LOR

Hi,
Do you need a letter of recommendation from the teacher who teaches the subject, if you are going to major in that subject? For example if you want to major in chemistry, do you need a letter from the chemistry teacher? Also if you are majoring in a STEM subject, is it advisable to get letters from a STEM teacher or it can be a humanities teacher?
Thanks

My vote is for a teacher than can best speak to your child’s strength regardless of discipline. For instance, it may be that STEM classes aren’t structured in a way for students to engage in discussions or be class leaders or complete major project - then it would be better to have a teacher who knows about child’s character and can give specifics of outstanding writing or research. Or STEM teacher could speak to same things. Sometimes it’s nice to have a teacher who has had the child in multiple years to speak to growth. You could also use a teacher that child hasn’t had for class but on a EC like debate, MUN or sports team where there are good examples to give of accomplishment and leadership.

Certainly if teacher taught child in an area he/she is very interested in pursuing and where the student has shown great promise and drive, that’s a win/win.

No matter how good the teacher, ask around if you know parents from prior years to see who writes strong letters in a timely fashion. If they don’t get it done on time, doesn’t matter how well they know your student.

It is best to get recommendations from the teachers that know you best. It is not at all necessary to have a teacher in the anticipated college major write a LOR. That said, many colleges accept two teacher LORs and it is generally a good idea to include one STEM and one humanities teacher.

Each school has its own guidelines on LORs. For example, Penn says it is “helpful” if it is from an academic area of interest, Columbia states that engineering “requires” one math or science teacher, MIT wants 1 STEM/1 Humanities. They also vary on whether they insist on a junior year teacher or not. From what I’ve seen, it’s pretty much all over the map.

@mjrube94 is right. It depends upon the colleges to which you are applying. Read the instructions carefully and follow them. Sometimes, doing this means you’ll submit different LORs to different colleges.

We did no strategic selection of letter writers. Above all we sought writers who knew our children well (talents and achievements) and with whom our children had good rapport.

We also tried to make the process easy for the writers. This meant giving each letter writer the complete set of colleges (6 or 7 in each case), a “resume” (including a list of interests and extracurriculars with which the letter writers might not otherwise be familiar), and a brief statement of why he/she was interested in each college. We didn’t assume the letter writers would tailor the letters to each college, but in case they did choose to do this then the statement of interests might help.