I am planning to ask for recommendation letters soon, and I know colleges want to see at least one STEM teacher write one. My current precalculus teacher has seen me put in effort over the last semester, and my grades have improved over time. However, I still have a 74% in the class, and it won’t change at this point in the year.
Should I still ask him for a recommendation letter, hoping he notes my improvements and clear effort in learning the material? If not, I have an on-level chemistry teacher who has taken a liking to me. The field I want to pursue is foreign affairs, so either way, their letters may not have as much impact as my social studies/government teachers.
If you are not applying for STEM, WHY would you pick this teacher? Honestly why would you pick this teacher anyway? All he can say is you are not as good in math as many of your peers but you work hard? Is that even relevant for someone who wants to study politics?
The only thing I would ask him at this point is whether there is anything you can do to improve your grade?!
You really want to highlight the C you are getting?
Get a recommendation from at least one socisal studies and then one other in another field, language (assuming they write well), English, some other core academic subject. If your chemistry teacher likes you and you are doing well, fine. Two AP or honors teachers would be better.
If this teacher and you get along very well, and if you think this teacher is going to make very honest and positive comments about your effort (did you get a tutor/go in for extra help/take notes in class/show consistent improvement/work hard/participate in class), and your personality, then I actually think it is fine to ask this teacher. BUT, if there are other teachers you have a better rapport with, and better grades, then it is better to ask them, even if one is an English teacher and one is a history teacher, for example.
You want to pursue Internatonal relations and the C on your transcript is going to be seen by adcoms, regardless of who writes your rec. In light of what you want to study, I don’t think it is critical to have recs from totally different core subjects. The most important consideration for recs should be that the teacher and you like and respect each other and that you work hard in the class. The rec serves to give adcoms an insight to your character, which is why they are important. Your character can be spoken of by the teachers that know you the best. In an ideal world, they would be in very differnt core subjects, but the world isn’t always ideal.
I have a kid who is doing poorly in a math class, the teacher tends to dismiss K3’s efforts despite the fact that K3 has worked with a parent for several tests and is now working with a tutor weekly since the parent effort did not work. The feedback I get from the teacher is not positive despite K3’s efforts. Also, the teacher seems indifferent to K3’s efforts.
If the teacher REALLY knows you are working hard and is still giving you a C, and is not helping you improve, then it says something about the teacher as well.
I also do not think that colleges always care about effort if it does not pay off. I think it is one thing to have a recommendation say, Student struggled in my class at the begining but worked until he understood it and is now getting As and the only reason I could not give him an A for the year is because his first quarter was bad. That would be ok. Your recommendation will read, Student worked hard and got a C which was the best he could do and he is a really hard worker. Not the same.
You are basing this selection upon assumption that colleges want to see a recommendation from a STEM teacher - I have never heard of that being a requirement or even a desire on behalf of colleges. My sense is that colleges want a recommendation from a teacher of a core academic subject but it doesn’t need to be a STEM subject.
Don’t pick a teacher if you are doing bad in the class. I picked teachers based on how much they know me and how much effort I put into the class. I ended up picking my English and US History teachers to write my recs, and I plan on majoring in biology or BME. While I did well in my science and math classes, I didnt ask the teachers because two of the science teachers retired (the other was freshman AP Bio so that was out the window), but I would’ve asked none of them because there were little connection, and for math I just felt I didn’t show effort and she caught me copying hw (lol) once.
I applied to several top 20 colleges, and I highly doubt the reason I was accepted/rejected was because of a STEM teacher rec. Truth is, the teachers end up saying similar things, because they are all talking about YOU.
My kids were both humanities/social science kids, and we never heard, as part of our pretty comprehensive process, that you should have a recommendation from a STEM teacher for a non-STEM kid. My kids had recs from teachers in classes where they worked hard and excelled, and the teachers knew them well as individuals – typically, English, History, foreign language.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the mean GPA for high school girls in recent years is a 3.1 and the mean for boys is a 2.9. Hence a B is the average grade for high school students in the U.S. A grade of C is definitely below average.
Just to play Devil’s advocate, I maintain my stance on what I said earlier, emphasizing the “if” factor. Using my son as an example, he is dyslexic and dysgraphic. He works very very hard to get 70s in Spanish. He goes in during his lunch period for extra help. He also goes to the support center for extra help. He is a very likable young man, and his teacher indeed likes him. He puts forth a LOT of effort to get a C in that class. Now, he is only in 9th grade, so this won’t be happening, but if he were asking for a teacher rec right now, I would be happy for him to ask his Spanish teacher, IF he didn’t have a better choice. He spends a lot of time with the Spanish teacher, and I am sure she would write him a very good rec. I can’t believe any college would find fault with a teacher recommendation in this instance, even though he is only getting a C. I imagine that this scenario is the exception rather than the rule.
I do not think Op indicated that he had an IEP or 504. He simply is not great at math despite some effort. He did not indicate what level of college he will be applying to. If he is applying to the most competitive levels, a C will hamper him but those colleges also do not want to know that a “C” is the best you can do as I stated in my prior post. Also, Op is a junior, he should have better choices and if he does not then he has bigger problems.
I had a friend who attended a top tier college with Dyslexia. Although his school had a 2 year language requirement he was exempt from it because, as he put it, he had a hard enough time reading in his native language! I believe he was exempt in high school as well which allowed him to have the GPA for an Ivy. Plus although it was the stone ages, his mom was very proactive in making sure his education proceeded well. He went on to have a successful career in insurance and is very happy and never missed not learning a second language.
@annana, not even Harvard requires a STEM LOR. From the FAQS on the website:
“Who should write my recommendations? Teachers who know you well and who have taught you in academic subjects (preferably in the final two years of secondary school) typically will provide us with the most valuable testimony. Whenever possible, teachers should tell us about your non-academic interests and personal qualities as well as academic potential.”
The first step in securing a recommendation is asking the teacher if he or she can write a strong recommendation for you. Most teachers have more LOR requests than they want to deal with and if they feel they can’t provide a positive recommendation, they will decline the request or at least suggest that you seek an alternative. I think it’s unlikely this teacher will even want to recommend you, so this may be a non-issue. But in any case, you’d do better to find another teacher, one who can tell colleges how wonderful you are.
@annana what are you talking about? Nowhere on the common app or any of the colleges I applied to had any STEM rec requirements. Sure, if you are trying to get into an engineering/science major, they could RECOMMEND a STEM rec, but not a requirement at most schools.