<p>I am currently finishing my junior year in high school and will be applying to colleges this coming fall. I want to go into engineering and will be applying to schools like MIT, Caltech, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, etc.
I will be getting one recommendation from my 11th grade AP Physics teacher, as she knows me very well.
I have heard that it is generally frowned upon to get a recommendation from a sophomore year teacher. How true is this?
I want to ask my 10th grade Spanish teacher for one. He also knows me extremely well, and I am the president of my school's chapter of the Spanish National Honor Society, for which he is the adviser.
I could potentially ask a 11th grade teacher instead of him, but none of them know me as well as he does.
I would really appreciate it if anyone could help with this. Thank you all in advance!</p>
<p>Tech schools want to know how you did in math and science classes.
Ask your 11th grade math teacher.
Your third LOR can be from a soft subject teacher.</p>
<p>Actually, MIT wants one recommendation from a math or science teacher and one recommendation from a humanities teacher. Other schools may vary.</p>
<p>A recommendation from a 10th grade teacher works best if you’ve continued to interact with them in 11th grade. That’s the case with you, so you should be fine.</p>
<p>That said, I suggest you check the specific guidelines at each school in which you’re interested.</p>
<p>One of my son recommendations is from a 10th grade AP Chem teacher; the other from 11th grade AP Calc BC teacher. It doesn’t seem to hurt his chance in admissions at places like Swarthmore, Duke etc. Can’t say about MIT though.</p>
<p>Best is to follow the admissions guidelines in terms of teachers (typically junior or senior year class) and subjects. Since the letter from your 10th grade Spanish teacher can help your application send that too.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, the insight really helps. I’ve decided that I’m going to ask both my Spanish teacher and my English teacher this year, so I’ll have a total of 3 recommendations. Maybe I’ll call the schools I’ll be applying to. If any of them want 3 then I’ll send them. For those that want only 2, I can ask how they feel about a Grade 10 teacher and depending on that send the recommendations.
Thoughts?</p>