<p>Hello! I'm starting to fill out my applications for college, and I'm asking two teachers to write me letters of recommendation in the following week. I was just wondering if there is anything specific I should bring with me when I ask? (Example: a list of colleges I'm applying to?)</p>
<p>Yes!</p>
<p>-Your transcripts (don’t have to be official, just a list of courses and grades)
-PROMPTS. What questions does each school expect the teachers to address in their letters? In order to write the best letter possible, they need to know what the prompt is.
-List of schools you’re applying to, in order of deadline. Obviously also specify the deadlines for each school. These can be “soft deadlines,” i.e. the dates by which you’re planning to apply, as long as you don’t pretend those are the actual hard deadlines set by the school. If the teacher asks for the official hard deadlines, provide those as well.
-Resume/List of extracurriculars
-Copies (even if only rough drafts) of all application essays, clearly marked with which school(s) each one is for
-Copies or lists of your best work from each teacher’s class (e.g. for an English teacher, provide a copy of your best essay, preferably with that teacher’s comments on it if you have the original. For a math teacher, maybe specific stats about your performance in the class – homework scores, test scores, etc. Whatever information will help them remember your best work so that they can write about it in specific detail.)</p>
<p>Make sure to label everything! You don’t want the teacher to find a stray paper in a stack of other papers and wonder, “Wait, which student wrote this essay again?” or “Which school is this essay for?”</p>