Leda Scholars Application: 2016-2017

is anyone asking their junior year teachers for recommendation letters, or asking their sophomore year teachers?

I asked my Junior English teacher to write a letter of recommendation.

Don’t be afraid to ask a Sophomore-Year teacher if you know them really well and they can advocate for you to LEDA,. I chose my 10th grade U.S. Government teacher (Who is amazing and helped me every step of the way). However, make sure they teach a core academic subject (i.e. Social Studies, Mathematics, English)

@Kelvin82 Well first I asked my sophomore year math teacher for one, but she said that she was already doing a letter for someone for Leda. She said that she wished I had asked earlier because she knows me better. So, I moved on to my junior year english teacher. She agreed to do it. I feel like it could be any academic teacher that knows you well, although I personally wouldn’t go below 9th grade.

@Kelvin82 I asked my Junior English teacher to write a letter of recommendation.

Is anyone having any problems with the application? I’m trying to put down my teacher for the letter of recommendation, but it won’t let me save. I keep clicking save after I type in my email and password, but it stays on the page unresponsive. I’m able to do everything else except save.

@AspireandDream My app only lets me add 6 activities.

@AspireandDream @aspiringgirl I could only add seven activities.

I found it weird because it said you could add up to eight.

I think the rec can be from someone other then a core subject teacher…also is anyone else struggling on essays?

Do you know how many people actually apply?

@athena11
I believe it’s about 1,000 students and about 100 of them get in. As for the essay, it’s hard to write your life story in just 500 words, just do your best and be sincere about who you are!

@CIRCUITDEBATER thank you…that’s a lot of people applying …it is so daunting, I have brainstormed so many ideas and still have no idea how to tie it all together

I really want to get into this program …it sounds awesome!

@athena11
You got this! We have about 3 weeks left.
I have one essay almost completed, i just need to rearrange it. My second essay only has an introduction.

I wrote my essays and got my Englsih teacher to look over them. I thought they were good, but she helped me make them much better. I appreciate her for all of her help. You can vary sentence structure to make your essay powerful. Do not be afraid to be frank and personal.

@univbound101
How do you ask someone you know to read something so personal?I wrote about a few things that neither my friends or teachers know and I’m hesitant to have my English teacher read it. Any thoughts?

@CIRCUITDEBATER You are the judge of that. I feel like personal essays are best left alone because they show your purest voice. Your experiences. I didn’t let anyone see my personal essay for TASS until I was sure it was what I wanted. Gave it to a teacher only for basic grammar edits and sent it soon after. The teacher was a little shocked at what I wrote, but I picked them to read my essay because I trusted them.

@CIRCUITDEBATER Trusting that teacher is essential if you want help. You have to trust your teacher to respect your content. But, most importantly, you have to be sure that person can actually help you improve your writing.

If anybody is having writer’s block, here’s a small tip I learned during LEDA that really helped me.

My writing instructor (and all writing instructors) told us that if we were stuck on how we should start or continue an essay, we should do a free-write. Some of you might be familiar with free-writes from English courses you have taken or advice from English teachers you have received, but I had never heard of free-writes before, and I was told to write for five minutes straight. It didn’t have to be grammatically correct or in a perfected format, but it DID have to be focused; I had to have a clear train of thought while I was writing that showed in my free-write.

If you’ve already done free-writes, that’s great. If you haven’t, try it out.

@Ahmeda14960 Can you describe what LEDA scholars typically did everyday? What was the main goal of each ‘class’ you took and what type of experience did you have? Also, what was the test prep like? Did they have you pick between the SAT/ACT test or do any diagnostics? Is LEDA for everyone or do you get what you want out of it?