I keep hearing about how seriously important teacher recommendations are in the admissions process, and how vital it is (especially if one is applying to very competitive schools) to get evaluations from teachers who both know you in depth and can write well. I don’t think I’m alone in worrying about getting “awesome” teacher recs? My problem is that I did a year-long foreign exchange as a Junior. I missed an opportune year to get to know some teachers better, and the only thing I can do now is get recs from my teachers here in Europe (not sure how well they can write in english), or from my senior teachers. The latter is even more problematic because I need recs pretty early to apply early action and they won’t even know me. In either case, I’m not too sure my recommendations will be the amazing, profound letters that colleges claim to be looking for…
gg0624: you will need to read the guidelines for the particular colleges you want to apply for. I was just reading and printing forms for the colleges my D is interested in. A lot of them are very specific about who can write your recommendations. For example, for University of Chicago Teacher A must be an English or Social Studies teacher and Teacher B must be Science or Math. They do allow a Supplemental Recommendation (3C) which could be your Humanities teacher.
I copied the following directly from the Stanford website to give you an idea of what another college requires: “We require two teacher evaluations and we strongly request that these letters come from teachers who have taught you in grades 11 and/or 12 in two different subject areas from among the following: English, mathematics, science, foreign language and history/social studies. The best piece of advice we can give, as you choose teachers to write these evaluations, is to choose people who like you and who will share unique examples of your academic strengths and personal qualities. We will accept a maximum of two teacher evaluations.” Stanford also says: “Yes, you may submit one additional letter of recommendation if you have another person, not a teacher or counselor, who knows you well and will provide us with information about you that your other recommenders will not.”
So, as you can see it really depends which colleges you are applying to. If you want to post the requirements from the websites of the colleges you are applying to we can see if the teachers you are proposing will work.
I’m planning on applying ED to Wesleyan. According to the university web site (as well as other literature/pamphlets I’ve read from the university):
Teacher Recommendations
Two academic teacher evaluations are required. You are encouraged to submit one from a humanities or social sciences teacher and one from a math or science teacher.
There are no other parameters listed, but unless I’m too naive, I don’t think they would just toss a third rec if they had the moment to read it.
Also to note: If I don’t get into Wes ED, I plan to apply RD to the following schools:
Vassar
Tufts
Haverford
Brandeis
Kenyon
Boston University
Muhlenberg
Drew University
I feel the same way as you do. My junior year teachers don’t exactly like me because i kinda slacked this year. I got straight As, but i didnt exactly put forth any effort whatsoever and slept through most of my classes… I also transferred schools the year before so i guess i’ll have to use senior year teachers…
Thanks for posting your information. I would interpret the Wesleyan guidelines the same as you and send in the three recs you were thinking of doing. I think they would have said don’t send anything else if they really wanted to limit it.
My D has a long list of schools I am trying to look at but unfortunately her list doesn’t overlap with your list at all. So I haven’t looked at the teacher recommendation forms for any of the schools on your list or I would share the information with you.
Were you planning to ask for teacher recommendations for all of your schools now or is the timing such that you can wait to hear from Wesleyan and then work on the other applications? One of my D’s teachers and also her counselor want all the forms now to work on them over the summer. So we are looking up everything now.
Talk to the people who you think may be potentially good rec writers to get a feel for how they may feel. Then choose. Gets tricky since you do not want to accidently snub someone.
Congratulations on doing a year-long exchange program – that’s a major deal in and of itself, and I suspect you’ll find that colleges understand that this is disruptive to some of the other aspects of h.s. life, like recommendations.
Did you have some teachers as soph who think a lot of you? Will you have any teachers from your freshman year again as a senior? My d is also on exchange, and she’s been sending some updates back to her teachers (not customized – a general update) while she’s been away. While school is almost out, it might not be a bad idea to start this now to remind them that you still exist!
Your hs counselor would be another person to keep in this loop, and including him or her on the email list would probably be helpful.
Our high school has students fill out a resume, and parents fill out a brag sheet, and certainly you’ll want to do this and include information about your exchange and what it has meant for you.
While a number of schools request that you get recommendations from junior or senior year teachers, being away your entire junior year gives you a great reason to go back to a soph teacher.
If you have a favorite teacher or a principal/school head at your exchange school who thinks a lot of you, requesting a recommendation before you leave would be very helpful. Translation may be a problem, though. D’s English teacher at the exchange school is going to help with the translation of her formal documents. One note: I’ve heard (but don’t have personal experience) that the recommendations from European teachers tend to be quite a bit less glowing than those from American teachers, and substantially more reserved. If a college was used to seeing recommendations from Europe that might not be much of an issue, though.
I think you’ll find that colleges will strongly appreciate the courage and strength that it takes to be successful in an academic year exchange, and that the recommendation issue will be less important for you because of this.
Are there any examples of how teacher recommendations usually look like so that my teachers get a rough impression? (Am from Germany, recommendations are not usual here)
Do you have to get a recommendation from each teacher for each college you apply to or can they just write one rec and you send it to all the colleges your applying to?
If a school only asks for one recommondation, would it be beneficial to send more than one?? I know the school gets a ton of apps (UoM) and I don’t want to waste my teacher’s time…
Sazari: For each college there is usually a cover sheet to fill out and usually the teacher can attach the same letter (xeroxed multiple times) to each cover sheet. Each college seems to have a slightly different wording on their form so you have to check the admissions website for each school you want to apply to and make sure you follow their procedure. However, it seems like they try to make it easy on the teachers. My D was going to provide each teacher recommender with the cover sheets or forms for each school and then stamped addressed envelopes for the teacher to use to mail in the recommendations. My D was also working on a cover letter to the teacher listing all the schools and the deadlines for each. About half of the schools on her list accept the Common Application so that makes it a lot easier.
For the question about the Common App my understanding is that the student should provide a stamped addressed envelope for each school but the teacher can just write it once and make multiple copies. The new Common App is supposed to be posted July 1 so I was going to check back then to look over the forms and the instructions.
I suggest that students ask their teacher now for recommendations instead of waiting until fall. That way you won’t have to worry about it over the summer and you can make sure the teachers don’t get “filled up” with requests before you ask them. My D asked three teachers this week for recommendations. One wanted the forms now to work on over the summer. The other two teachers said yes but they didn’t want the forms until August.
I know that it’s definitely a good idea to ask teachers in late junior year, but I don’t really feel like I know which teachers I want to ask yet. I still have about a month left in my school year (a little less), so I still have time, but should I wait until fall if i am not 100% sure? I wouldn’t want to ask someone and then realize later that they don’t actually know me well at all.
I think the only risk in waiting is that other juniors at your school may be asking the teachers now and then the teachers may get “filled up.” Maybe you could ask around and try to get a feel for whether your fellow students are asking teachers now or not.
You can also ask the teachers in a way that lets them say no gracefully if they don’t think they know you well enough to be able to write a good letter for you. For example, you could start by saying “I know you are really busy but can you write a recommendation for me?”
thanks dsultemeier, thats good advice.
i think i’m going to just ask the junior year teachers that i feel most comfortable with. you’re right, i wouldn’t want to take the risk that they wouldnt be able to write on for me in the fall if i waited.
this is one of the main parts of my application i’m not looking forward to!
One down, one to go
My English teacher was very nice about it, said he had been hoping I would ask him. He also said he’s only writing 5 total this year, so i am so glad i got to him early (i was number 3)!
