First of all, my school is a “Naviance” school (so that system is paired with CommonApp)
Both of my teachers who are submitting the two required letters of recommendation have specifically mentioned Yale in them. However, when they try to submit the letter, it is pairing it to all of the colleges I am applying to…
Is there a way they can send in a letter to Yale that is “customized” to the specific college? I know the Common App gives you a mail in option, but does Yale accept letters that way? If they do, they only need to be postmarked by Nov. 1 to be considered for SCEA right?
Five years ago, when my daughter applied to college, the Common Application did not offer teachers the option of uploading their LoR’s. As a result, my daughter had to give each of her teachers an addressed, stamped 8 X 10 envelope for each college on her list. The teacher then had to print out a teacher recommendation form for each envelope and staple their customized letter to the recommendation form, put each one into the correct envelope and mail it off.
Multiple that process by ten applications per student times 20, 30, 40, or 50 students who they are writing recommendations for and the teacher had a mountain of work to do. I don’t know of one teacher who liked doing college recommendations this way, but that’s how all college’s, including Yale, received letters of recommendation.
I’m sure Yale still allows for it, but a word of caution. What exactly is the teacher going to say? “Boejarry is a good fit for for Yale” or “Boejarry is a good fit for Princeton” and then enumerate the reasons. A college doesn’t need to be told that a student is a good fit for them. So customizing a letter IMHO is a waste of time. Instead the teacher should be taking the extra space to enumerate what a wonderful person you are and allow the college to judge whether you are a good fit for them. I would just have your teacher write a general recommendation letter and send it to all colleges on your list.