Rec Letter Quandary

Applying to College Common and Coalition Application
1

Hi!

I need advice. I have four teachers whom I’m considering asking to write my rec letters. I’m planning on applying SCEA to Harvard. In parentheses are the years I have had these teachers.

Teacher 1: Science Teacher
Classes had: Honors Physical Science (freshman), Honors Biology (sophomore)
Clubs I did with teacher as leader: none
Already have seen letter, very generic.

Teacher 2: Engineering Teacher
Classes had: Principles of Engineering (sophomore), Digital Electronics (junior), Engineering Design and Development (senior), IB Design Technology HL (junior and senior)
Clubs I did with teacher as leader: Robotics (junior and senior)

Involvement in club: President of Marketing Team (got over 15k in grant money, sponsorships, etc.)

Teacher 3: English Teacher
Classes had: Honors English I (freshman)
Clubs I did with teacher as leader: Student Council (Freshmen-Senior)
Involvement in club: I am student body president. We work together almost daily on all things pertaining to student council. We do many things to help the school and we do many charity events.

Teacher 4: English Teacher
Classes had: Honors English II (sophomore)
Clubs I did with teacher as leader: none
This teacher is a great writer, notorious for good rec letters.

In general, I’m trying to steer clear of generic letters.

I’m trying to have one humanities letter and one math/science letter. What do you guys think? Who should I pick? Thanks!

2

Personally I’d go with Teacher 2, and either Teacher 3 or 4 (can’t quite decide). I think Harvard recommends having junior/senior year teachers write your recommendations since they have a more recent idea of what you are like academically and as a person. Junior/senior year teachers also have seen you cope with the most difficult/advanced work, and can thus offer more insight into your intellectual capabilities.

With Teacher 3 and Teacher 4, I think it depends on how well Teacher 4 knows you. Even if Teacher 4 is a good rec writer, that may well be because they had great relationships with the students for which they wrote recs in the past, and knew them really well and were therefore able to write really well about that particular student. This might not apply for you if the last time you saw them was in sophomore year. Just be wary of that.

This is just an idea: if at all possible would you be able to get both Teacher 3 and 4 to submit recs to your Guidance Counsellor, and let them pick the best of the 2? I know it’s kind of unfair on the teachers to have to write recs you might not be using, but because you mentioned Teacher 1 had already written you one, they might be willing to do so?