<p>Okay, so I have a pretty big problem. One of the colleges that I'm applying to requires 2 letters of recommendation from core class teachers from Junior or Senior year. This wouldn't be as much of an issue, except for the fact that I left my school about halfway through my Junior year and began attending another. I don't feel that it was enough time for any of my teachers to get to know me at all, at either schools. I moved back to my original school and will be attending my Senior year there, but the application is due in November, so my Senior year teachers won't have enough time to get to know me either. I'm really at a loss about what to do, because I don't have any teachers that I think could write my recommendations. Does anyone have any suggestions?</p>
<p>I would suggest either trying really hard to get to know your senior year teachers, or going back as far as sophomore year for recommendations. If your teachers remember you, that is.</p>
<p>If I understand you correctly, you began junior year in one school, transferred mid-year to a second school, and now you’re finishing junior year back in the original school. Is that right?</p>
<p>Is there any chance of your having next year one of the same teachers you had in the fall of eleventh grade? That would help a lot. Is it possible for you to talk to someone from the guidance department at your once-and-future school and get some help with this situation.</p>
<p>What’s clear is that even if you can’t have the perfect solution to your problem, you can’t have no solution. You’ll have to identify teachers to write those letters. If I have understood you correctly, and you attended the second school for a portion of junior year that included neither the beginning nor the end of the school year, you’re probably not going to find teachers there to write for you. (If you were going to, you’d probably already know it, and you wouldn’t be asking us.) </p>
<p>So you’re going to have to ask teachers from the school where you’re going to be a senior. I’m sure it won’t be easy to ask either your junior or your senior teachers for a letter, but you have no choice. Select a teacher you think seems likely to be receptive to the request, and lay your cards on the table. Say you know you’re asking for a letter that might be difficult to write, but you don’t have a lot of options. Offer to spend as much time as the teacher would like talking about you, your school story, your educational goals and plans, and all that rot. If it helps at all, keep in mind that most teachers are actually fairly compassionate people, and most of them stay in teaching because they actually like students. I think most teachers will want to help you if they can.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot both of you! I’m picking two teachers whose classes I think I spoke the most in. Hopefully they’ll be willing to help me out with this.</p>
<p>I hope so, too. And really, if you lay it all out there, I bet they will. </p>
<p>If they thought about it, they’d probably be able to explain exactly the kind of pickle you’re in. But they have scores of students on their minds, so it may simply not have occurred to them. Explain the problem clearly, and I bet they’ll do what they can to help you. I would.</p>