My AP Human teacher really likes me. I do work hard to keep an A there and top of the leader board. She is leaving and going to another school. Best course of action to get a rec letter from her now? How do I use it when its time for applications? Do you get printed paper? email? And what does it mean when a rec letter is 8/10 or 10/10?? Who grades these.
It can’t hurt to ask! Tell her you’re already thinking about college applications and letters of rec. Tell her you would like to keep in touch and ask for contact info. When it comes time to collect letters, touch base. By then, there may have been some changes…
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You may have built relationships with other teachers and may have some better options for letters. In that case, do still touch base, thank her for teaching you, and tell her how things are going, but say you have found someone else to write a letter.
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You may want a letter from her as a “backup”. My son was able to send in two letters, and his math teacher from a year prior was his “less strong” rec. She was at least able to say that he did well in her class and that she felt he was ready for college-level coursework. It was not as personal or detailed as his primary rec letter, but it helped. Some scholarships let you send multiple recs.
When/if you do ask for a letter, ask if it would help to send your resume and/or have a meeting before she writes it.
In case you plan to apply for scholarships: My son applied to almost 60 scholarships, so asked his recommenders if they would mind giving him a letter in Word format so that he could change the name of the receiving institution OR if they wanted to write one “To the Scholarship Committee” so it could be used multiple times. Every time he sent the to a different institution, he sent a quick email to the recommender as an FYI.
Some scholarships still want letters directly from the recommender, so he had to send emails notifying them of this. Then he attached their letter with the scholarship name already filled in so they just had to forward it from their email address. We wanted to make this process as convenient for the recommenders as possible. Yes, it meant more work for us… but he’s been awarded some scholarships, so it was worth it 
I scanned all letters and saved them in Google Docs. We kept a spreadsheet in Google Sheets of all the scholarships, who wrote letters for him, and when they were sent.
Make sure you always send thank-you emails - although I am old school and think handwritten thank-you cards are better Send to anyone who writes you a rec. It is also nice to say thank-you after you get admitted or are awarded a scholarship. We kept track of this in the Excel sheet as well.
I do STEM activities in our area and am often asked to write letters of rec. Some of my students still need letters in their freshman year of college because they apply for new scholarships but have not built relationships with their freshman professors. So, it is a good idea to keep in touch with recommenders even after you’re admitted to college.
Sorry I do not know about the grading policy for the letters.
This is a good skill to have and I’m glad you’re already thinking about it. Best of luck to you!
For college, they want recommendations from Junior year teachers…you will be taking harder classes and colleges want to know if you can succeed in college…your junior year teacher will have a better idea for that than a freshman teacher.
Agree that it’s great to keep in touch with this teacher, but not appropriate or helpful to ask her for a college rec letter now. You’ll do a lot of changing and growing over the next two years.
Many colleges use the Common App as an application platform. Recommendation letters are requested by you through that, and the teachers upload them directly there for the colleges to get them. You don’t see them or send them directly.