So I was having a conversation with a friend about letters, and there is this one teacher that teachers AP Statistics, let’s call her Mrs. H, she is also the adviser of Key Club, in which I’ve been an officer for 2 years now, and I feel like she knows me extremely well…
The problem is that I’ve never had her for AP Statistics… Instead, I was in a class with a different teacher, Mr. D
My friend told me that it was fine and I could ask her for a letter of recommendation since she knew me so well and it didn’t matter if I didn’t have her for any classes. I argued that on the websites they specifically said it had to come from “teachers who have taught you in an academic subject”
For a supplemental letter sure, but if she has never taught you academically then it would be risky to not meet the minimum recommended number of letters following schools’ specifications. Make sure to have at least the minimum number of recommenders that have actually taught you and see if additional letters are allowed.
Agreed, you cannot ask her to be a teacher recommendation as you never took a class with her. She cannot opine on your ability to perform in an academic classroom setting. But if you feel that the AP Stat teacher would discuss something about you that an academic teacher could not include in his/her recommendation because of your work together in a club over a number of years, than she could be a supplemental recommender. Keep in mind that more is not necessarily better when it comes to recommendations.