I was on vacation to do some crafting out of state this weekend. One of the people I was with was a Japanese teacher at a large (4000+ student) high school in California. While she was there she took time out to finish up a recommendation letter for a student who is applying to several schools including Yale. She worked so hard on that letter. Looking at his brag sheet, reading and rereading the letter, etc. She said this is what she does for all her students. She has about 35 - 40 letters to write this year. I was very interested that it isn’t just a letter. There is the letter, then a form that has a couple 1000 word short answer questions etc. (Common App). She was telling me that some schools ask for a supplemental letter and only give them 2 weeks to get it. Some teachers won’t do it but she told her students she will (assuming the student is in good standing). This is on top of additional letters for scholarships etc. Of course they do these on their own time. She was just so invested in her students’ success and doing the best she can to help them. She said she only turned down one student and that is because he got caught cheating in her class twice - but still asked for a letter! She just said that she couldn’t write a letter that would be positive. She gave me a really good feeling and I wanted to pass it on. I would have loved to have her write a LOR for my student!
If you have a story about someone you know has gone above and beyond for your students or others put it here. It is nice to hear the good stories!
Older S would not have gone to his school (W&L) had it not been for one of his teachers. Sad to say I had never heard of it, despite living in VA for 30+ years and driving by the exit to/from college in my day.
That teacher was an alum who took his best/favorite (?) 1-3 students each year for an overnight visit. They’d meet with administration, teachers, went to a football game, and hung out with (spent the night with) former students from our area.
He came back loving the school, but still had his sights on others. He was invited to the Johnson scholars weekend - I’m sure the teacher’s rec helped! - and while he wasn’t offered that, he got a full tuition scholarship that was guaranteed for 4 years that increased with tuition increases. When he was waitlisted at UPenn and the final 1693 recipient at W&M accepted (S was first alternate), he chose W&L. It wound up being a perfect fit for him. He did really well there and was very happy.
And he never would have gone if not for that teacher! Unfortunately, he retired before younger S could have him.
Edit: I will add the support didn’t stop there. He would visit campus every so often and take the local students out to lunch. He is a good person. And a good recruiter for the school lol
Colleges that want LoRs, especially supplemental school specific ones, should really think about the consequences of overburdening teachers or blocking some students from applying due to LoR rationing.
Or maybe that is the point to put an indirect thumb on the scale for students in elite prep schools where teachers have time for, are expected to, and are trained to write good LoRs for every student, and the college counseling staff allocates students to teachers to avoid overburdening any teacher.
There were two stand outs for my D in HS. Her physics and o chem teacher, who was also the dean of students, knew her really well and wrote an amazing LOR that he showed her after the fact. The other was her engineering teacher and the sci-oly coach who nominated her for some outside STEM awards and gave her a pathway to really distinguish herself. He also messaged her after his final to congratulate her and tell her that when athletes score TDs in a big game, there is a stadium full of people cheering, but when someone has a big academic win, it’s personal and quiet. He wanted to make sure that she knew he was cheering from the side lines and celebrating her victory. I still have that message printed out in her memory book.
In his freshman year, ShawSon was doing well but was very frustrated. As a brilliant but severely dyslexic kid, he found his classwork was filled with busywork that he found painful and tiring but that the subjects that were easy for him (honors math, honors biology) were painfully slow. In addition to working with the Special Ed department, I had shared with every teacher the results of his neuropsychological and psycho-educational (I think that is what it is) testing. I explained to each teacher what the test results would mean for his/her particular class and what accommodations would help. With honors math, he said, “Dad, we discussed an idea on Monday. I get it on Monday. We’re still doing it on Friday.” And, in a number of the classes there were lots of makework assignments and they were not really teaching him how to write in English. I came with proposals for most of the teachers consistent with the IEP that had been granted in the summer before school. Largely, the teachers ignored me. The Deputy Superintendent of School stepped in and suggested something the school had never done, which was partial homeschooling that would enable ShawSon to take lab science, art and social studies in school but to do English (where he really needed to learn to write at a level matching his intellect) and math (where I could hire a grad student to do math at a much faster pace and cover interesting topics). We followed her suggestion and his learning was much improved and his life was better. She had attended some of his IEP team meetings. She also stopped in to hear him when he was in the finals of the Moot Court tournament and when he was awarded the Best of Show in the Senior art show. When it came time to apply to college, the Deputy Superintendent (who had by then become the School District Superintendent) volunteered to write his recommendation. She wrote a strong letter (she sent me a copy) saying that it was very unusual for her to write a recommendation for a student but that he was a highly unusual student and she ended the letter saying she thought he would make a significant impact in our world. Absolutely above and beyond the call of duty.
D19’s counselor/Advisor went above and beyond in helping her through some rough points in high school, gave her support when she needed it, and he was the one who nominated her for Posse.
