<p>Applying to several schools for 10th grade-female
Milton-Day
Nobles and Greenough-Day
Tabor-Day
Concord Academy-Boarding</p>
<p>Grades-they look at the past 3 years I believe?
These are from one of the top national public schools
7th grade-All A+ in level 1 accelerated classes
8th grade-All A's with a few B+ in level 1 accelerated classes
9th grade so far-All A's with B+ in English and Geometry-level 1 accelerated classes</p>
<p>SSAT-99% overall</p>
<p>ECs
Trombone-7 years, played at Carnegie Hall, won several awards
Ceramics-4 years
4-H-seven years, 3 different clubs, several leadership positions and prestigious national awards
Sailing-6 years, in many regattas, won awards
Public Speaking-compete, won state awards
Volunteering- Too much to list, but some examples are training my dog as a therepy dog and bringing him to nursing homes, knit scarves for homeless, volunteer at local food bank, volunteer in 4th grade classroom several times a week</p>
<p>Interviews-Pretty confident these will go well</p>
<p>Essays- I'm a pretty good writer</p>
<p>Heres the problem- my recomendations.
My math teacher is the most useless person ever, he doesn't teach. He talks about sports, and thats it. I have to teach myself material for tests. He doesnt even know my name, so I doubt his recommendations will convey accuratly what kind of student I am.
English teacher and I don't get along (we had to write a paper about who we supported for president, I chose Obama, turns out he is a diehard conservative) He hates me, and is open about it. This is the one time I havnt gotten along with a teacher, and of course he has to write a rec.</p>
<p>What are my chances? Will my poor recs hurt me substantially? </p>
<p>Wow.
Seriously, you should have no problems. As long as your essays and interviews, more importantly, go very well. Seeing as though you've won awards in public speaking, your interviews will probably be ace. I'm not really sure about the teacher recs, but I think as long as you haven't caused any serious trouble in those classes, you should be fine. =]
Good Luck</p>
<p>I feel really dumb- I couldn't figure out how to edit my post- but I forgot to add that I have taken Spanish since I was 3, I can converse with native speakers easily, and am taking AP Spanish right now.</p>
<p>You seem, <em>ehem</em>, overly qualified. Your sure your not exaggerating any of your EC's? Sorry for being so cynical but there are a ton of people on here who just make it up as they go along. If they are genuine EC's and scores then your chances of acceptance are uber high in my opinion =)</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure all my teachers, like, hate me. I mean, I'm a straight A student, and I'm outgoing and cheerful, and I participate in class a lot, but then I talk too much and they generally see me as a stupid, spoiled blonde. (And I'm not stupid, not spoiled at all- applying for FA- and I have black hair.) Still, I doubt they're actually going to write terrible recs for both you and me because they're not supposed to let personal feelings get in the way of things, blah blah. For your English teacher, I think he'll write you a good rec- even if he hates you, he can't lie and deny you being smart and motivated, plus being opinionated. As for your Math... Who knows, maybe if he's lazy and useless, maybe he'll just write a terrific rec for you just to get it over with? =]</p>
<p>Maybe you should get a homeless person that you knitted a scarf for to write a rec for you.</p>
<p><em>ahem</em></p>
<p>You seem very qualified. Though I've heard teacher recomendations play a big part in the acceptance process. Just ace the interviews and essays, you should be fine.</p>
<p>melissax225 - I've never done this, but it might work. Perhaps you ought to call the admission's offices at the target schools and speak to the officer assigned to you. You could ask "is there flexibility in who writes the recommendations? May I have my science teacher write my math recommendation and my history teacher write my English recommendation? My math teacher doesn't even know my name and is all about sports whereas I'm a musician and my English teacher, it turns out, is a die hard political conservative and hated a recent pro-Obama paper I wrote. I am so worried that these two professors will not accurately reflect my academic abilities and class participation so I was wondering if I could have [Nobles] permission to substitute the science and history teachers?"</p>
<p>I have NO idea if this would be acceptable and I have not thought through it enough to look at all the downsides, but it would be a shame to take an otherwise stellar record and put it at risk. Having said that, it may very well be true that you're difficult in class in some way and that criticisms would be legitimate. Just don't know.......</p>
<p>You are very qualified as an applicant to Boarding School, as far the the recommendations go however, I wouldn't know for sure. The St. Paul's interviewer mentioned to me that they were probably the most important thing on the list, next to grades. I'm guessing there very important, but as to say if all your teachers ticked "One of the fewest I meant in my entire career" in every evaluation box would ensure you a ticket into these schools would probably be false. I had a friend with a situation like yours, who had a math teacher who could care less about student evaluation (her end of year comments on my report card exceeded no more than 1 and a half lines), during her interviews she clarified how it irritating it was that the teacher didn't bother to get to know the students besides their mathematical ability and test grades. She went on to further ask if such occurred at the school she interviewed at, in which she told me, "engaged a rather lengthy conversation about teachers and students relationships at boarding schools compared to public/private day schools. Apparently she ended up going to Andover. </p>
<p>I suppose you could hint your teachers lack of open-mindedness and concentration in class and ask if same goes for whatever school your at. </p>