<p>One of the SUNY (NY state schools) accepts only ONE teacher letter of reference. One of the my son’s teachers uploaded his letter of recommendation (without being asked), but he is not a core academic teacher (he’s a music teacher). We have not yet submitted the application through common app. Son’s guidance counselor says she cannot pull the recommendation out so that the primary teacher can submit but the primary teacher will now send the recommendation hard copy. Do you think there is some way to indicate this in the application somehow (there’s no essay). Or by sending something to them? Guidance counselor is not sure they’ll read the mailed in recommendation. Just wonder if anyone has encountered this before. Thanks!</p>
<p>We had this very problem! Naviance is new to our HS last year and I wondered how it would mesh on the common app with schools that accept one teacher rec and one “other” rec or just one total. Saintkid’s music teacher loaded to Naviance just before the academic teacher so that letter slotted into all the one rec spots on the common app. We were told that there is no way to undo it and the academic teacher cannot be invited and access the common app directly because of Naviance. A royal PITA!!! I called his schools directly to see what they had so far and they said that it was OK for the academic teacher to email his letter to them so he did that. However, that might not work as well with a larger university. </p>
<p>I would call admissions and explain - they have likely seen this before. It may mean that the teacher needs to send it with a cover sheet. Be sure to include student ID or birthdate or some identifying information to help them match it to his app. I’m sure they will be willing to work with him. </p>
<p>Thanks so much. We’ll have my son call the school after break. I imagine they’re all closed for the holidays now?</p>
<p>SUNY will add the letter to your son’s file and the letter will get read.</p>
<p>the teacher can and should send the recommendation to the school at the college’s email. IF teacher is going to email the recommendation, they should email it from their official doe, email. The teacher can also email the recommendation to the GC so that the GC can email the recommendation letter directly to the regional representative who reads the applications for your area.</p>
<p>Just a follow up: my son emailed the admissions director for his location and explained what happened. He responded right away (on a Saturday!) and said my son should forward his email to his teacher. His teacher sent the reference via email, and the admissions director said my son was all set. Pretty seamless actually. I was impressed that the AD was so responsive!</p>
<p>Good !!! Glad that it all worked out</p>
<p>My H, HS school teacher, is tearing his hair out over having to send letters through Naviance. The system is buggy and unnecessarily complex. He gets convoluted letters from students debating which teachers to send where, so he’ll get instructions to send one this day, another that day, this one to these schools, this one here but not there, but then there next week, etc etc. It becomes unnecessarily stressful, and time-consuming (and this is besides interviewing each kid and crafting really thoughtful, beautifully written individual letters.)</p>
<p>He feels the system should be that each teacher uploads each letter once, and then either the kid or the counselor can choose to send on the letter to whichever school is desired.</p>
<p>That would help avoid these kinds of problems.</p>
<p>THAT!!!^^^^^^^ That is how it worked with common app our first go round with kid #1 - the letters are just banked in the common app and the student assigns school by school. </p>
<p>At my Ds high school (they use Naviance), the teacher(s) write the recommendation and give them to the GC who handles it all from there. The student has to fill out a form and give it to their GC for each school he/she is applying to and indicate if it’s a common app school or not and which teacher(s) recs they need. Some schools only require one rec, some two, so the student can indicate. Sounds confusing, but it actually runs like a well oiled machine at our HS.</p>
<p>^Ah! so it can go that way. I’ll let H know. He definitely feels that handling hte Naviance side of things should be the GCs’ job, not his (it doesn’t help that he watches them go home at the close of each school day, while he is there till 6 or later and then working at home for hours each night. But that’ another story.)</p>
<p>At this point, he is thisclose to cutting down how many letters he’ll do, or refusing to upload entirely, to force a change in the school’s system.</p>
<p>It’s interesting to hear the teacher point of view. And that answers the question of why it is nice to do something more than a note for those teachers who are going out if their way to help students get the right letters to the right places. On the upside the envelope and stamp system has mostly gone by the wayside.</p>
<p>@garland, my sis and brother in-law are both HS teachers and they have also cut back on the number of letters they write each year. It can get extremely overwhelming I’m sure.</p>
<p>The teachers in our HS go through a letter writing seminar with the guidance staff each year on how the process (Naviance) works and how to write a good letter of rec for the student. </p>
<p>The worst part about writing a LOR is when you don’t know the kid, literally, and they are begging you for a LOR.</p>
<p>I have had to refuse students because of that, because I skew “nice” doesn’t mean I can write a great recommendation for someone who was in my class of 30 and didn’t even bother to introduce themselves to me for a whole semester.</p>
<p>As for Naviance - my son’s GC took care of the linking each LOR to each school, after the teachers uploaded them. I think one was misplaced, wanted math and science and music and science were uploaded.</p>
<p>Now that I think of it, I am wondering if that happened with his deferral LOL.</p>
<p>(one school he applied to could take up to EIGHT recommendations! 2 required from academics with one optional, and up to five with no limits - family, friends, clergy, anybody - he sent in his three)</p>
<p>And also - his school has TONS of paperwork, required REALLY early, to back up using Naviance, so what is the point? Luckily for my son, they yell about the due dates but his GC made it work for him.</p>