Some of the schools “strongly prefer” that the applicant get an letter of recommendation from an academic teacher in english, history or language arts. My d’s AP Lang teacher lets the kids know day one that she is not available for ltrs of rec and her history teacher has not responded to her request. She has all of the music related letters and a great letter from her Pre-Calc teacher. I know “strongly prefer” really means required but she is at a loss for what to do. Should she reach out to teachers from her freshman and sophomore year? In a school with 1200 seniors its hard for these teachers to honor these requests. Any suggestions?
Did she ask the history teacher in person or via email?
Are the music letters from teachers in the school, or outside of the school. Are they related to performance or to classes that involve writing papers etc? It would seem that the school mainly wants to hear about writing skills (and work ethic etc.). Can you call the schools she is applying to and ask if these are sufficient.
I cannot imagine an AP Language (Is this English?) saying she cannot write any letters!
My son is getting his academic letter from his Sophomore English teacher. He developed a particularly fond relationship with him and felt he could write a more personal and informed letter than his Jr. year ELA/History teachers, although he did equally well in all of those classes. If your daughter had such a relationship with an underclassmen teacher, I’m sure a letter from one of them will be just fine. (I agree that it is strange an AP Lang teacher would refuse to write letters!)
I know that Juilliard has a requirement like that and of course their reasoning is that they want to make sure the student will be able to handle the humanities classes (and to communicate well in school). I don’t think it’s as big an issue for them for students who grew up in the US and are fluent English speakers. I’d a) get your daughter to call the admissions office and ask and/or b) go to the 9th/10th grade teacher. The LOR is not going to be a huge factor in the decision for acceptance. It’s her audition that matters most.
It’s harder to ask in person. It’s also harder to say “no” in person. Encourage your daughter to go “hat in hand” to a few teachers and sincerely ask for their help. I would do that before I would try another route. I suspect she’ll find a teacher. And honestly any teacher who will write a decent academic recommendation will be fine.
I don’t know your daughter (or the whole situation so I could be wrong), but I can imagine mine in high school insisting no teacher will do it for her if she got a no and a none reply. My opinion is give it a bit more time and encourage your daughter to advocate for herself in person with teachers. Let the teachers know she needs help. It will be a good skill for college.
And on the topic of none replies, I had the hardest time even during college getting my D to understand that teachers and professors do not always reply in a day! My gosh, she would send a message on Friday afternoon and be confused that her teacher didn’t reply over the weekend! Haha. It took until this summer and her working full time (and unable to use her phone during work) for her to fully understand this. Kids these days…haha. Just had to share…
10th grade teachers should be fine. Often, at least at large public high schools, these letters are lined up in the spring and the teachers fill their quotas. But she should talk to any teacher she had in the humanities with whom she feels she had a good relationship and she should be fine, even if it’s from a few years ago.
If she is having trouble getting a teacher she needs to write a recommendation she might want to talk to her guidance counselor. In large public high schools it is often the guidance counselors job to coordinate the college application process and it might be that teachers will respond to her request over a request from an individual student.
I agree with others, find another teacher to write it, it doesn’t have to be an AP class, and I suspect it doesn’t weigh all that heavy as GH said. Personally, it doesn’t say a lot about the school or the teachers that they refuse to do these kind of things, I realize this is a big school, but how many kids do they teach in an AP class? …