Hey everyone! Only a few days left of school before the summer before senior year and for once I have everything I needed to get done completed. My friend, however, wasn’t so lucky. According to him, his guidance counselor only just met with him to discuss his plans for college, giving him the sheets he needs to fill out and personal essays he needs to type for recommendation letters, thus it’s unrealistic to expect him to have all that work done before the end of school. He told me that he had been meaning to ask two of his teachers for awhile, but he was locked out of his Naviance account (the site our school uses for rec letters) and he didn’t have the necessary sheets done because he didn’t have his guidance meeting until now. I suggested he just settle it all over the summer and ask at the beginning of the year, but I quickly retracted that idea because it’s best in my opinion to give teachers the summer to write letters, as the beginning of the year when everything is a mess for teachers seems like a bad time of year to request something so big and the summer lets them do it at their own pace, and at least in the summer information about the student such as grades and personality will still be fresh in their minds. If he briefly explains his situation at the beginning of an email in which he would politely and respectfully request a letter, while apologizing if an email seems informal, would this be reasonable? He’s been really stressed about it and I’ll let him know what y’all think. Thanks!!
Sure email is fine. And he can say that he does not need the letter until fall-so the teachers won’t feel pressure.
Ask for the letter face to face still. That’s a big favor to ask over email, especially when these teachers can say whatever they want about you in the letter. Tell him to explain to his teachers that he doesn’t have all his materials ready yet, but he will send them over email by mid-June or whatever.
I would talk to the teachers face to face immediately and ask if they would do the recommendations (and if there is any information he can provide to help them with the letter). The logistics can be worked out later and handled by email.
If, and only with, it’s impossible to get in touch with the teacher face-to-face before summer, I would say it’s okay to ask over email. I know people will tell you it’s never acceptable, but I’ll admit I did ask one teacher over email, who was on maternity leave until the end of the school year. She had no problem with it, and I thanked her as soon as I saw her in person.
Definitely don’t wait until the beginning of the school year. They’ll be very busy by then, and tbh their memory won’t be quite as fresh.
@dragonfly26 I think in the situation where a teacher was on maternity leave, email would be a very appropriate way to ask for a recommendation. In that case the teacher was out of the school for a set period of time and email is a pretty unobtrusive way to get in contact. IMO you handled that perfectly.