Okay another panic time. I graded 100 papers today and worked on my students letters of recommendation. My letters have always been generic so they could go to any college. Today I found out one of S recommenders listed his EA college in her CA letter of recommendation. I am trying to figure out if he can use another recommender for the other colleges or if all his other colleges will see the letter with his EA school name on it in which case he is screwed. Does this mean 4 years of hard high school work down the drain?..Ugh!!! Unless of course, he gets into this highly selective EA school.
Now you are scaring me. Daughter does not let me see much of her work, or access much of the portal information, and if I mention this to her we will start arguing. âMommy, you donât trust people. You think no one knows how to do their job. You always worry about stuff. Really, Mommy, you need to get off of College Confidential!â
Is there anything you can do? You know, now that I think about it, upthread somewhere we had a long back and forth about teacher access and the schoolâs granting of rights for students to choose whether one teacher submitted to all schools, or if a student could designate which teacher-per-school. I think you have to find out what your sonâs school does.
@Mysonsdad From your recommender account can you edit recommendations after they submitted? If yes, maybe she can take out schoolâs name.
If your school doesnât use Naviance you can delete invitation link from CA. With Naviance it is more difficult.
@Mysonsdad can the teacher give your son another email address so he or she can input another letter without the EA school? Maybe your son will need to find a third reccomender just in case.
That is very frustrating and I am shocked the teacher didnât know better!
What is good is that S has not invited other teachers to do recommendations to his other colleges. So it looks like we will just need to change recommenders. This teacher is an excellent teacher (I always say she is the best teacher in her subject in my area) and wrote S a fantastic letter. Our school does not have many kids who apply to multiple schools using CA. They mainly use the CSU or UC applications.
@Ballerina2016, our school doesnât have Naviance, so we will see about deleting. I wonder if we can delete her and then re-invite her.
CA does say that schools are told not to hold it against a student if a teacher does this.
@mysonsdad well that is stressful! I hope you get it all worked out. Dâs school made us waive the right to read all LORS so Iâm thinking/hoping/praying all of them are generic.
D received her 2nd acceptance today, a rolling admission school. 
Now we are just waiting for merit scholarship notification. If thatâs significant (fingers and tossed crossed) weâll be planning a visit.
Congrads to all with acceptances! I hope you get the LOR sorted out soon so you can enjoy the holiday @Mysonsdad !
It just hit me last night that we are doing all this planning, stressing, visiting, mailbox watching, etc so that our kids will not be around as much next year?!?! Then, I reminded myself that it is all so they get to go somewhere GREAT for THEM. If it were about me I would sabotage the process in some way >:)
@Mysonsdad My D received one âotherâ LOR that was specific for one of her colleges she was applying to as the person recommending was an alum of the school. We knew this and as such only assigned it to that particular school. My D and I had to be very careful when going into the CA and adding any schools so that LOR was not assigned to any other school. Did the person write the LOR specifically for that one school? Once it is uploaded by the person recommending the student, I do not think it can be changed by the student. I do think the person who wrote the LOR can edit and re-upload a subsequent more generic letter. I hope all works out for your S. Fingers crossed!
@lvmjac So far it has only it has only been sent to the one school the has the actual name on it. Being a recommender myself I went on CA last night and tried to see if I could change the letter I wrote for a student and so far it looks like I canât. S will most likely ask another teacher at my school to write him a letter. What surprises me is that if CA doesnât allow recommenders to make changes on our side, if a recommender makes a mistake the student pays for it.
What I am learning with this whole process, between colleges given conflicting advice and College Boardâs incompetency and now CA not allowing changes, that perhaps this is why sometimes students who you think are a âshoe-inâ for a school donât get in, yet others who you think shouldnât, do. It has nothing to do with the student, but instead it is the external factors that come into play.
My son asked his Aunt to write a letter for her alma mater. She put the wrong major on it, but he hadnât submitted the app. He has to delete her as a recommender and she submitted the corrected letter through their website. He may have to get someone else to do it for the other schools but not being on naviance will make it easier. Glad you guys caught it!
@CAMidwestMom, the one submitted app is okay because it has the right college name on it. S has not invited any recommenders for other schools, so it looks like he is still safe.
On another note, last year S was offered admittance and a scholarship to our local Cal State University contingent on him keeping his grades up. He applied a few weeks ago and has not received an answer yet (it should be automatic, he kept up his end of the bargain) yesterday he received a thin envelope reminding him of the program and asking him to apply.
@Mysonsdad , thanks! Thatâs what I was trying to say but if I didnât get that across, Iâm sorry. Donât want to add to the stress!
Just got done talking to CA and I called one of S RD schools. CA says there cannot be any changes, the RD school said that it was no big deal and to have the recommender send over an updated letter. I contacted the teacher and just told her to ignore future invites (in a polite way). I will just have S ask another teacher at our school.
Colleges have to realize that kids apply to multiple schools and that for every letter they get with another schoolâs name on it, the other school is most likely getting one with their name on it from another student. The students shouldnât be punished for a recommenderâs mistake. Even with the wrong schoolâs name on the LOR, the student is still the student the recommender is writing about.
@mysondad If you are really set on this teacher ask her for a different email address and send invite to that address.
Does that work?
Try. It might.
Being a recommender I think I will experiment with it
Grlscoutmom = Undercovermom1. Letâs just say that a certain student told me they created their own CC account so Iâm going undercover, lol. Happy Thanksgiving!
I canât believe there is only 3 weeks until I hear from my EA school-very exciting and nerve wracking. Some classmates have already gotten EA or rolling acceptances and that just makes it more real. I imagine come December 1st its really going to start to hit