<p>D is applying to the top lacs and wants to submit as one of the two recs, a rec from a soph teacher in a subject she wants to study (minor/double maj) at college. Her test scores should be strong and her grades are exceptional.
This teacher is likely to say she is one of the strongest and nicest students she has ever taught and to write a very compelling rec. Her option is submit a strong but not so special rec from a jr yr teacher.<br>
Another possibility is to send 3 recs--she thinks schools may frown upon that.
Comments? Thanks</p>
<p>My S finished the high school math sequence as a sophomore, then took additional math classes at the local U. He had the same teacher freshman and sophomore year and they got to know each other well. When he got to the U, he had a different prof each semester. He elected to have his HS teacher write the rec and none of the schools he applied to (two ivies, MIT, State U) had a problem with it.</p>
<p>The best rec is from a teacher that knows your best qualities well, and who is willing to write about them. It doesn't matter if the teacher is a current teacher.</p>
<p>If you're going to submit a recommendation from a sophomore teacher, it will be wise to make sure that the teacher is aware of what the student has been doing in the past two years. If the teacher is able to talk about your D as "one of the strongest and nicest students she has ever taught" as well as comment on her more recent achievement, then I think the rec would be strong (though this is coming from a student... so make of it what you want)</p>
<p>Absolutely, it is allright. As Tanman says, it would be a good idea to update the teacher as to what he is doing in the subject and courses so they can also be mentioned in the rec. And the other teacher should be a junior teacher. I know a number of kids who did this, and many did get acceptances to very selective schools.</p>
<p>I sent three recs to all of my schools; one from a soph teacher, a soph->senior teacher, and an 8th-grade teacher. The schools didn't have a problem with it. When I interviewed at a special program in a certain university, my interviewer even told me that he wasn't supposed to mention it, but my recs were particularly outstanding. </p>
<p>If you're going to get a rec from a former teacher, just make sure that you've been talking to them ever since you left that class, so that their impression of you is still fresh. Since I go to a jr/sr high school, my history teacher mentioned how I still come back often to discuss social and political issues with him. It turned out to be probably my best recommendation (I was able to read all of them), despite the fact that it came from an 8th grade teacher.</p>
<p>Also make sure that the rec really is going to be awesome and provides new information about the student; otherwise, the adcom will really question why you sent in one from an old teacher rather than a current one.</p>
<p>To the OP,
We wondered the same thing in D's soph yr, & for same reason ("awesome rec"). Knowing that we couldn't send until sr. yr., we asked her to write a rec then for future use; I don't know if she did, but when we asked her later for one, she said that she hesitated only because adcoms are less impressed with "distant" recs than more current (jr/sr) ones. However, judging from the replies above, that's not necessarily universal. I still think it can't hurt to have one handy -- for those hopefully unnecessary Deferral Reversals, Waitlist Reversals, an extra rec for a scholarship or a job application, etc. The problem we had with recs in general is that the h.s. limited the # of teachers who could be asked, whereas several of D's college apps were non-common, & she needed extras for scholarship apps & what-not. She didn't want to keep asking the same teachers over & over. I just think it can't hurt to ask the soph teacher to keep one "in the file" just in case it's needed (or in the GC's file -- depending on the policies of the high school).</p>
<p>My son also used a teacher who he had in 9th and 10th grade because we felt it would be an extremely strong recommendation and my son had maintained a relationship with him afterward. The second recommendation was from 11th grade. The only problem was for certain schools (Stanford, I think), they specified that recs had to be from jr. year teachers, so he had a third teacher do one which was kept on file for this type of situation.</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>Colleges like to see that students performed well throughout high-school. All four years are important.</p>
<p>A good reccomendation from a soph. teacher can't hurt.</p>
<p>Yes, indeed it is, unless the college requests letters from teachers in junior/senior year (rarely specified that way).</p>
<p>My D had a letter from soph English teacher with whom she had really bonded, and even through that teacher was no longer at her school she was likely to be a dynamite reference. To bring that teacher up to speed, my D sent her a resume and an explanation why she thought the particular schools to which she was applying were good ones for her.</p>
<p>My D used her sophomore teacher as an extra rec and she also was a TA for her junior jr so that helped. I would not use just a sophomore teacher but compliment it with a jr or senior teacher, preferably an AP teacher if possible.</p>