Looking at an OSCAR posting that wants multiple recommenders AND references. I don’t know if I can come up with this many without really scraping the bottom of the barrel…someone advised me to just submit my recommenders as references. Tantamount to tanking app?
I would just list your recommenders as references. I did this and still got interviews.
I’d probably do that if the other option is to submit “bottom of the barrel” refs/recs. A judge with that preference may or may not care that you’ve doubled up, but the quality of your refs/recs is almost always really important.
I think it’s pretty normal to include your recommenders among your references, especially if you’re listing five references. Otherwise you’d need eight total people backing you, and that seems pretty unreasonable.
Definitely anecdata, but I listed my recommenders as references and it did not seem to affect me negatively.
It is normal.