do i ask for a recommendation letter for each school?

Nurses General Nursing

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This might be a weird question but here it goes...So I would like to apply to about 5-7 nursing schools for their masters entry tracks. They all require reference letters and I would like to ask the same people, more or less, to write me a letter or fill out their recommendation forms. Is this common to do? I feel like asking someone to do this 5-7 times for each school is bad. Or is it okay? I just have one professor who would be a great reference and would love to write me a recommendation letter, but some of my schools require a specialized form so I am not sure what to do - should I ask her to fill one out for me AND write a letter? Help!

Specializes in Pedi.

Nursing school was college for me. I applied to 4 different colleges and sent the exact same letters of recommendation to every one. No school had a specific form though and the letters were generic enough that they could be sent to each school. Either that or I gave my teachers a list of schools I was applying to and they just changed the name of the school in the letter. I can't really remember, it was 11 years ago.

I needed three recommendations for each of the schools I applied to this year (6). I felt bad to keep asking too, but each of my recommenders insisted it was no trouble-even when forms differ for each school. Once they have written one letter it is pretty easy to change things from there. As long as you present everything to your recommender(s) in a timely and organize fashion and send them a formal thank you at the end, they won't mind. In fact, no matter what they went to school for, they probably remember what it was like to be applying to schools before and needing letters. Good luck!

I had the same people fill out my letters of recommendations for the three schools that I applied to. I just gave them a folder with my résumé and different reference forms & instructions that each school provided. I also included my responses to any essay questions if the school asked for any in the application, just because I wanted to give my references more of an insight to my perspectives and goals (even though they knew my work ethic pretty well). It worked out pretty well!

Okay thank you all, that was really helpful! I just have a feeling I might be applying to a lot of schools.

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