Lots of applicants are confused about whether to submit extra materials that are not required as part of your law school applications.
Typically, their temptations revolve around extra recommendations, optional essays, and totally unsolicited essays. The conclusion they seem to be drawing, if discussion boards are to be believed, is that "more is better," and my purpose in today's post is to tell you that the discussion boards are wrong.
In fact, admissions officers dread the files that land with a thud. (These days, they read applications digitally, but the metaphor endures. Here’s one saying that was popular with admissions officers: “The thicker the file, the thicker the kid.” Mean, but there you go.)
In this post, we’ll tackle recommendations.
Many applications say something like, "Two recommendations are required but you may submit up to four." You're probably thinking to yourself, "If I submit fewer than four, I'll look as if I'm not that interested." Wrong. If they require two, they want you to have strong reasons for submitting more. (Should they be more explicit in their instructions? You bet.)
Most top law schools prefer academic recommendations, and so the two you send should ideally come from people who have taught you in college or in graduate school, unless the instructions expressly say otherwise. Columbia is an exception for people who are already out of college, so check their instructions carefully.
If you have been out in the workforce for a while and are changing careers, a professional recommendation can be interesting. In that case, in the hypothetical above (two required, up to four permitted), one of the two you send can come from a supervisor, or — if you're lucky enough to be able to drum up two academic letters after being out of school for a while — you can submit the professional recommendation as a third letter.
Another exception would be if a school requires X number of letters but "encourages" more than X. For example, if a school requires one but encourages three, it's a good idea to try to come up with three, but even in that case, you should do so only if you are confident that all three would be glowing and add value.
Bottom line: there are very few instances in which you should be sending more than the required number. If a school felt strongly that more letters would be helpful, it would require or encourage more letters. Use the extras (that they permit) for very special circumstances only. And if a school requires X and doesn't expressly permit more than X, send only X.