getting letters of recommendation from a "obscure" teacher?

Applying to College
1

hi all, I am a junior in high school and am thinking about letters of rec. I am interested in medicine and I have a great relationship with my AP Chem teacher, so I am definitely going to get a great letter from her. The other one, however, I am not so sure about… I am very motivated but I don’t exactly participate that much in class. I have a really good grade in Spanish 4 this year and have only gotten A’s for the past 4 years in spanish, and next year I plan on taking AP Spanish. My teacher this year also really likes me… Would it be wise to get a letter from my Spanish teacher, even though it’s not related to what I want to do, and it isn’t another core class like Math or English? Would colleges like Duke or Brown care that I didn’t get two letters of rec from teachers in more important classes? The other alternative was to get a letter from my tennis coach, (we have a great relationship as I am captain of our tennis team), but I though it would be better to get a letter from an academic person. Any advice is greatly appreciated…

thanks!

2

Spanish teacher over tennis coach for sure. Colleges like Brown & Duke want core academic teacher letters. However, foreign language teachers from other cultures sometimes put in both sides of the recommendation – negative as well as positive. That isn’t a good thing. Sometimes your HS GC knows who writes good letters. When my kid ran her options by her GC, the GC had a definite opinion.

3

My son asked for a LOR from his AP Spanish teacher and I think it was the best written letter he received!

4

If the Spanish teacher is the one most likely to rave about you, then that’s the teacher you should ask.

5

Ok, thanks!

6

Spanish is considered to be an academic subject so that would be no issue at all. If you think the tennis coach can tell something different about your personalty, achievement etc. as compared to an academic teacher you can ask him/her to be an additional recommendation. Usually one non-academic additional LOR is fine as long as it doesn’t parrot what the academic recommendations say.