<p>Anyone here want to speculate on the weight of the teacher recs. relative to the other parts of the application?</p>
<p>I actually think teachers' recs aren't important as most other components of the application:
GPA/transcript
Test scores
ECs
Essays
Counselor Rec
Teacher Recs</p>
<p>The way I've heard it, your teachers have to be willing to go to bat for you. Good recs won't outweight bad grades and standarized test scores, but I know that they can work against good ones. Let's say you are valedictorian with perfect SAT scores. If your teacher recs make you seem lazy and as if you never worked for those grades or as if your snobbish, you could be screwed. Character is a big deal to any school, but especially for the Ivies, they want students who are passionate and driven.</p>
<p>They may not be the deciding factor, but let's say your teetering between acceptance and deferral/rejection, then they can swing your case one way or the other.</p>
<p>I think it depends, a really good or really bad teacher rec could have a big impact on an application, but an average rec is not going to make much of a difference either way.</p>
<p>I disagree with wink's list. From what I remember from all my info sessions, every admissions officer made it clear that teacher recs were one of the most important components of the app, at least more important than SATs and ACTs, and the like. Probably just behind the transcript in importance from the way they listed things. Which makes sense. You may be great at marketing yourself, but what do other people think of you? How are you going to be in the classroom? How do you fit into the greater context? It is one of the few pieces of outside information that they get about you. I'd definitely pay close attention to something like that.</p>
<p>On choosing your teachers: Don't go for the classes where you got an A+ unless that was a class you were active in and excited about. One of the teachers I chose, I have a B in her class right now, but she has seen me work diligently for my grades and knows how excited and dedicated I am to learning. Her rec is superb because of that.</p>
<p>The class in which I think I did the absolute best in (an A+ literally) I would not want that teacher writing my rec. Unfortunately the material came easy to me and I wasn't exactly the hardest worker nor the best student. If that teacher wrote me a rec, I doubt I would get in most places. =/</p>