I’m a little bit confused about the process of obtaining a letter of recommendation. I’m planning on getting my letters of recommendation before the end of the school year from my math and Spanish teachers to avoid the whirlpool of requests at the beginning of next year.
I heard we’re supposed to give them a “brag sheet” that lists our extracurriculars, activities, challenges, academics, etc for them to base their recommendations off of. What exactly are we supposed to include on this “brag sheet,” and how should it be formatted. Is there an example somewhere?
The brag sheet is really just an informal list of your accomplishments in case the teacher doesn’t know you that well. Normally, these are given to the GC, since the teachers will only be writing about your achievements in their subjects. Your math teacher, for example, won’t be writing about your athletic ability.
For your GC, you would specify any awards, community service, special circumstances, etc.
Include anything that will help the teacher write a stronger letter.
If you know your major, include it. Include activities in and out of school, and volunteer work you’ve done.
Tell what you’ve learned in my class, and how that knowledge might help you down the road.
Tell me about a time when you struggled in my class, and what you did to turn things around. Or what your favorite topic was, and why. How did you adjust to my style of teaching and testing?
My kids first asked the teacher if he/she would be willing to write a positive letter or recommendation for college. If the answer was yes, they followed up by asking if there was any information they could provide to help with the letter. I may be in the minority, but it seems a bit presumptuous to hand the teacher a brag sheet before asking the second question and finding out what, if any, additional information each teacher would like.
In my kid’s expereince the answer to the second question was different for different teachers – one said she wrote the letter from her interactions with the student in and outside of the classroom and did not want anything additional, one had a form she prepared which she asked students to fill out (which asked some questions specific to the class and some general questions about activities etc.), one asked for a list of the top 2-3 most important activities with details on what the student did and why each activity was meaningful, and one said a resume or anything they had would be great.
My kids both prepared resumes which came in handy for interviews. You can google “resume for college” and you will get many examples.