Applying Well: Getting Great Letters of Recommendation for College Application

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Waive Your Right to See the Letters

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, known as FERPA, gives students the right to see their permanent college record unless they voluntarily waive the right to see parts of it. Since the passage of FERPA, most colleges routinely destroy these letters. Your permanent record will probably retain only your high school transcript, your SAT or ACT scores, and possibly your own part of the application. You are familiar with all of those, so there is not much point in reserving access to them. But failing to sign the waiver could signal to both your high school teacher or counselor and the college that you distrust the writer of the letter. That is a good reason not to ask someone to write for you in the first place, so sign the waiver in all cases.

How Many Letters Should You Submit?

Sometimes a college will offer a chance to submit an optional third recommendation from a coach, employer, or someone else who knows you well, in addition to the two required letters from teachers. A few colleges—Davidson College and Dartmouth College, for example—even ask for a letter from a peer. Consider sending in an extra letter if you have someone in mind who could share valuable information about you that might not otherwise get into your file. The best case is from someone outside the school setting who can comment on another side of your personality or achievements. Ideally, writers of such letters make it clear that they know you well and provide specific examples or anecdotes to back that up. But don’t worry if you don’t have someone who fits this bill. Most applicants, including most of those who are accepted, don’t submit an extra letter. Few extra letters make much difference.

What if the application itself asks for only two? An extra letter or two from people in a position to provide a meaningful supplement to your application will be accepted and considered by most colleges even if the form doesn’t explicitly say so. Be sure, though, that the writer includes your full name and social security number prominently at the top of the letter so that it can be filed correctly with the rest of your letters.

Resist starting a letter-writing campaign, however. College admissions officers have a saying: “The thicker the file, the thicker the student.” By this they mean that weaker students sometimes try to pad their applications with multiple letters of endorsement, so lots of letters can make it look as if you are trying too hard. The readers might wonder, “Why can’t this kid rely on the basics like everyone else?” Applications readers hate “fluff,” extra stuff that clogs up a file and takes time to sort through, but doesn’t add anything of substance in the end. The only really helpful letters are from people who know you well and can add something substantive to your file. A letter of support from your uncle’s lawyer who met you once years ago, no matter how rich or how prominent an alumnus of the college he may be, or from the nice neighbors you babysat for so responsibly will at best be ignored and at worst annoy the admissions staff. Limit your extra letters, if you send them at all, to one or two. Sometimes less is actually more.

The Secondary School Report or Counselor Letter

Colleges also typically require a letter from your counselor—the secondary school report, or SSR for short. You should give your counselor the same background information sheet that you prepare for your teachers. In fact, it is more important for your counselor because counselors are expected to cover more ground in their letters than teachers do. So the more your counselor knows about you, the better. In addition to asking for a letter similar to the teacher letters, the form asks your counselor to rate the rigor of your program relative to that of your classmates and to provide an overall evaluation of you as a student, including class ranking if available. (Don’t worry if your high school does not rank.) Colleges know that students from large public high schools often cannot get to know their counselor well, even if they try, simply because caseloads are so enormous. They see this when they visit high schools. So their expectations for the level of detail in such letters are moderate. In contrast, letters from independent high school counselors, some of whom are former admissions officers themselves, are often extremely detailed, even flowery. One admissions reader called this “private school prose” or “glosh,” meaning that it was too sticky and sweet to touch, like molasses. The point is that admissions officers read in the context of the high school, including the workload of the counselor and their experience. They are trained to be fair.

However, a detailed letter can still help, so you should get to know your counselor as well as possible. This is especially important if aspects of your record or background would benefit from explanation. For example, if your first-semester grades in your junior year suffered because of a serious illness, be sure your counselor knows. Your counselor can only explain your situation when the needed information is on hand. Or if you have a learning disability that was only discovered recently and your record shows a positive jump because you are now studying more effectively, the counselor needs to know this too. The SSR, both on the Common App and most school forms, asks your counselor to indicate whether you have ever been suspended in high school, and if so, why. Obviously, it is best if your counselor can truthfully answer no. If the answer is yes, it is absolutely crucial that you disclose this information yourself in a thoughtful, regretful way that demonstrates that you have learned your lesson and there is no likelihood of the incident being repeated. Do not think of concealing an infraction. It is rarely the end of the world, if the incident is honestly reported, but the cover-up is usually worse than the crime. Think of Watergate.

The high school sends the counselor report to colleges in the same envelope as your transcript and the school profile.  You may need to provide your counselor with a large stamped, addressed envelope along with the appropriate form for each college just as you do for your teachers who will be writing recommendations. Be sure you put on enough postage. Also, it is now becoming easier for schools to submit documents to colleges electronically, just as you submit your applications, so you may not need envelopes for the counselor at all. Ask your counselor what the school practice is. Teachers will still usually need envelopes, however.