Hello!
One of my references has a policy where they only give recommendation letters if there is a portal where they can submit it themselves (Rather than emailing a PDF straight to me, they are happy for me to see the letter before submission however). This is because they had an unfortunate experience in the past with one of their letters being edited.
I havn’t been able to see how these letters are submitted, or find anything online about this. Can recommendation letters only be submitted by the applicant?
Thank you!
Hi @sukhpreet,
At the moment, “yes” only you (the applicant or your agent) can submit an application.
However, for the sake of your situation, I’d suggest you proposed a virtual call (via google meet, Zoom, etc) to your recommender. On this call, you can share your screen and ask your recommender to watch you upload the letter. That way, you are able to show that you didn’t manipulate the doc.
This is just personal advice though. You may want to wait for others’ contributions.
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I’m not sure if this is helpful, but if you have your letters digitally signed (using a service like Docusign), those PDFs have a unique Docusign Envelope ID (a unique set of letters and numbers) that is added to all pages of the document. Completed Docusign documents cannot be altered, so there should be some degree of confidence that you did not alter their letter following signature.
As @4rmSlum2uk said, only the applicant or their solicitor can upload the LoR as a part of your application. I suppose you could share your application login with them to have them upload it themselves, but that opens you up to risk that they alter your application accidently or on purpose.
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You can edit docusigned pdf. You have to find a way to get them to trust you. If they don’t trust that you will upload the letter they gave you without you altering it, they might not be the best people to give recommendation letters.
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