Do admissions committees usually contact your recs?

[boblong]

I was wondering if admissions committees call or message recommenders for further information. I feel that one of my recommenders can articulate and recommend me better in person than paper. But with the mass amounts of applications they probably wont have time for individually contacting recommenders would they?

[greendiplomat]

I was wondering if admissions committees call or message recommenders for further information. I feel that one of my recommenders can articulate and recommend me better in person than paper. But with the mass amounts of applications they probably wont have time for individually contacting recommenders would they?

While they might contact a rec if they smell something fishy, I think it would be your safest be to assume that they won't have time to, especially considering the sheer quantity of applications they get.

[rising_star]

I was wondering if admissions committees call or message recommenders for further information. I feel that one of my recommenders can articulate and recommend me better in person than paper. But with the mass amounts of applications they probably wont have time for individually contacting recommenders would they?

In my experience, this only happened when the letter writer and the person reading the recommendation knew each other well (ie, were friends, had written a paper together, etc.). So yea, it does happen. I think it happened with 3 of the 7 schools I applied to (and no, I'm not counting the fact that I applied to my MA program and that recommender was on my MA thesis committee because that would make it 4 of 7).