How to ask for recommendations?

visionquest09: What are you talking about? Send in an additional rec if you want, although I generally don’t recommend it. What file are you talking about? Sending in a bunch of recs might hurt you because colleges should be able to get a picture of you from just two recs and they don’t want to spend time reading another rec that basically restates what was in the other letters.

i meant on the paper app i have for a college it has one additonal rec form(paper to fill out) so i planned on using it (engineering teacher because thats what I want to major) and i just wanted to make sure i wasn’t hurting myself

Well, it might hurt you. Just make sure that if you do include an additional rec letter, it contains information that’s not just a repeat of the other recommendations and that it does bring another side to you.

ok thanks.

are teacher recommendations typed or hand-written? one of my recs has never written a rec letter before so he doesnt know (lol, not only is he new, but students are usually scared of him, so I guess im the exception).

I can never read his notes on the board so I hope its typed haha

Usually typed, as most teachers compose them on their computer so that they can print multiple copies for different colleges.

So would it hurt to have two teacher recs and then one rec from my youth group leader, who has known me for 6 years (as opposed to the teachers’ 1 and 2)? I think that rec would be significantly different from the teacher ones. Should I ask that rec to be given to me so I could make sure it was unique enough to be sent on?

as long as your gc doesn’t get it first. Ask your youth group leader if you can see it before he/she submits it to your gc. I think your youth leader is the one who submits it, not the student. But I could be wrong. Somebody please correct me if I am.

so from reading this thread, the teachers send out the recs to the colleges you apply to… but do you ever have the chance to see the recs your teachers wrote?

It depends on the teacher some will show them to you, some will not.

does it mean a lot when a teacher calls you “one of the best students of his career”?

i’m kind of confused about the process. So for common application, how would it work? Would you give them that part of the packet for them to fill out, and then put it together yourself? Or is it sent directly? And what if you’re applying to like 10 schools…woudln’t be a drag for the teacher to write 10 copies?

i’m kind of confused about the process.

Okay. A lot of people here are.

So for common application, how would it work? Would you give them that part of the packet for them to fill out, and then put it together yourself?

Teacher recs are mailed. You print out the form and they fill it out and write a letter. Then the teacher mails them out directly to the college.

And what if you’re applying to like 10 schools…woudln’t be a drag for the teacher to write 10 copies?

That might be why we have things called copy machines.

Wouldn’t the teachers give it to the counselor and the counselor mails it all out from the school address? Wouldn’t that be more efficient? I should ask my gc about that. Also, I was about to ask the same question about how to get the teacher to fill out the common application or the college application. I’m sort of confused as well.
Does anyone applying or anyone who went through the process know?

^ Well, it kind of depends on the counselor’s preferences. After my counselor put everything together, I was the one who mailed the applications out (I had to go to the post office and get them weighed so that I know how much money to pay). I think most guidance counselors aren’t willing to mail them for you, because think about how many envelopes they’d have to send and they would have to weigh all the envelopes (I recommend that people go to the post office and then weigh the envelopes to see how much you have to pay to send them, rather than try to guess how many stamps are needed.). Also, if you don’t know how teachers fill out the recommendation form, read the posts above.

Can I ask an elective teacher to write my recommendation?
I’m a bit confused since the Com App says an academic teacher but does an elective teacher count?

what about when you apply to a school EA or ED? when should you ask the teacher, the end of grade 11 or beginning of grade 12?

dimpleyy: Depends on the elective. Ask someone who teaches math, science, language arts, history, government, and stuff like that, not music or art or PE.

juilushark: You ask as soon as you can, in general.

dchow08: darn, so that means I can’t ask a teacher that teachers College Accounting or Graphics Communications? Bummer, I really think those teachers know me the best.

I attend a fairly large public school (about 350 kids in my class) and have not had any of my teachers for over 2 semesters (one full year). Thus, I’ve had a generally difficult time forming lasting relationships with any of them and am presently beginning to feel nervous about who I plan on asking for a recommendation. Also, because I had slump in my grades my junior year, I received several unfavorable evaluations from potential recommendation authors and my current pool is limited mostly to sophomore and freshman year teachers (who have typically liked me better, anyway). I have heard from many sources that many schools prefer (or even require) to read recommendations from a student’s junior year.

What would you guys recommend me to do? Like I previously mentioned, I know most of my teachers roughly equally but am not favored equally among them. How detrimental would it be to have recommendations from teachers from my beginning years? Or should I just go with my junior year teachers that have not been as impressed?