Mother as a teacher

<p>I'm a junior from a small MS school, and my mother teaches every junior English class and AP Lang. As my strengths obviously lie in English, it is imperative that one of my teacher recs come from an English teacher. Though I'll have another teacher for AP Lit. next year, I will have had her for only two months when the SCEA deadline arrives as opposed to two years with my mother. Any input?</p>

<p>talk to your guidence counsler. also i reccommend getting to know your ap lit teacher outside of class.</p>

<p>It's not about the class you do the best in, but the teacher you know the best. Consider another humanities teacher - foreign language, history, etc.</p>

<p>I've known the lit teacher for a very long time. She and my mother are very good friends. My only concern there is that I'll have had her all of two months when I send in the app. Does this fact matter?</p>

<p>if she knows you outside of class, she can vouch for your charecter and can use your performance in class up to that point to suggest that you will do well. if youve done well in english up till then and are doing well for the first 2 months, you have no reason to suddenly start doing bad. that coupled with you knowing her for so long should allow her to write an excellent letter. dont worry about it.</p>

<p>I would say go with the new AP lit teacher, unless you have someone who could strongly recommend you from another class -- the subject doesn't really matter so much as the strength of the review/rec itself. And if you are gunning for that teacher, have perfect attendence and place extra effort in the class to do as well as you can and present your best side.</p>

<p>I got a letter from my AP English teacher (who I've known only a few months). It was an amazing recommendation! If you've connected with your new teacher, then by all means, get a recommendation from him/her. In a school as small as yours, it wouldn't surprise me if teachers gossip a little about their students. Your new teacher may know you better than you think!
;)</p>

<p>Haha that's scary.</p>

<p>Definitely take advantage of knowing your lit teacher for longer than everyone else. Colleges don't care how long the recommender has known the applicant for, just how well.</p>

<p>I think your mom would be a no-no, since she is after all your mom. But it's not nec. imperative to get a rec from an English teacher, as someone said above. Who writes your recs doesn't really matter all that much--it's what they say. I'm a math/physics/comp sci type, and I had as one of my recs to Stanford a physics teacher I had in my senior year, so for only a few months (and I was accepted), and one of my recs to Yale a math teacher I had in my sophomore year (and I now go to Yale)! But it is a really good idea to strategize and try to plan ahead about who will write your recs, so that they have something recent to write about. I did math tutoring for my math teacher, and he got to watch me "in action" as a junior, and I also showed my physics teacher some computer programs I had written to give him something to write about, since I had only had him for a few months in my senior year.</p>

<p>(Don't mean to come off as bragging.)</p>