So when should my D start requesting Letters of Recommendation? Everyone says don’t wait till Fall of senior year since that is when everyone asks, so should she do it before school gets out for summer of this (junior) year? Also…what format should she ask for them in? A Word document so she can keep them until needing to, I would assume, submit them electronically with applications? How do they generally ask you to submit those? Or would she have to wait anyway since they maybe need to be emailed from the teacher when you actually apply?
Strange you should bring it up… I actually had a junior ask me today! (He is the OPPOSITE of a procrastinator and a great kid) From the teacher viewpoint- I would say a great time to ask is April of junior year. It’s after spring break, things are starting to wind towards end of year- but it does not have all the craziness of May (AP exams, senior events and graduation etc) And then, before school year ends, get resume/brag sheet etc to teacher- that’s when I consider myself to be “committed”.
When students ask me for a letter, the most common result is that I write it and submit electronically (through common app and/or naviance). Some students need specific things- in which case I give hard copies- later. When your D fills out common app, it will ask for recommender’s name and email- and the site contacts. Naviance works slightly differently- but still, it prompts the recommender.
So we would have to wait until she actually starts applying to schools then with the common app, assuming the schools participate with that. Also I don’t know what naviance is…lol
Naviance is a system schools use to manage forms for college: transcripts, recs, school info etc. if your school used it you would probably know. It’s just a management system. You don’t have to wait for common app to ask teachers to be your recommender. She kids ask me and I get info, I write letter (I try to do as many as possible over summer- less stress) and then I wait for prompt to submit
Maybe they use it I’ll have to check. I see so. she can just give them a heads up so to speak and they wait for the email/notice whatever…gotcha
You should talk to teachers and ask about it in April but you don’t necessarily have to execute it then since you don’t have common app or acceptd running. Letters of Rec was the most frustrating part for me because every school is so different and teachers (unless they are knowledgable on this process) are clueless on how tedious this is. Normally with normal college recs you just have them write it once and s guidance councilor can easily dostripute it to the schools. But in theatre everyone has a specific say they want your letter of Rec. I warned my teacher, that he had to send it to naviance and common app and you’ll get a lot of emails and to practice copy paste skills.
Both my kids asked in the spring of Junior year.
Everything w/ my non-MT kid went through the Common App.
But w/ my MT kid, it really seemed like the majority of schools didn’t use the Common App (ugh). Some schools requested that they be sent via email or snail mail. (Actually snail mail was only Western Carolina I think.)
In my MT kid’s case, the academic LOR was sent by the teacher who wrote it … but w/ the LORs that were requested by the Theatre Departments specifically, those were always sent by me or D. She had three theater LOR recs - voice teacher, director from a show & artistic director of a theater. We had those in pdf form and would send them out when required and would also take copies to auditions just in case.
It’s my belief (after speaking personally w/ some theater dept heads) that while LORs that are submitted to the university for academic admission should be sent by the author themselves, that there was more leeway in artistic LORs that are being submitted with an audition package.
YMMV of course.
D started asking her recommenders during summer between junior and senior year. Based on some advice given previously on these boards, we have requested & received relatively generic LORs (meaning not addressed to specific schools/directors, but more "Dead Musical Theatre Department Head, etc.) from D’s Choir Director (who has spent significant time w/her privately in preparation for TMEA All State auditions, as well as-as the director of the annual choir musical), and from her theatre instructor of the past 3 years who has worked with her privately and in the fine arts department musical and one act play. She’s also asked for one from the school’s new theatre director (b/c the guy from 9th-11th grade left last spring for another school), but it is mainly used to bolster the other 2 as the new director is still getting to know her (though he has been enthusiastic about supporting her efforts). They’ve given the generic letters to us in PDF so that we can upload them easily to Acceptd, or take copies with us to Unifieds/Moonifieds, etc. In the case of schools who want signed, customized letters, it’s been easy for them to do that for us upon request because they already have the basic letter in their records, and they have been willing to do so, luckily.
As for the academic ones, that’s kind of a crapshoot as to what the schools want (hi, Common App, Apply Texas, etc), and generally, they are more stringent (as mentioned by @KaMaMom). For instance, Ball State’s honors college wants them sent directly from the recommender or in a sealed envelope w/signature across the seal if coming from D, and she didn’t even find out about Ball State’s honors college until after she was invited to apply, following her academic acceptance to the university… Anyway, flexibility and communication is key, but whatever you do, don’t wait until 3 days before the rec is due to ask (stating the obvious). We were glad to get the process underway early so the teachers/directors could get the letters at least drafted while they were not as busy as they would be once school started.
@WTXMom - I have a feeling this was a typo in the post above… but if your letters were actually addressed “Dead Musical Department Head” - I am wondering, what was their response? :))
BTW- One of my posts got auto-corrected by my phone and “bfa program” became “bra program” …
@WTXMom - I think you meant “Dear Musical Theatre Department Head” - but I have to tell you I got a belly laugh from “DEAD MT Dept Head”. Sorry - off topic. Back to your regularly scheduled discussion.
PS - We had similar experiences as detailed here - regular LOR’s were easy - delivered via email requests triggered by the Common App or the school app. Artistic LOR’s were a little different. D’s recommenders gave her a couple of copies signed in sealed envelopes with the signature across the seal that we could include in artistic app packets. We also had PDF copies for Accptd digital submission.
Hahahaha…that’s another letter entirely. Haven’t sent any of those yet…give us a couple more months. (*scurries off to make sure the letters ACTUALLY say “DeaR”).
To the OP, you wrote that everyone says not to wait until fall of senior year to ask for recs. While asking in late junior year is fine, I have to tell you that my own kids and every kid I have advised with regard to college admissions the past 12 years, have solicited their recommendations in early fall of senior year and it worked out just fine.
My daughters school required spring of junior year requests for any school teachers and then a survey filled out 6 weeks before the first application date (did this right when senior year started) giving the teacher specific info and letting them know the school list. For the non school teachers we just went with a 6 week request (beginning of senior year) and most finished in less than a week.
For the artistic recommendations, we had a digital version as well as numerous envelopes with the recommendation enclosed with the signature across the seal. These envelopes were not addressed until we needed to send them. We carried a few of these to Chicago Unifieds for walk-ins.
“I have to tell you that my own kids and every kid I have advised with regard to college admissions the past 12 years, have solicited their recommendations in early fall of senior year and it worked out just fine”
@soozievt - I think the key phrase there is EARLY fall. If you get things lined up in the 1st couple weeks of senior year I am sure everything would flow easily…and that is when I get requests for probably 1/2 of the letters I write every year. But I would strongly caution against procrastination in this area.
I think I have seen discussions of this on other threads - but I am not certain how much artistic recommendation weights within the BFA process. (rather like previous experience in that regard) It seems to be far more focused on what happens in the audition. But academic recommendations can be very important for academically competitive schools - so know your list of schools.
@LoveMyMTGirl , that’s what we did, too, and D did use them. D made sure to ask her recommenders to keep a digital copy, too, and she sent detailed emails on how to send them to common app or wherever when it came time to send them. She was so afraid she was putting out the recommenders, but they were all extremely gracious.
I actually asked between the 1-3 weeks of senior year. Most people hadn’t asked yet. It honestly depends on how big and competitive your daughter’s class is and the number of 4 year college bound students. I had no problems at all.
In fact most students didn’t ask for college recs until November.
@chopinspiano - you are entirely correct that things are different at different schools. The school my D attended, and the one where I teach are both very highly ranked in our state- really high numbers going on to 4 year college… so that impacts the game. At my school, a student who asked in November would be WAY behind the 8 ball - but milage varies.