I’m going to be applying to several alternative teaching credential programs in the next few months, and they all want three letters of recommendation, which is something I’ve never really had to do before.
Obviously, I only want to bother my letter-writers once with this. But with some of these programs the requirement states “with original signature.” What exactly does that mean? Do they just mean they want to see a formal letter with a signature, not a printout of an email? Is a photocopy of an original letter good enough? Or do they want to be able to test the paper for the presence of ink from a ball-point pen? Surely they don’t expect their applicants to contact their letter-writers each and every time they need copies of their letters… do they?
I realize this will probably differ between employers, colleges, and whatnot; I’m just looking for general opinions.
In my experience, universities do want an original letter, sealed and confidential. You’ll only have to do one round of admissions and if you ask your letter writers for all the letters at once, they just have to write one, print it off a few times (perhaps changing the name of the program) and get a secretary to mail them off. So just ask them for all of them at once.
Some universities apparently have letter services where they keep a letter on file for you and send it out every time you request it, but none of my schools has had such a thing.
Ugh. I work in a university admissions office and we all HATE the recommendation letters from these clearing-house services. They’re always non-specific, but vaguely supportive in an impersonal way.
Plus, they’re never sent out promptly or properly.
You’re not missing out if your university didn’t use them.
All you have to do is tell your recommender you need x number of original copies, where X = (letters you need right now)+(a few extra).
Take one of the originals and xerox it a billion times for those times when you don’t need to produce an original sig.
BTW, tip from my dad, the professor. Never ask for “a recommendation” ask if [person] “would be able to recommend you highly.” Nothing worse than a letter that damns with faint praise.
Really? My undergrad has this service, and I used it to apply to graduate school. I don’t know how doing it otherwise would have been better for an admissions office - I applied to five grad schools, and it would have been ridiculous for me to ask all of my recommenders to write five different letters of recommendation specific to those programs. No matter how I did it, the letters were going to be non-specific. Only, without the service, I would have had to get my recommenders to mail them all themselves, so it just would have been a lot more trouble.
I had to get one of my letters translated into English and explaining the confidentiality thing first to the letter writer (who couldn’t read the confidentiality statement I asked her to sign, and then didn’t understand why she couldn’t just hand it over to me to bring to the translator) and then to the translator (who didn’t understand why I was so insistent that she include a note that the letter had arrived to her in a sealed envelope) was a MASSIVE headache. If I’d had to get her to send it out five different times…blech. I don’t even think I would have bothered.
