Interfolio Question

[Thompson]

Taking the advice from people on this forum, I am applying to a fairly large number of schools. My hope was to ease my recommenders by using Interfolio to send recommendations. I sent out four early deadline sets of recommendations this weekend. Three bounced back from Interfolio, due to supplemental forms.

 

With a whole lot more deadlines coming in mid-December, I'm a little bit concerned. I feel comfortable asking my recommenders to fill out a few forms, but not 75% of the number of schools that I was planning on applying to. So, I have two questions that I'd love some advice on:

 

1)  Is Interfolio going to continue to have a 25% success rate? Or are these early-deadline schools (UT-Austin, Harvard, GMU) just different?

 

2) Is it unusual to ask a professor to write a large number of recommendations?

 

Huge thanks in advance!

[IRToni]

I don't know about Interfolio, but most schools I've seen had supplemental forms. I applied to M.A. programs 2 years back, and one of my recommenders had a hard time with computers, so I saw quite a lot of the recommendation forms. Most of the schools that I saw had addition stuff to fill out (usually one page with boxes to tick evaluating the student vis-a-vis other students in different skillsets).

2. I personally think if you make it easy for your recommenders, you can definitely have them send off a "large" number of recommendations. Now, if you're shooting for 20, they might be... unhappy, but anything below 10 seems to be fairly standard. I compiled a M.A. excel sheet for them with all the deadlines etc. I will also enter all of them in all online systems on the same day, and send them helpful reminders a week (and possibly a day, depending on their track record) before the deadlines. I'm applying to 10 programs,+fellowships, I think.