LOR - Now or Wait?

[DrHTM]

I have a question.

I've received several secondaries requesting LOR from either 2 faculty members, 3, and/or some have even requested 2 faculty plus 2 employers. Anyhow, UCLA offers a service where they send all my LOR to all the schools I request. However they charge not by the number of letters sent but by the number of schools I request to send my letters. My problem is that two of my letters haven't arrived yet and in fact I anticipate that my last letter would arrive sometime in two weeks. I'll have 5 letters completed by the end of this week. Should I send out my letters now and pay the cost and then in two weeks send the last letter and then pay double the cost to send out my LOR or should I wait till the last one comes and then send all of them at the same time and save some major BUCKS. What do you think?

Also, if a school says that they require two LOR, does that mean they require a min of two or they only want two and no more. Should I send all 6 right away or send a couple and then send the rest if I'm waitlisted?

Thanks in advance ...

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[PrincessCKNY]

UCI has the same service too, however, once you close your file and start sending out letters, it's closed FOREVER. You can't add, remove, or do anything to your letters. So, you are kinda at the last letter writer's mercy. I am not sure how they do it at UCLA, but make sure it's not the same case. If your rec file is easily opened and closed, then go for it, if that last letter is unnecessary. Why wait? Lastly, no matter how many letters a school wants, they will get all of the letters in the packet. Period. If they require certain types of letters, then they will have to sort through that packet. My counselors have told me that most schools end up looking through all of the letters anyways.

TIP: Ask if you can put your letters in order of strength. Some schools scoop up the first ___ number of letters, regardless of letter type. Thus, you want your strongest to be on top. Also, reading stronger letters first will make a better impression.