Also, I’ve never been taught by anyone other than my parents before. However, I’m applying to some of America’s top colleges this autumn, and so I badly, badly need a recommendation from a science teacher, and one from a humanities teacher. So who exactly can I ask for recommendations?
Can it be a member of faculty at a university who’s helped me with a project I’m working on?
What about someone who’s taught me something like creative writing or drawing in an informal setting (say, at a club?)
Also, who can I ask for the equivalent of a secondary school counselor’s recommendation? Can it just be any adult who knows me well?
python: I believe there’s a home-schooling sub forum on CC. I’m sure your question has arisen before. Also, don’t be shy with the school’s admissions offices. Drop them a line too.
I have a question about who to ask. I am currently looking to transfer and have asked a couple of professors if they would be able to write a recommendation if I needed them to. They all said they would be more than happy to. I am wondering if one professor would be better than another.
My list of choices are:
My Football coach,
Spanish Professor (minoring in Spanish),
Professor which I have known for two years but is not related to my major or minor,
Professor which I have only known for around a semester but is more related to my business major.
any advice in who I should ask would be greatly appreciated.
Somebody can correct me on this.
Unless, football is really a major item on your application (I’m not a big athlete, you see), I would ask one teacher who teaches a subject related to my area of focus and another teacher who knows me well.
Does it make a difference on who writes your recommendation? One of my teachers is also a professor at a prestigious university in my city. He really likes me, so I wouldn’t just be asking him for the sake of his position. Would his position make any difference? (even marginally?)
Having a good letter of recommendation would increase your chances of getting into a certain college, but they don’t look as much towards the position of the person writing the letter as to the substance. A professor is usually more accustomed to what a college looks for in its students and is able to write a really good recommendation, so that would probably make a difference, but the same could be said for other teachers as well, so it’s not so much the position that makes the difference as it is the capability of writing a good recommendation.
I was never very “close” with any of my teachers. Id make my presence felt, but I never really became the teacher’s fave.
I decided to choose my AP Calc AB/BC teacher from last year. I never really mastered the class, as I lacked any effort at all. I finished the AB course with an 87/88 average. My teacher knew my lack of effort and she presented her thoughts to my mother. She told us (the people that were asking her for a recommnedation) that she is completely truthful in her recs. I decided to go forward with the rec, as the course was the hardest the school has and I got a 5 on the AP.
For the other rec. I decided to go for a teacher who I had for my first 3 years of high school. She knew me the best of all my teachers and I had heard she writes very good recs. The downside to the rec was that she taught design and drawing 1,2,3,4 and Architecture, which had been something I was very interested in in my first 3 years of high school (even went to Carnegie Mellon one summer for an architecture program), but the classes are not challenging at all.
So far I have gotten into NYU (stern with early notification), Northeastern (with scholarship) and SUNY Geneseo. I would imagine that the calc rec wasnt “painfully” honest and that it brought out my true intellect and that the architecture rec wasnt a “gimme” rec. Or maybe my URm status and stats got me into NYU stern?
I only ask this because im still waiting on my 1/2 choice schools in Cornell and UPenn and Im wicked anxious.
Thanks in advance for any thought on the subject.
If you’re asking tutors who aren’t familiar with the American system of requiring recommendations (I live in the UK, and am homeschooled) is it OK to give them some suggestions as to how to write a good rec (e.g. printing out info on how to write one, and all that?) How much help is too much help?
Actually, that’s a pretty good idea. Or a better idea is to just give them links to websites with letter of recommendation writing info and letting them visit those links by their own choice. As long as you don’t tell them what to write or exactly how they should write it it’s fine.
Most independent scholarships also want Letters of recomendation, should we just make a copy of the rec to be submitted to the school, or should we seek another one that could be copied?
i feel bad about asking this but…
k, so i have 1 for sure teacher, and for my second i’m chosing between 2, i feel bad
is there any way i can get one from all 3 of them (i know from the seniors this year and the teachers i want all happen to let students see what they wrote), can i send the 2 better ones?
I’m a junior this year, and am attending an international school in Europe, so we don’t have a college counsellor and our principal is not familiar with US admissions at all. One of the seniors who just got into UVA recommended that I start thinking about recommendations early, based on her experience.
I’m already pretty sure that I want to ask my History teacher for one, since she knows me really well and has taught me since 9th grade, and History is one of the subjects I love the most.
The thing is, Chem is another one of my favorites and the subject I work hardest for. I’ve been allowed to carry out small pieces of research, organize science fairs for the younger grades, etc. So it would make sense that my second rec would come from my Chem teacher. Our school’s had a tough time with Chem teachers, this year one teacher quit, one is leaving in a month, and we’re getting a new teacher for the remainder of the year who hopefully will be sticking around for senior year as well. It’s an IB Higher Level class, and my grades have remained quite good despite the change in teachers. Still, I’m stuck for what to do about reccomendations.
The Chem teacher who’s taught me longest was my 10th grade teacher, who on many levels has been like a mentor to me as well and I still talk to her regularly. She doesn’t teach me any more though, but I was wondering if I could ask my current Chem teacher to write me a very brief rec now, email the teacher who quit to ask her for one, and then ask my 10th grade Chem teacher to write me a rec, based on both her impression of me and my IB teachers’ brief reccomendations? Neither of the teachers from this year know me well enough to write a full length rec. I plan on applying EA, so the new teacher will barely know me. Would that be acceptable, especially if she explained the situation in the letter?
i heard that you should have one rec from a humanities teacher and another rec from a math/science teacher. im definitely asking my physics teacher, but im not sure if i should ask my ap spanish teacher or ap comp sci teacher. my ap spanish teacher only taught me last semester, but my ap comp sci teacher has taught me for a whole year. BUT, if i choose my ap cs teacher, that makes both my recs math and science. is that bias good? i AM planning to apply to engineering and schools strong in math/science but i want to show that im not bad at humanities either…
Like Forgotten, I’ve heard that one should have a humanities rec and a math/science rec. I’m definitely asking my English teacher, as she taught me junior year, will teach me senior year, and led a club that I was in, so she knows me very well. However, I have a dilemma regarding the other rec. I have had a connection with several of my science teachers, but the ones I had sophomore and junior year are both leaving the school. I don’t know my math teachers all that well. Should I get a rec from my senior year science teacher or a math teacher, who won’t know me well? Or should I get another Humanities rec (from my History teacher, who knows me pretty well) and risk the overlap hurting me? Or should I try to contact the science teachers which left the school and ask for a rec from them? I’m definitely going into a Humanities field, so that’s not my concern, but will it look too biased to have two humanities teachers?
I only need one more rec from a teacher. I have been leaning towards my 10th grade History teacher, who believes i am “god”. He has bestowed upon me many awards like history student of the year and he knows about me running my own business already. In the entire school he is probably the teacher with whom I have the best relationship with. Did i mention he thinks extremely highly of me?
Anyway, I have my 11th grade Bio teacher writing one rec.
The other rec would either be from my 10th grade history teacher or my 11th grade history teacher.
I have a pretty good relationship with both history teachers but without a doubt i am the closest with my the 10th grade teacher(AP Euro if that matters)
Should i go with my 10th grade teacher or my 11th grade ?