<p>I have a teacher this year that specifically offered to write me a letter of appeals after I got deferred. She was so surprised at the decision that she felt compelled to write a letter. Would this be wise to accept this and send it in as part of my update to Yale (along with some other awards, activities, etc.)?</p>
<p>Only if her letter repeats absolutely nothing about you that’s in the application. An extra letter will only hurt you if it doesn’t present you in a TOTALLY fresh, awesome perspective.</p>
<p>The letter should not be styled as a “letter of appeals” and it should definitely not express your teacher’s surprise, or dismay, or chagrin, or whatever, over your deferral. The general rule for supplemental letters of recommendation applies: If this teacher can give concrete examples of your accomplishments/achievements/ intellectual vitality that no other recommender has provided, then her letter can be helpful.</p>
<p>Here’s being 100% blunt: your teacher has nothing upon which to base her argument. Sure, she believes you’re a top student. But she didn’t go through several thousand files and order them. Yale admissions did and thankfully, you weren’t in the third pile. But to assume that from her very very narrow perspective, that her opinion that you should’ve been in the “accept” pile is frankly ridiculous. She’s not in any position to assert that with any logic.</p>
<p>You still are under consideration which is great. But if I were a yale admissions officer, I wouldn’t like to be second guessed by someone not even in the conversation. Hope this makes sense.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you</p>
<p>Thank you everyone. I guess I felt that my teacher was so well meaning that it couldn’t hurt me in any way.
Thank you especially for waking me up T26E4.</p>