I’m hoping to get in to top tier schools (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, UChicago, etc), and I know that recommendation letters are very important. I think I can get a good letter from my junior year (current) AP Literature teacher, but I think the best letter I can get would probably be from my honors geometry and honors algebra 2 teacher. I had her two years in a row and feel like I was pretty close to her; however, colleges strongly recommend junior year teachers from high level classes for recommendation letters. Should I try to ingratiate myself with some of my other current teachers through the remainder of the school year (I do well in their classes but am not sure how much they like me… They seem to think I’m too grade obsessed and/or talk to much (I can’t blame them I suppose…))? How much of a setback could it be for me to submit the letter from that freshman/sophomore teacher?
Submit the freshman/sophmore one as an additional rec.
For the two main recs, my GC finds that it’s so strongly recommended you get a junior/senior teacher to write one that, at my school, we are not even allowed to seek out our old teachers to write them. This is because colleges want to know who you are NOW, not who you were as a freshman - high school changes people. One of the ways they can ensure they get a more recent impression of you is through your current teachers.
I personally would get ingratiating!!
IMHO - Ask the Soph teacher. I had 2 kids get into NU, one was ED and the other RD, and both had Soph teacher rec letters. Different soph teachers BTW. I think that a good letter can build on the theme that “Little Oddsbeater has been a star performer since early on”, yada yada yada. I certainly think that a teacher that knows you well is better qualified to write a good letter. Good luck!
Perhaps if you squint and this and read it again you’ll understand why colleges want to see recs from recent teachers…