<p>I have a question about rec letters.</p>
<p>Does it matter what teacher you get the letter from? I want to go into Chemical Engineering, but I know I can get the best possible recommendation letter from my Japanese teacher. I'm pretty sure I can get a good recommendation letter from my calculus and chemistry teachers, but I've only known them for about a year.</p>
<p>Get a letter from the Japanese teacher. Major aside, you want to be the most appealing applicant possible to X college and a teacher rec that will give some depth to your app is tremendously helpful. Your grades, test scores, and ECs can show colleges your interests in your major and your academic caliber, but a teacher rec from someone who knows you well will show how you are as a person. </p>
<p>Additionally, it can show colleges well-roundedness with the rec coming from a foreign language teacher. </p>
<p>This is the general rule from colleges, but research the ones you are interested in because they might require you to have rec letters only from teachers who are related to your intended major. </p>
<p>First, check the requirement of the school. Some require only Junior/Senior teacher from core subjects (4 cores or 5-cores if including world language). Other than that, you should invite teachers that can cover different angles of you. You may invite multiple ones and assign them to different school applications on CommonApp depending on the school requirement. Some schools would allow more than 2 LOR too.</p>
<p>@billcsho, do you think it’d be safe to request a recommendation letter from my Honors Pre-Cal teacher even though I’ve only had him for 2 trimesters? I don’t know him that well, but it’s notable that I aced the class both trimesters. Also, is it too late to start asking for rec letters? :/</p>
<p>@jm9715 It is not late at all if you have initial contacts with the teachers by the end of this semester. I suggest to contact all three. That would get you covered pretty well. By the time you fill the applications, you will know which teacher to assign to which school. In some cases, you can have all 3. My D asked 4 teachers to write recommendation for her and the schools she applied request/accept 0-4 recommendation letters. Also she applied a few scholarships that need recommendation letters too. It would be nice to have the flexibility to pick different teachers according to the recipients. Also, one of the teacher agreed to write up to 4 recommendation letters (all on CommonApp considered as 1).</p>