<p>Like what made you as a student stand out both inside and outside of the classroom that made your teachers check the top 10%, top 5% or "one of best students encountered in my career" boxes?</p>
<p>gave recs to junior year calc and ap language teachers. math loved me b/c i got 100 on all of his tests and he would frequently scan my test and use it as the key when going over it the next day in class. also he created a “mr. euclid” competition that i won frosh year.</p>
<p>ap lang loved me b/c i wrote extremely liberal pieces. also i was actually good at writing.</p>
<p>then senior year i was so good that my physics teacher ASKED my parents if he could write me a rec b/c i had a 100% in his class</p>
<p>oh yeah and i sucked my math teacher’s pen0r…</p>
<p>waitwut?
inb4brah
inb4 tree-fiddy
inb4misc
inb4goretrolls</p>
<p>I got recs from teachers I knew liked me. I’m pretty friendly with all my teachers. I chose teachers from two classes I not only excelled in but also were different(to show academic versatility). I love both english and science so I asked my ap english and ap bio teachers for recommendations. I was a pretty strong students in my english class throughout the year and ended with a pretty high grade. I was also a strong bio student (though maybe not the super best but pretty good). They happened to be my favorite teachers that year, so I would talk to them after school or just say hi/bye if I past their classroom.</p>
<p>I got a rec from outside school as well from the direction of a program I participated which involved medicine. I was afraid it might be too extra, but…I got in so I guess it wasn’t. The director offered to write it for any students in the program, so I knew he sincerely wanted to help.</p>
<p>I think just being one of the best students in your class is a start, but your teacher needs to know who you are beyond your desk in classroom or a name in their grade book. Show interest in the class, be friendly, have a conversation with them maybe every once in a while. </p>
<p>(Not suggesting you kiss butt or anything. Brown-nosers aren’t fun. Be sincerely friendly and interested. If you care, then they will too.)</p>
<p>I had both of my teachers asking me if they could write my letters of recommendation so I had them write them for me. </p>
<p>One of them was my AP US teacher. He was always so impressed with my essays, class debates (I’m always the devil’s advocate) and how I always get the highest grade on tests. He always told me that I was the best student he had ever taught and we always talk/debate about current controversial issues, and US history outside of the class. He’s really interested in my experience as an immigrant so I know that he knows me very well. Also he’s an interesting lecturer and he majored in Journalism and History at UC Berkeley so I know he’s good writer. </p>
<p>My French teacher absolutely loved me because I lived in France for a year and I’ve won many French awards in contests that she introduced me to. She also knows a lot about my interesting life experiences and my constant traveling so she also wrote about that. Because our French programs are under-funded, our French 3, AP French lit and AP French lang students are combined into one class. Sometimes, she had me teach her French 3 class when she is teaching French Lang or when there’s a sub. From that she knows that I have leadership skills and speaking skills. </p>
<p>I agree mostly with the above suggestions: do well in the class, be nice to the teachers but don’t kiss up. Seriously. Um, talk to them, especially the interesting and cool teachers about your life, your interest etc and make it seem natural, act mature and demonstrate efforts that exceed expectation. You don’t necessarily have to be the greatest student ever, you just have to stand out and impress in some positive way, like having creative ways of solving/analyzing problems, and some form of talent that might not relate to that particular class (I did a political cartoon for one of the assignments in AP US and my teacher thought my drawing was awesome and he wrote about it in the letter). </p>
<p>Aside from what you can do to make yourself stand out, I think there are 3 important things you need to consider when asking for recommendation and they are listed in order of importance:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How much your teacher like/knows about you/do you have good relationship with that said teacher: I say that this of the utmost importance, more important than how well you do in his/her class because the most important point of recommendations is to know you besides how you can perform academically. There are other ways to know if you can get A’s on test i.e. SAT and gpa. I’m speaking from experience: I know this person from our school a couple years ago who took a chance and asked his Stats teacher to write him a recommendation. She knows him well, including his quirky ecs, but her class is the one he struggles the most in because his worst subject is math. This person got accepted to Harvard. Oh I almost forgot, your teacher must be willing to write you that letter. If you asked them and they wholeheartedly agree to it, then great! If they pause and seem hesitant, even slightly, then forget about it. </p></li>
<li><p>Is your teacher qualified: What I mean is that is your teacher a good writer? And is your teacher interested in writing you that letter of recommendation? I’m sorry to say that there are many teachers out there who are not qualified and will write crappy recommendation not because they intend to screw you over but because they suck personally and cannot write much better than you can in fifth grade. Seriously. So no matter how great you did in the class, your awesomeness will just magically vanish when they try to put it on paper! </p></li>
<li><p>How well you do in the class: I don’t simply mean grades. Do you do all the stuff the common app (leadership skills, discussion in class, creativity, etc) and do you do it well? If you do, then it’s possible to consider asking the teacher of that class to write you that letter if the above two are also fulfilled.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I hope that helps and good luck in a couple of years! :)</p>
<p>I had my Student Council Advisor (I’m President) write one but she was also my 11th grade English and AP English teacher. She knew me well from various Student Council things and I knew she would be an excellent writer. I would love to see her recommendation, because I’m sure it was absolutely fantastic. For my second rec, I had my FBLA advisor (I’m VP) write it because I’ve known him for three years and have also taken one of his classes. I’m sure he was a good writer so I bet his was excellent as well. You just really have to find teachers that know YOU and can express this to the AdCom. Best of luck!</p>
<p>I struggled tremendously in Calc junior year (for me, that means getting a B instead of an A, lol), so I kept meeting regularly with my teacher throughout the year. He helped me with practice problems and if I was at any point particularly stressed about the class, I would open up to him about it and he’d help me out. My grade didn’t jump, but he did grow to know me a lot better as a student and he also grew to respect the effort that I was putting into the course, because a lot of my peers would just go complain about him to other teachers instead of meeting with him. I ended up getting a 5 on the AP after all of that hard work, so it was definitely like a mini success story for us both.</p>
<p>Just really get to know a teacher, even if the class doesn’t come naturally to you (I’m not what one would call a “math/science brain”). Also, in a lot of interviews, one of the questions would be like, “Is there any class you struggled with/do you have a least favorite class?” and my answer/explanation always impressed the interviewer, which felt pretty nice, seeing as that one B was the one big weakness on my transcript.</p>
<p>My other tip is to just be honest to your teachers. If you actually forgot to do the homework, just tell them: “I forgot.” I’m at a slight advantage because I go to a small school, but being able to have open, honest dialogue with a teacher can be the basis for an actual friendship, as was the case with my Spanish teacher, who wrote my other rec. </p>
<p>I didn’t read either of my recs, but if I had to guess, I’d say that the difference between a good rec and an outstanding rec is when instead of just being a good student, you’re a student whom the teacher really cares about personally. So just be yourself… I’m sure that you have nothing to hide, and if you do, it’s not a bad thing at all for a teacher to witness you grow.</p>
<p>Viviolay, I tried to choose teachers from two very different classes as well–I then presented myself in my essays as a strong fit for the “liberal arts” spirit of Benjamin Franklin, saying that I’m determined to excel in more areas of study than just my major. Maybe that helped, especially since I applied to CAS?</p>