<p>Do they really matter? I am sending two, but just curiosity</p>
<p>Well, their importance depends on where you are applying, but colleges that ask for letters of recommendation will certainly use them in some way.</p>
<p>They matter, but not for the reasons that many people may think.</p>
<p>Just about all recommendation letters are positive, but colleges aren’t truly looking for superficial statements about how John is a ‘superior student’ who aces all his tests and quizzes. Teacher recommendations are a way of gathering personal qualities from a teacher’s relationship with a student within extracurricular activities, and can provide a way of determining an applicant’s passion for learning (ie. did John get an ‘A’ in the class because he was seeking the grade, or is he passionate about learning new material and/or helping other students?). Teacher recommendations, just like everything else in the application process, provide insight into an applicant.</p>
<p>MIT has a good article on this topic, here:</p>
<p><a href=“How to write good letters of recommendation | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs</a></p>