<p>I'm starting to line up teachers for potential recommendations, and I have two in mind that I'm positive would give me great recommendations. However, my top choice school (Wesleyan) suggests a rec from a science/math teacher and one from a humanities teacher, which presents me with this dilemma: as a humanities kid through-and-through, my absolute best recs will come from my freshman English teacher (whom I still see regularly for literary magazine meetings) and my current APUSH teacher.</p>
<p>To calm my nerves, I'm going to ask my sophomore chem teacher for a recommendation, since he's the only science teacher I ever had any sort of relationship with. But I'd like to submit all three recs, because the prior two would really speak the most about my character and my work ethic. My question is, then, would the top LAC's and small universities (Wesleyan, Vassar, Haverford, Tufts, Brandeis) take the time to read 3 recs? Or would adding the third one be overkill? I want to make sure I have all my bases covered, but I don't want to send in a weaker rec in place of a strong one simply to fulfill a "suggestion" from a particular school...although Wesleyan's "suggestion" appears to be more along the lines of a requirement for admission. :-(</p>
<p>No type of relationship with the math teachers?</p>
<p>I doubt it would hurt if you sent in all three. Many students send in an additional letter of recommendation, generally from a coach or a teacher they know very well. Consider it as a "supplemental material."</p>
<p>Skramata: All my math teachers are from Eastern Europe and don't speak English very well, so forming relationships with them has been difficult. Plus, I don't exactly demonstrate much enthusiasm in their classes, since - and I do not hesitate to say - I really hate math. I manage to pull off A's, but I don't have nearly as much passion for math as I do for English. >_></p>
<p>So the adcoms won't just toss a third rec? Good...I guess I'll talk to my chem teacher and see if he feels he could write me a good rec. I forgot to add in the first post, though, that I'll be working at my local newspaper over the summer, and if I could get a really good rec from more of a "boss" type as opposed to just a teacher, would that be helpful? Or is three really the limit? If four would be pushing it, then I won't send it, for fear of total overkill.</p>
<p>Ooh, that sounds like a good idea -- as long as you know that your newspaper boss writes well (... I would hope he/she writes well). As hiawathat1919 said, four might be overkill. So when next year comes along, you'll just have to choose between a good boss rec and a good teacher rec.</p>
<p>But for Columbia, I got a rec each from two of my school teachers and another from my GC; all three were required though. I agree that 4-5 would overkill. 3 recommendations are good enough to know how good a student you are.</p>
<p>When I applied to wesleyan, I also sent in 3 recs. one from a computer science teacher, one from an english teacher, and one from the math chair, whom I knew very well. I called admissions before sending the third rec and they said go for it. so I wouldn't worry- send in the third rec!</p>