<p>I had a chemistry teacher sophomore year who has written me a letter of recommendation. I also volunteer my time to help set up her labs and other tasks every morning before school. I was wondering if I could possibly use her LOR under the "Other Recommenders" option on the Common App and then use two different teachers? Or should I stick to using her as only a teacher recommendation? I don't know if this would technically count as a volunteering recommendation.</p>
<p>A 3rd letter of recommendation should be able to provide a different perspective to the applicant. If your 3rd letter just repeats what the other two letters have said, it tends to waters-down the content of the required teacher recommendations. If I were you, I would be concerned that your Chemistry Teacher might be too repetitive of what your other teachers have written, and therefore would not send in a 3rd letter of recommendation.</p>
<p>It depends on what your Chemistry teacher’s letter says. If it is written more from a perspective of a teacher and talks about your academic merit, like gibby said, it’s gonna be really repetitive and they won’t see it as an “other recommender”. Has your chemistry teacher already written the letter? Because I would suggest that you ask her to write it about you as a volunteer and use this letter to talk more about your character.</p>
<p>For my other recommender I had the women who ran the organization I volunteered for write it. She was able to talk about my work ethic, character, and personality. It’s good to have a letter that isn’t just about academics and having your chemistry teacher write it from a volunteering standpoint will give your recommendations some diversity. But DON’T list it as a volunteering recommendation if she’s just writing it as your teacher and about your academics.</p>