<p>Wow…so much good advice. I also would’ve been pretty overwhelmed if I’d seen this before the process, though. It’s important to realize that while much of it is great advice, it’s not all absolutely necessary advice for every student. It’s perfectly okay to be choose-y on some of the points, and not to be too discouraged if you’ve already “missed the boat” for something!</p>
<p>I missed the advice re: counter-intuitive recs, but I’ll also second that. I had two recs from teachers who had had me for freshman year, when my grades were terrible due to extended illness. One of these teachers had me 9-11, one had me just 9 and 12. I don’t think either started out liking me much, but so much changed over time, and both were able to directly address the fact that my freshman year really was totally unrepresentative. Ended up working quite well.</p>
<p>mystery2me: Your daughter’s experience reminds me of a friend of mine who confessed to her AP calc teacher that she’d only taken his class to avoid having to take any math ever again. He responded with “Hey, if that was your goal, and I helped you reach it, then we both succeeded. Now you have just a little bit more time to take a class that makes you as happy as math makes me.” This teacher was a physicist by training…perhaps your daughter’s teacher was equally open-minded! Congrats to her, by the way :)</p>