I find here the only place where I may ask this question....

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Hi there.

A professor from U.S. promises to write me a reference for my American undergraduate school application. But it seems that sending letters to individual colleges for which I will apply may prove too much work for her. I am thinking of sending something like "prepaid envelops" to her. But actually I know nothing about how things like this work. How to prepay an envelop? Do I need to designate a college address to each envelop? Will the professor receive something like a big package, containing in itself several envelops with different street lines printed on them and also with stamps corresponding to these street lines?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

J.B.

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Re: I find here the only place where I may ask this question

J-B wrote:

Hi there.

A professor from U.S. promises to write me a reference for my American undergraduate school application. But it seems that sending letters to individual colleges for which I will apply may prove too much work for her. I am thinking of sending something like "prepaid envelops" to her. But actually I know nothing about how things like this work. How to prepay an envelop? Do I need to designate a college address to each envelop? Will the professor receive something like a big package, containing in itself several envelops with different street lines printed on them and also with stamps corresponding to these street lines?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

J.B.

How many applications are you intending to send out? Normally people choose several schools and apply only to them (as opposed to every school in the country). Prepaid envelopes will not really help; most professors can afford stamps and often this is covered by their grants. Usually they just write a reference letter and send that to each school. They don't usually get a package - you just tell her who to write to and where to send it and it's done. The same letter will be sufficient, one would think.

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J-B,

My daughter is currently going through the same process. At her high school the kids ask individual teachers to write their letters of recommendation and include a pre-addressed postage-paid envelope to the Admissions Office of each school they are applying to.

The teacher then writes a single letter and sends it out in the envelopes provided.

Now, how you would go about doing that from China is another question altogether. Depending on how many schools you are applying to, perhaps someone in the US could help you out with this. They would need the list of schools and addresses and the contact info for the professor who is writing the letter -- an intermediary of sorts. Is there anyone here who could do this for you? If not, send me a pm and I'll see what I can do to help.

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Hi, Mame, thanks for the reply Very Happy

( And thanks for featuring my thread once again!!)

I am going to apply for 7-10 colleges. I do think that's quite too much for a professor, since he or she needs at least go to the post office right? A professor drops his or her usual work suddenly, goes to a post office, draws about 10 envelops and painstakingly writes every room number, every street number, every street name, every city and every state on every envelop--- only for one, single student whom he or she taught months ago? It seems quite unimaginable for me...

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JPB wrote:

J-B,

My daughter is currently going through the same process. At her high school the kids ask individual teachers to write their letters of recommendation and include a pre-addressed postage-paid envelope to the Admissions Office of each school they are applying to.

The teacher then writes a single letter and sends it out in the envelopes provided.

Now, how you would go about doing that from China is another question altogether. Depending on how many schools you are applying to, perhaps someone in the US could help you out with this. They would need the list of schools and addresses and the contact info for the professor who is writing the letter -- an intermediary of sorts. Is there anyone here who could do this for you? If not, send me a pm and I'll see what I can do to help.

So, it's something pre-paid and pre-addressed envelops within U.S. borders?
But why can't I do it from the outside with ,for instance, the Internet? I guess there might be some kind of service which print the different addresses on the envelops just as how you type them via the Internet. I was trying to find a path through this way, but I kinda stumbled. I haven't found this kind of service. That's why I appeared here...

Thanks JPB

J.B. ( Smile

)

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I don't know of any such service but there may well be one. The reason it would be easier for someone here to do it for you is that the letters would need to have US postage if they are sent within the US. You may be able to do that from China (I have no idea) and pre-address the envelopes yourself before sending them to the professor, but it seems that it would go much more quickly if someone here was helping you.

There is a college resource center at our local high school. Their sole purpose is to help area kids get into colleges. I can send them an email on your behalf on Monday and see if they know of such a service.

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You certainly can pre-address the envelopes and buy a couple of International Reply Coupon (IRC) ... in China.
Then send all that to the professor.

That, however, wouldn't prevent someone to get stamps and post the envelopes ...

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J-B wrote:

Hi, Mame, thanks for the reply ( And thanks for featuring my thread once again!!)

I am going to apply for 7-10 colleges. I do think that's quite too much for a professor, since he or she needs at least go to the post office right? A professor drops his or her usual work suddenly, goes to a post office, draws about 10 envelops and painstakingly writes every room number, every street number, every street name, every city and every state on every envelop--- only for one, single student whom he or she taught months ago? It seems quite unimaginable for me...

My husband is a professor and he is asked to do this all the time.

His department has a postal machine in the office which the secretaries use. His grant is debited the amounts, and campus mail comes along and picks it all up, so nobody leaves the office or building to mail letters. Most professors budget for this in their accounts, and it doesn't amount to much money. Probably each school and professor has their own system, but here it is not a big deal to mail off a reference letter. More time-consuming is the writing of it, and again, she can do one letter and just change the name and address on each one, or she can do a "To Whom it May Concern" letter and sign a bunch of them. If you provided her with some money for postage, that might help. Why don't you ask her what she is willing to do?

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I suddenly realize how silly I am. Previously I was just stuck at how to order pre-addressed and pre-paid envelops ONLINE. But why only online?

I think I can actually buy some envelops with intended addresses written in ink. I may pack them and send them to the professor in uchicago. And now the problem seems to be how much amount of stamps should I determine to put also into the package.

But, Walt, did you just mention IRC? I didn't know this so I checked it out immediately.

Quote:

The purpose of the IRC is to be able to send someone in another country a letter, along with the cost of postage for them to reply.

That may not suit my purpose since I want the professor to send them to those colleges, not back to me...

JPB: What do you mean by saying "the letters would need to have US postage if they are sent whithin the US"? How does it benefit me?

I guess you probably mean that sending outside of U.S., I may not be able to know the exact amount of money I should need to pre-pay the delivery from the professor to another college. This drives us back to the question I proposed at the beginning of this post

Mame: She actually asked me whether those colleges had online filing of references. I in turn asked them all. To all of them there are no such kind of thing. But many accept references via e-mail. That will work for me. But still some colleges only accept references delivered by postal services.
I will ask her further about what she intend me to do.

Thanks folks!!

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J-B wrote:

Quote:
The purpose of the IRC is to be able to send someone in another country a letter, along with the cost of postage for them to reply.

That may not suit my purpose since I want the professor to send them to those colleges, not back to me...

Right - but you can use them for letters to anybody everwhere: it's like you paid the stamps in advance.

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I guess I don't understand why you don't send the preaddressed envelopes, either handwritten or with address labels, if you can do that on your computer/printer, to the professor, along with a note that you would be happy to reimburse her for stamp expenditure if she wishes. As others have said, the cost of the stamps are likely to be absorbed by her grant or her university department.

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And if not, she can use the IRCs :wink:

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Hi Osso. Neither do I now. Confused

Why I was so stubborn in a complicated path of thinking!

Walter, another quee?stion about IRC. How many stamps can an IRC change for?

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You buy them for a certain amount - which is in Germany 2.00 and may more or less the same value in China.

So that's about $2.90.

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I find here the only place where I may ask this question....

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