<p>I have wanted to do early decision at Vanderbilt for months, but my parents weren't going to let me. They just now decided to let me. I am of course very excited, but the problem is they require 2 teacher recommendations and the deadline is November 1st, which is a little under 3 weeks away. About a month ago I asked one teacher to write recommendations for me and I told her the deadline was November 1st because I needed it by then for a scholarship at a different school so that's taken care of. But now I need to get one more. I know usually you're supposed to give teachers at least a month to write recommendations and obviously, I don't have that long. I have a few teachers I could ask, but I feel really badly about how little time I am giving them. When I ask should I just tell the teacher it's due November 1st and not say anything further? Or should I explain why I am giving it to them so last minute? It's just the common app teacher recommendation so I don't think it takes too long to do and I really want to do early decision 1, but I am worried it might reflect badly on my recommendation since I am not giving very much time. Do you think it will still be possible to get a good recommendation on such short notice?</p>
<p>I think you should give your teachers a brief explanation so that they know that it wasn't because you weren't thoughtful about it. Good teacher recommendations do take a while to write, especially if your teachers are very busy. It's certainly possible that the rec letters won't be as good as they would have been if you had asked earlier, but it's not like they're gonna suck. I think you should provide them with as much as you can (offer a few paragraphs of what particular honors you've won and what things you're involved in) so that they don't have to work any harder than they need to.</p>