<p>I want to be a computer science major, or at least something related to math or science. However, my BEST two recommenders would be my English and history teachers from last year. If I were to choose them, I know that I would get two amazing recommendations that offer different sides of me (in history I was a strong leader and one of my teacher's--dare I say it--students ever, and in English I worked really hard and was active in discussions).</p>
<p>I do have a math teacher (let's call him teacher A) that could write me one, and he says I have a lot of potential, but to be honest, I didn't do a lot of my homework in his AP Calc BC class (still got a mid-range A easily, though). Also, my current Honors Anatomy teacher (lets call him teacher B) could write me one, but we don't really have any relationship (I do have an 104% in the class, though).</p>
<p>What should I do?
Let's assume that a school asks for 2 teacher recommendations.</p>
<p>It is best to have one recommender from english/history/humanities and one from math/science, no matter what major you intend. But esp since you are interested in that area, I’d say.</p>
<p>Most schools ask for 3 recommendations, in my experience.</p>
<p>But I think you should go with the recommendations that will be the strongest for you. I think it’s usually a good idea to go with one English/humanities recommendation, one math/science recommendation, and then a third of your choice, but if your two strongest will be English and history I think that is better.</p>
<p>However, consider relative strength vs. absolute strength. It’s possible that even though your history teacher’s recommendation will be technically stronger than the math teacher’s, the math teacher’s will still be outstanding enough to get you into colleges.</p>
<p>It also depends on how much weight your colleges put on the major choices of incoming freshman. For some schools you apply into a major; some schools you don’t but still look at it and other schools only ask for demographic purposes and don’t really put much weight on it - especially since many many many high school seniors change their mind between December when they fill out the app and August when they arrive on campus, not to mention in the ensuing year or two.</p>
<p>Most schools ask for 2 recommendations on CommonApp. Some do allows 3 or 4 at most. So first you may want to check if you can have more than 2 teachers’ recommendations.
Having teachers from different subject areas to write you recommendations is good, however, having good recommendations from teachers that know you more is much more critical. Someone would go even further to suggest having one language/humanity teacher and one math/science teacher from junior year for recommendation, which is also not necessary a good idea. A good recommender would know you more than from 1 semester or two in his/her class but with further interactions after classes. Whether he/she taught you in Junior year or not, or whichever subject is much less relevant. A teacher that know you for more than a year and you have more interaction with will write a letter with more content and it will be valued more.</p>