C’Mon! Man — Recommendation Letters Edition
Admit It! Recommendation letters seem like the easy part of the application. All you have to do is ask someone to write one, then all the work is on them. Score! For the most part, that’s how it goes. The awesome thing about recommendations is that while they’re a component of many applications, they’re one where the bulk of the effort is made by someone else. That said, do pay them attention. Know what’s required and think about who you ask. William & Mary requires only one letter, from your guidance counselor. If nothing else, your counselor can put your transcript and accomplishments into context for your school and that’s why we require that letter. You are welcome to send additional optional letters but you should send no more than two. We recommend that if you do send additional letters, at least one be from a teacher of an academic subject. So keep all this in mind, and ask wisely.
Below are some examples of letters from inappropriate sources. They get a collective C’Mon! Man.
- A letter from your 8th-grade PE teacher
- A letter from your 3rd-grade teacher (this gets a Wah-Wah as well as a C’Mon! Man)
- A letter where the name of the writer doesn’t match the name on the fancy stationery at the top (meaning when say a senator has his/her chief of staff write the letter)
- A letter where the person gets your name wrong (we promise, the substance of the letter is far more impactful than the name of the person who signed it – don’t feel compelled to send letters from famous or influential people if those people don’t know you well)
- 17 letters of recommendation (this is the standing record for one single applicant). DO NOT attempt to challenge this. If there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, this is it.
Don’t be an example of what not to do. Don’t elicit an Admission C’Mon! Man. Ask people who know you well. Ask people you trust. Ask people who will be your advocate. That’s all the work you need to do but don’t shrug it off. It can definitely pay dividends.
Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ‘09
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission
Comments are closed on posts older than one year, but we still want to hear from you. If you have a comment or question for us, please email admission@wm.edu.
I had my Pre-Calc and Italian teachers from this past academic year offer to co-write a letter of reccomendation. I had never heard of teachers co-writing a letter before. Would this reflect negatetively? I feel bad having to tell a teacher that they can’t write a letter, especially because two of the three asked to write a letter, but I wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t be held against me before I gave an answer.
@Zach, that is definitely uncommon but if they want to co-write a letter that’s fine by us. We just ask students to be thoughtful about the number of letters they send. If every student sent 5 letters for example, that would delay our review process because we’d have two more letters to read per student (which total nearly 28,000 more letters) so we just ask students to send no more than three letters in total (includidng the one from your counselor).
Hello Wendy,
I was just wondering if William and Mary would rather see just the counselor rec, or is a teacher rec highly desired as well? Thank you!
@Michelle, that’s really up to you and might depend on how well you know your counselor. We recognize that given counselors work with hundreds of students in some schools, a student may not know their counselor well and vice versa in which case a teacher letter is highly recommended.
For any applicant however we are happy to have a teacher rec; we just ask students not to get carried away and send too many.
The counselor that I had for a few years just retired. My new counselor doesn’t know me yet. Is this going to be detrimental to my application? I’m worried that they won’t know what to write! Thank you!
@Susannah, no worries. There are many cases where even if a student has had the same counselor for four years the counselor doesn’t know the student well simply because the counselor has a high case load. If nothing else your counselor can provide us contextual information for your performance within your school environment. You are welcome to also request a letter from your retired counnselor or make use of the optional teacher recommendations so that someone who knows you better is also writing on your behalf.
For recommendation letters from teachers (not counselors) do they have to be in by the same deadline as the application?
@Catherine, yes, all applications components should be submitted or postmarked by January 1. If they’re submitted shortly thereafter that’s fine but in order to have them included in your file before it goes out for review you should have them in as close to the deadline as possible.