 10 copies and stuff those envelopes for you then perhaps you need to look for a different person to write you the letter. </p>
<p>A strong and personalized letter of recommendation would take a lot more time than the incremental time taken to make 10 copies (even if changing the heading to customize for the school).</p>
<p>Just an update - my d tried to put that person down as teacher “other”, however, when that person tried to do the letter of recommendation, it required her to put in her school information (which she didn’t have - she is not a teacher). My d deleted her on the common app and gave her the 9 envelopes addresses and stamped. I guess that’s the only way to do a non-teacher rec right now.</p>