My son is applying to Harvard early action and one of his recommenders made a mistake on the reference for him. The Common Application does not allow for a recommender to revise a recommendation once it has been turned into one school (so if the same recommender is used for any other schools, the same recommendation will go to them too). We know the recommender made the mistake because she shared the recommendation with us voluntarily – it was a great reference. The mistake was stating that our son took a class and excelled in a class he did not take. She thought he took it because she knew he was going to, but he ended up not taking it. She knew he excelled in his classes so had it in her mind that he took this class and excelled. The only option for getting the reference corrected is for the teacher to contact Harvard and ask if they will accept a revised reference. They might or might not. The immediate question is, should we have her do that or just let it alone? The admissions officers might not even notice the mistake. They would have to remember what his transcript says and then tie it together with the reference. And then even if they catch it, will it really hurt our son’s application? It is probably not uncommon for a recommender to get a detail wrong.
More long term, if we have the teacher ask to submit a revised reference to Harvard. should we have her do that for each school (since my son applied early action to Harvard, he will be applying to other schools later)?