Recommendation - alternative email field

Question

Hi everyone,

My recommender noticed the below field in the LOR form:
"
(Optional) Alternative email (If you are using your personal email account for this recommendation, please enter your work email address which may be used as a verification of your identity if the applicant is admitted.)
___________________
"

Now he's insisting that I send him LOR form request on his Gmail, and he will include his official work email in this field (to verify identity).

Is this practice fine? Or will this be frowned upon by the schools? My first guess is that it should be fine, because if recommender was submitting form from his official work email, then this field is redundant/not required. Schools must have added this field to give more flexibility to recommenders. Can someone confirm please?

Also, I didn't find any existing discussions related to this "Alternative email" field, so I'm wondering if this is something that has been introduced recently?

Thanks in advance!

bb · Answer

Hi. This would be an awesome question to have asked during the MBA Spotlight to the BSchools.... We have one more week of MBA Spotlight - I recommend you sign up and ask it in one of the live Q&A sessions. We have 1 more week left with HBS, Booth, Haas, Darden, McCombs, UNC, HEC, Anderson, and Kellogg

https://gmatclub.com/forum/mba-spotligh ... 56859.html

tkss · Answer

Hi  bb

I asked this question in MBA spotlight sessions this week, but no one seemed to know much about this field. Either my question was ignored or it received a blanket answer - "Recommendations from official email addresses are preferred ". This doesn't answer my question though.

Let me tag a few consultants if they can help.
 mbaMissionDebbie 
 AvantiPrep 
 StratusSoterios 
 PersonalMBACoach 
 Admissionado 
 FortunaAdmissionsEB

Sample LOR -  https://www.aringo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/SLOAN-LOR.pdf

StratusSoterios · Answer

Hi  terminator12  - First of all, I think it varies by school whether they even offer the option to provide an alternate email and how they view this. But generally my experience is that schools do strongly prefer a work email be used, since it then is much easier for them to know that the recommender is actually from that company. But if there is a legitimate reason why the work email can't be used (for example, it would jeopardize your job at the company if others beyond the recommender knew you are applying to business school, or the recommender is no longer at the company or might be leaving soon), then I would explain that very briefly in your own optional essay. I think if it's really just the recommender's preference and he really wants to help maximize your chance of success, hopefully he or she will reconsider and be willing to use the corporate email over Gmail. I hope this helps - and best of luck to you!

bb · Answer

I think it is pretty clear - putting GMAIL is Not the same as putting the company email. So it is possible but it sucks. On a similar note I remember one of the schools (Anderson) mention that they are fine either way and even OK if that is not your direct supervisor). Have you watched that session? https://youtu.be/ONsiyCl4BU0?t=1053 Posted from my mobile device

tkss · Answer

Yup, I saw the Anderson video. Sounds good to have this flexibility. Either way, I will now try to convince my recommender to use his corporate email only. Thanks for your help, you guys are awesome!

Recommendation - alternative email field

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