Letters of Recommendation

[Anthony96]

I have my letters of recommendation together for my MOC's nomination packet, but I have one small problem. When I asked my teachers for the recommendations I had just come back from NASS, so they all mention me wanting me to attend the Naval Academy, but I put West Point as my #1 choice for the nomination. Should I just send the letters or attempt to have them edited?

 

[flieger83]

If you can have them redone, I would simply to have them "agree" with your desires.

If you can't, then I'd be ready to explain to the MOC and/or their board that when the letters were written you thought this was what you wanted but now, after reflection/a visit/whatever reason you have decided you wish...

Just my thoughts...

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83

 

[MemberLG]

my two cents,

Get them redone. I sit on my MOC's nomination board and read many LORs. At least for me, LORs that starts with "To whom it may concern" or wrong academies, I don't take it seriously. If we are limited to hand writing or typewriter (I bet you someone of you never seen a typewriter), I can understand not redoing LORs with outdated information. But how hard is replace "to whom it may concern" or "Navy" with "Army" and hit print? If a recommender is too lazy to write an individualized LOR or mention wrong academy, he or she has no creditability with me.

v.r

 

[MedB]

Hi Anthony,

You've already gotten great advice from two folks who are "in the know". And for what it's worth, I agree you should have them redone if you can.

That being said, I did want to point out that as much as fully customized LORs are the goal, in some high schools it's really a big ask. My DS's (and now DD's) graduating classes were the better part of 500 students with a major portion of those kids all requesting LORs in the same general time period.

Is it realistic to expect that a school Principal for example would be able to not only create hundreds of unique letters touting the special attributes of that student, and THEN ask him/her to create 10 separate versions of those letters for every College, SA, MOC, etc? When you do that math out that's several thousand letters in a short time period!

The crazy thing is.... some of the letter writers do exactly that. But not sure it's fair to hold it against the candidate for the ones that can't.

 

[Maplerock]

MemberLG

I bet you wouldn't have posted that if you thought it through. To discount a LOR because you did not like the way someone headed a letter is harsh.

If a student has multiple plan B's... he/she could be applying to 5 service academies and several ROTC programs. Couple that with 2 senatorial letters and a member of Congress, that is a lot of letter writing. A student asks a lot from a teacher or counselor when they start this process. The applicant may ask a person for these letters, but the writer ultimately decides what to write. How could you discount it for that? The body of the letter would still speak to the character and abilities of the applicant.

A teacher often has 180 students. Maybe only a handful of them request letters of recommendation (As a teacher I have written many). In the scenario above the teacher could be asked to write letters to seven academy or ROTC admissions boards and to three political figures. 10 letters per student,... and you'd discount that kid if the letter said; "to whom it may concern"?

I wouldn't.