What is recommenders' general preference?

[mseph]

I am applying to around 10 schools, which is pretty a lot. But they are pretty much dispersed in terms of deadlines. Does anyone have an insight on what is general preference of recommenders in terms of when they receive the emails from these schools? Do they usually prefer receiving all the emails at once or somewhat separately? Since deadlines for the schools I am applying to are pretty dispersed, I was originally planning to send them separately--two weeks before each deadline. And this is what I've been doing. But came into realization that it might be better if I just send them all and they can finish whenever they want to? I know that it would be the best to ask my recommenders directly, but I feel like I am already bothering them so much by applying to this many schools. So I decided to post here first for an insight. Please advise! And everyone good luck this year!

[MathCat]

My recommenders preferred having them all available so they could upload their letters in one go. Unless they are writing different letters for different schools, I think this is the way to go.

[neucool]

I sent them all at once, one recommender took advantage of this and submitted them to all 3 places at once (only applying to 5 schools and 3 are through a centralized application), another only to the one that was due first and hasn't submitted the others yet... I would send them all, and then if for some reason they can't find the link there is usually a way to re-send pretty easily.

[Dedi]

My applications are really dispersed in terms of deadlines and they don't send the emails until I pay the fee...so my recommenders are getting the emails at different times. Can't really do much about it--I'm not made of money.

[museum_geek]

All of my letter writers were fine with having everything sent at once.

[emburst]

I applied to 11 schools, sent them all at once. This was preferred by my letter writers as they could upload all in one sitting. As long as you kept them informed of what you're doing.

[grad_wannabe]

I tried to space mine out, giving at least a month before each deadline to avoid flooding their inbox, and to my surprise two of my writers requested that I instead do everything at once.