<p>So I got my first letter of recommendation. First of all, let me say, it was glowing. However, I'm sort of confused as to how long most letters are. My teacher knows me very well (personally and academically), but he generally writes letters for students in the UW (University of WI) system (by no means bad, just not Ivy caliber). I know length doesn't equal quality (the letter rocked), but how long are the letters of rec generally? I'm afraid that my teacher may not have put enough anecdotal evidence in or something. Should I stop worrying?</p>
<p>totally forgot. The letter is approx. 1/3 of a page long.</p>
<p>I think your REC is a little bit short although it depends</p>
<p>I also think it’s kind of short. Mine were about a page.</p>
<p>Letters written for publics are considerably different than letters that are useful in Yale’s deliberations. I think this should be consulted:</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions | Info For Schools & Counselors: Writing Evaluations](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/schools/writing_evaluations/index.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/schools/writing_evaluations/index.shtml)</p>
<p>It’s very informational. Your 1/3 page LOR most likely doesn’t have the UMMPH that would assist you, I’m afraid.</p>
<p>Assuming your teacher and school are not very well known, that would be considered short. It won’t really hurt you, but it won’t help you too much either. You could try to very diplomatically ask for more detailed and specific information. Print out some of the websites that describe what colleges are looking for in a good LOR and very gently ask if your teacher could add some more specifics.</p>
<p>Now if you are in a very well known and well regarded high school and even your teacher is well known at that school, then a single sentence might suffice. e.g.:</p>
<p>“wrightm is without question the most brilliant and talented student I have encountered in my fifteen year career teaching Calculus at XX (famous high school)”</p>
<p>Well here, I’ll show the letter:
I am writing with regards to M___ Wright. I have had the privilege and honor of working with M___ as his Mathematics instructor over the past year. His independence, communication ability and tenacity to attack a problem are of the uppermost level. As a student, he is characterized as not only being resourceful, innovative and creative, but also personable. M___ has singularly stood out among his peers in his Mathematics classes and the high school population as a whole because of his raw talent, leadership qualities and all around positive attitude. It is for these reasons that I believe M___ would be an incredible addition and asset to your academic community.</p>
<p>I go to Kettle Moraine HS. It is a blue ribbon school, we send between 5-8 kids to Ivy league (or equivalents, Duke, Stanford, MIT) each year with countless others (roughly 75% conservatively) attending UW Madison, it’s considered to be in the top 3% of all public HS. We also have a handful of well know people who have gone to KM, including David Koepp, the man who wrote the screenplays to Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, and the last Indiana Jones (groan). Is that pretty well known?</p>
<p>While supportive, there’s little in the way of substantive anecdotes. As is, it seems one could insert near anyone’s name into the blanks of the text block. It wouldn’t aid you in your admission much at all, I’m afraid. It won’ t hurt you, it just won’t yield much info about YOU as compared to the thousands of other great applicants such as yourself.</p>
<p>The general advice for these recommendation letters is “Show us, don’t tell us”. Your letter is a lot of telling but no showing.</p>
<p>A more helpful letter would say that you were very quick to grasp xx specific math concept that most students struggle with, that he remembers the time when you corrected his mistake in xx topic in a very gentle and diplomatic way, how you once asked him a question that made him think hard and made him revise his own understanding of something, how you helped a fellow student understand a certain math topic, how you went beyond the class assignments out of your own interests, how you remind him of another student from 8 years ago who went on to MIT and was very successful there, etc etc. Specific, concrete instances.</p>
<p>And while your school is probably an excellent school, it is not the type of famous name school (e.g. Andover, Exeter, Bronx Science, Thomas Jefferson) I was thinking about. And even from those schools, adcoms would like (and probably do get) more details.</p>
<p>Having said that, I think adcoms are used to reading all sorts of LORs and realize that it isn’t your fault that the Math teacher is a man of few words. They will truly review your application holistically and in the context of your school. So if most of the LORs from your school read like this one, you’ll be fine. Don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>That’s sort of what I thought too. I think I may ask another teacher instead.</p>
<p>^^ Very well said T26E4 and vicariousparent. This may be the best letter this teacher could write. If it is common practice at your school for students to see these letters, then consider choosing a teacher who is known to write lengthier and more descriptive ones. The MIT site linked above seemed very helpful. If you are comfortable broaching this subject with the original letter writer, I guess you can thank him for the letter but tell him the colleges you are looking at will require more substantive anecdotal evidence to support his high praise. Would it be possible to embellish this first effort according to the MIT guidelines if not already submitted? If I were a teacher, I wouldn’t be handing out my recs like this to students just to avoid my efforts being under-appreciated. This teacher, however, wanted you to see this so he may be interested in your feedback. I think most of us will agree that this letter will just not help (or hurt) your admissions prospects and I’ll assume that with the teacher’s praise, he really meant better for you.</p>