Over the past couple of years, I’ve been helping out a homebound immigrant neighbor with basic stuff - yard work, cleaning, etc. She has offered on several occasions to write a recommendation letter. However, her English is a little off and the letter wouldn’t exactly be eloquent. Currently, I’m having my guidance counselor, old chemistry teacher, and history teacher write my recommendations. As per Dartmouth requirements, I’m also considering a peer review. Would having my neighbor write a letter of recommendation to be beneficial, or would it be overkill. I’m pretty worried about the quality of my history teachers letter, so I’m hoping this might be a form of compensation? I’m pretty split, so any advice would be great. Also, would her restricted English be an issue? Thanks!
They want 2 LORs from your teachers and peer review from a student. They do not want more. You can send in additional LORs if you should be waitlisted (let’s hope not).
I’m sure lots of kids have chosen all sorts of letter writers. It’ll be interesting to see how others chose. But I’ll give you this, from Dart:
"You might ask a friend from school, or camp, or your neighborhood. It might be a teammate, someone from your community of faith, a co-worker, or a cousin, or sibling. It is entirely up to you. It can be any peer you believe will provide fresh insight into your interests and your character.
It is important that it be a peer, however. We don’t want another letter from a teacher, coach, or other supervisory presence in your life; we have enough of those."
They emphasize “peer” for several reasons. This is still about learning about you as a possible member of their community.
Why not ask a different teacher?
Thanks for clearing things up everyone. I’m not going to submit my neighbor’s recommendation for Dartmouth, I’ll just do the normal peer review. For other schools, should I exclude both, or still include the peer recommendation? Or possibly just my neighbor’s recommendation? I think our school automatically does guidance counselor recommendations, so I’ll already have that and two teachers.
I’ve also gotten mixed messages at my Cornell information session where the guy said that this is your one shot so you want to include as much as possible. However, I also know that adding extra could seem like a means of compensating. Maybe I’ll call a couple schools and see what they say.
Oldfort, I’m a little weak with available recommendations from the humanities department. This is the only teacher I’ve had for more than a semester both in English and History. From what I understand, pretty much all school recommend one from each department and some schools require it. I’m not even sure it’s going to be that weak, but the teacher is very hard to read. He said no to a lot of people, only taking on 5 or so Recommendations. I take it as a good sign that he agreed, but some things stood out as strange in my conversation with him.
There’s a chance I’ll have an English teacher that I grew pretty close to again next year for two classes, but I’d rather not rely on a potential recommendation. Besides, it might be a bit late if I wait - can I opt out of a particular teachers recommendation if they’ve already submitted it (talking to guidance counselor, maybe)?
Sorry I just threw so much stuff on this post - hopefully it’s decipherable.
Are you asking if you should send other colleges a Dart peer letter? How do you think other colleges would react?
Cornell doesn’t mean throw everything at them . You’re supposed to know what they do ask for, it’s on their web pages. Two LoR from teachers means two LoR. The GC is separate. Random extra info can seem like you don’t understand what they look for.
It doesn’t sound like you’ve carefully read what the colleges say. Do that before calling them to ask anything.
Like @lookingforward stated, you need to read what each school at Cornell requires. They are not the same. Send what they ask for, no more, no less.
My D had the same teacher for two years but the teacher’s attitude and her command of English was not questionable. My D skipped that teacher even though, on the surface, it would have been her choice. She chose two other teachers who taught her only one year each. She was convinced that one of the two teachers bareły knew her.
Both teachers were graciously accepted her requests. They asked my D to discuss her college goals and aspiration with them before they wrote her the letters of recommendation. That was very thoughtful of the teachers. You may want to ask your teachers if you could meet with them or give them a write up about yourself (a brag sheet). You want them to know you well to write a good/convincing LoR.
GC met my D before he wrote the LoR and was happy to receive a parents’ brag sheet from us. He said the brag sheet was helpful.
On one of our (many) college tours, the info session AO basically begged and pleased not to send additional recommendations, because they only very rarely add to the overall package and because of the high ratio of applications to staff members. He said, one recent year, an application included EIGHTEEN additional recommendations! The student did not get in.
I meant to say that the teacher (she skipped)’s attitude and command of English was questionable.
We attended a few college info sessions. They often mentioned to follow their requirements.
Yeah so I must have misunderstood. I’m just going to stick with the basic recommendations and, as suggested, only send in more if weightlisted (which hopefully won’t happen). I was asking before if I should send Dartmouth’s peer review to other colleges, lookingforward, but it seems best not to do this.
Rphcfb, the teacher did ask for a brag sheet, but rather than the traditional format, he wanted 3 direct examples from class that displayed a particular skill of mine. He seemed to understand that colleges don’t want generic “this kid is dedicated” statements, which I think is good - his request for examples to use to base the recommendation around seemed to support this. Princetonreview offered similar advice in their examples of “good letters”. However, there were some things that he disagreed with me about during our recommendation discussion (he’s a very direct person, and from what I understand he did the same with at least some of his other ~5 requests), and was kinda “extracting” why I wanted him to write the review. It was hard to tell whether he was unsure about writing it or if he was just trying to get better info; from what I’ve written the former seems more believable, but I think the latter is true. Anyways, I sent him an email with 3 examples (paragraphs) as he said this was about all he would have room for in a recommendation. He said that if he agreed with what I wrote, that he would write it. At the end of the email I asked if he agreed, but got no response. I expect this is because he didn’t open it yet. He’s a pretty busy teacher so I’ll have to follow up with him at some point. Does this teacher’s approach to my recommendation seem good or bad? I understand it’s hard to tell without knowing the guy and with me tossing in observations. However, if anyone can give advice or an approach to this, it’d be much appreciated.
I’d also like to note that he’s notorious for grading writing hard, although I’ve never had a chance to read a piece of his own. I expect it will be easy to follow and thorough, though.
Once again I have a lot of condensed info, so let me know if this needs to be broken down. Thanks again everyone.
I think your history teacher will write a very good recommendation letter if he agrees to do it. The fact that he only agreed to write 5 LORs and you are one of the 5 is a good sign.
My kid asked 3 teachers for LOR and I asked the GC to read them and pick 2. We were concerned with the physics teacher’s English (his native language was Spanish), but it turned out to be one of the best.
I agree that the history teacher would write a good recommendation letter. He seems to care about getting your info accurately before he writes the letter. I think both of your teachers will do a good job for you.
At my D school, students do not have a chance to read LoRs. They are sent directly from the school to colleges.
I’m glad that you both have similar impressions to his mannerism. He does seem to honestly care about the quality of the recommendation. Rphcfb, my school does the same thing which is why I’m being pretty cautious. However I think they stop in at the guidance counselors office for a little while, so maybe, like oldfort, I’ll see if my counselor is up to reading it and letting me know if it’s solid. Thanks!
Do submit the volunteer hours you have used to help her on for your ECs on your application.
Bopper, I’m not really sure what you mean by this.