<p>my son could have about 12-13 schools on his application list… about 7 are common application, he has 2 teachers he would like to use and knows they would write great letters for him, but is it asking too much to expect them to write that many letters for him?? i know some could be just cut and paste and use same letter, but the ones that arent common app also have specific questions and forms.</p>
<p>One of my S’s LOR writers is the AP Calc teacher, who is one of those teachers that will provide a blind copy even if the student marks the box. S had an opportunity to apply to an excellent summer program with the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Unfortunately, our contact got back to us too late, so there was next to no time for the requires LOR to be written.</p>
<p>Well, the AP Calc teacher came through in the clutch and wrote a darned good LOR for S. Since that writing is now in the bag, I joked with the teacher that much of his drafting is done now for the expected college app LORs in the fall.</p>
<p>I have a question for the group. If a college says to get letters from junior or senior year teachers, should we ask permission before getting one from a sophomore teacher? </p>
<p>My S is advanced in math (his best subject) and thus had AP Calc BC as a sophomore. However, this teacher knows him really well from class, signs off on his EC math tutoring work, recommended he try linear algebra his junior year and has followed along with his progress, etc. This teacher said S is one of his top five students of his teaching career. S is planning on having his second teacher LOR written either by the AP English teacher (who by next year will have had him for three years) or his AP US History teacher, so there’s no issue here. He’s done well with the science classes although we’ve not been impressed with the teachers and just don’t feel they are as much “go getters” about writing a LOR to see their student success like the AP Calc teacher is, who was thrilled to see one of his students from last year get admitted to Yale.</p>
<p>I think students need to ask teachers for LOR but I also think loving teachers should offer to write LOR for students. Students don’t have a lot of teachers to ask for LOR and they cannot always decipher who will write good LORs for them. Many students don’t want to compete to be recognized by the teachers in the classrooms.</p>
<p>When do you guys think it’s a good time to get recommendations?</p>
<p>End of junior year? Before all the senior madness starts and you’re still in that class? Or the very beginning of senior year?</p>
<p>I’m going to be applying EA and my counselor recommended end of junior year but that just seems so…soon.</p>
<p>Advice?</p>
<p>“I think students need to ask teachers for LOR but I also think loving teachers should offer to write LOR for students.”</p>
<p>Are you serious? Do you expect teachers to offer themselves up for this? Do you have any idea what the result would be? Do you really expect that it is too much for a student to ask a teacher for letter? Wow.</p>
<p>Smile614- At my school, students are required to ask teachers at the end of junior year. I think it’s a good idea- get started early!</p>
<p>At my sons’ school, the teachers write an end of junior year evaluation of each of their students for the GCs eyes only. On that form they check a box if they can write a strong LOR for that student. The counselor then helps guide the student very early in senior year to select which teachers to ask. This is certainly a lot of work for the teachers, but for the families it is one very welcome benefit of sending kids to a rigorous private school. The entire school is pulling for each of their students to find the perfect fit college. If a student is at a large school that is more impersonal, westerdad’s advice is really useful.</p>
<p>madbean- hats off to the faculty and guidance office at your school. It sounds like they truly are interested in the well being of each student.<br>
One advantage of a private high school education is this type of care. Another advantage is that the letters students do receive are much more likely to be well-written and thoughtful - with correct spelling and punctuation.<br>
At my son’s school, teachers write fairly lengthy comments at 2 reporting periods a year. From these comments, students and parents have the opportunity to see the writing style of each of their teachers and to make some kind of judgement about the quality and level of enthusiasm a LOR from each teacher might have. The students weren’t able to see the actual letters that went out to the colleges, but they were able to make educated choices regarding which teachers would write the best ones for them because they had the prior comments to go by.
One of my son’s teachers actually asked me if she could write a letter for my son. I was surprised because I knew he wasn’t the best student in the class by any means. She saw qualities in him, however, that I was surprised she noticed and appreciated that had more to do with his attitude than his ability. I do think its great when a teacher who really appreciates a student offers to write a rec. It’s a win for both student and teacher. I wish it happened more often.</p>
<p>One of my son’s teachers offered to write a lor for hime–Well, actually, he asked son “Aren’t you going to ask me for a recommendation??”</p>
<p>madbean,</p>
<p>Sounds like your son is at a great place. That is a wonderful system. </p>
<p>Yes, my suggestions were more appropriate for a large public school.</p>
<p>westerndad: “Are you serious?”</p>
<p>Yes, I am. Students don’t expect teachers to write LOR. They would like teachers to write LOR for them but they are not sure the teachers are on their side or not. Like other parents said, one of my son’s teachers offered to write LOR for him because he loved him and cared for him.</p>
<p>My D had a teacher at her CC who gushed and glowed about D to anyone who would listen, including other faculty at the CC in other departments (my friend teaches there & heard it 1st-hand). She said she’d be happy to write a LOR anywhere, any time as she found D to be one in a lifetime! D was mildly flustered and very flattered. She does inspire that reaction in some folks, as well as fierce loyalty.</p>
<p>Western Dad, my son’s teachers offered to write recommendations for him – even before he asked. Many times it depends on the size of a student’s school and how much of a relationship they do have. My son has had the same English teacher for four years and had the same history teacher twice. BTW, my son jokes that he feels like he has two sets of parents – and he wants to please all of us.</p>
<p>“They would like teachers to write LOR for them but they are not sure the teachers are on their side or not.”</p>
<p>This is why I suggested in the first place that students develop some sort of rapport or relationship with teachers so that a student would pretty much know that a teacher would go to bat for him/her. I think that many of the parents on this forum send their children to private school or to a public school that is “public” in name only, and in these cases the situation is far different than it is in large public schools. </p>
<p>I have five classes with a total of about 180 students. It’s pretty difficult to “love” so many students, but in any one year, I do write up to 50 letters of recommendation. I find that I can write the best letters for the students whom I know best. </p>
<p>Now, your child’s school may not be like mine. Perhaps your child is fortunate enough to have small classes with loving teachers who just relish the idea of writing LOR. If that is the case, you can thank your lucky stars. But in many (most?) schools, this is simply not the case. That is why I offered my suggestions in the first place. Perhaps this is not the appropriate forum for them.</p>
<p>My daughter had a couple of teachers offer to write LOR’s for her… the one she took up on the task did not write a very good letter. Fortunately she had copies of the letters so she was able to opt for another. There was nothing wrong with the letter – it was just pretty simple and barebones. The teacher who offered was a fairly new teacher, so perhaps he didn’t have much experience writing recs. The other offer – which my d. did not pursue – came from an older teacher who retired after my d’s freshman year. He was really fond of her and they kept in touch, but it wasn’t really appropriate because he’d never taught her after 9th grade.</p>
<p>I think it takes more than “love” – in fact, my daughter’s best recommendation came from a teacher with whom she’d had a lot of conflict. But my d’s instincts were right – that teacher wrote the most amazing letter, really singing my daughter’s praises. I think my d. knew that the teacher had a lot of respect for her - and she had plenty to write about. (I mean. that teacher certainly was aware of my d’s presence in her classroom.) </p>
<p>You don’t really want a letter that is full of empty platitudes – college ad coms really aren’t going to be moved by a letter that is positive but fails to give them much of a sense the student’s personality or unique qualities. </p>
<p>My d. also had a very bad experience once with a teacher in another context who “offered” to write a LOR (back when my d. was in 8th grade applying to her high school). She was suspicious -she always had felt that the teacher really didn’t like her and he made the “offer” and grabbed her materials when she was in the process of asking a different teacher - kind of butting in. He was under the impression that the letter would be transmitted confidentially … but that was incorrect – the procedure was that we had to assemble a packet and make copies of the documents, so all letters were opened. His seemed to be laced with sarcasm and quite critical – it seems like he really wanted to sabotage her. In any case, she tossed his letter and got the letter from the teacher she had been trying to approach in the first place, and she wrote a lovely letter … but the point of this long letter is that a teacher who “volunteers” his services could have an ulterior motive. I think its better for kids to rely on their own instincts – and to ask themselves which teachers will be able to provide the best information. That’s not necessarily their favorite teachers or the classes where they had the best grades.</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Sorry if this is off-topic, but I have a few questions to ask. I’m a homeschooler, applying to college this autumn, and I’ve never been taught by anyone outside my family before, which leaves me in a quandary as to how to get recommendations. </p>
<p>-What’s the shortest amount of time a student should know a teacher for before asking them for a recommendation? For example, presumably a couple of months would be too short? Or is it more to do with how well a teacher knows a student, not how long they’ve been teaching them for?</p>
<p>-I need two recommendations, one from a science teacher and one from a humanities teacher; I’m going to see if I can do some research with a Computer Science professor, and also start Chinese language classes, as I need to learn a foreign language. Do you think that I should just rely on two people for my recommendations, or should I try and take classes etc. so that I have at least two people per recommendation who I can ask?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>You should talk to the college admissions people about that at the colleges that you’d like to apply to. Colleges are getting more used to dealing with homeschoolers and probably have specific requirements that would apply.</p>
<p>We had one girl at our local high school who was homeschooled up until the start of grade 12. I suspect that she went her senior year in high school so that she would have an easier time applying to colleges. The system is set up for kids who are going to high school, that’s no lie.</p>
<p>During Parent teacher conferences over the years, when ever a teacher was gushy about Son, we would joke… maybe you’ll write his college recommendations! It was not until his junior year that I realized that there were a few teachers who would be absolutely stellar at the job. (point one for parents getting to know the teachers as well). At the end of the year, much like it was pointed out, teachers write brief recaps of the students’ year for their file. The GC then has a overview of the kid over the years from a large segment of the population (if you consider all teachers 9-11). </p>
<p>We sign we wont look at recommendations and our GC doesn’t see them either. This way if there are repetitions of the facts, they merely support each other.</p>
<p>Son wrote both teachers he wanted to write him recommendations over the summer and got positive responses from both. And the one, well, like I said, he says no, I don’t think I can… to a LOT of kids. He then asked his AP Bio teacher for a half year recommendation and apparently it was pretty fabulous. No, we didn’t see it, but only heard about all his recommendations from admissions people where he got in.</p>
<p>I think I would definitely be saying something if I got letters of rec with total misspellings and bad grammar – although Math and Bio teachers aren’t exactly know for their writing. But what kind of education did your child get if apparently very few of her teachers or other recommendation writers cant write. Then again, it seems to me you were asking for a million of them and at some point I’d be like… umm… I am done.</p>
<p>When older S was in HS, she has the superintendent of schools for a letter based on some work they had done together. That I knew the superintendent fairly well from other endeavors, she asked ME to write it and send it over. She made one or two small changes - which actually only made D sound better - and printed and signed on school stationary. But the truth is, these things take time to write and she absolutely had edit power. It was a win/win. People are busy and you have to respect their time.</p>
<p>To WesternDad… teachers at our school say, … hmm… do you think there might be a teacher that knows you better whom you might consider? Especially when the truth might be they barely know the kid OR they wouldn’t be able to write glowing reviews.</p>
<p>“I think it takes more than “love” – in fact, my daughter’s best recommendation came from a teacher with whom she’d had a lot of conflict.”</p>
<p>Actually, “love” and “conflict” are no more mutually exclusive for the teacher-student relationship than they are for the parent-child relationship. I have probably written some of my best letters for students with whom I have had a bit of conflict. If students can show resilience after experiencing some difficulties, that weighs very heavily in my book.</p>