<p>Hi CCers,</p>
<p>I'm currently a junior, and have been wondering about letters of recommendation. Stanford, for example, says the following:</p>
<p>Request a Teacher Evaluation from two and no more than two teachers to be submitted (preferably online) by the appropriate deadline. Stanford requests that you ask teachers from two different subject areas from among the following: English, mathematics, science, foreign language, and history/social studies. We also recommend choosing teachers who taught you in grades 11 or 12.</p>
<p>My question is do these teachers have to be high school teachers, or can they be college professors instead? The coursework that best represents my abilities has been at the university level, and I'll be taking all of my courses at a local university (through dual enrollment) next year.</p>
<p>I know certain programs (like RSI) accepted a letter from a college professor in lieu of one from a high school teacher, but I'm not sure if this extends to colleges as well.</p>
<p>Thanks a ton for any replies!</p>
<p>I was actually wondering the same thing. I wanted to get a rec. from a professor at Rutgers as one of my academic teacher evaluations. I think it’s fine because as long as they’re an academic teacher, and have taught you a class, they’re qualified to write a recommendation.</p>
<p>Hopefully it will be fine. Yeah, I agree, as long as they’ve taught you a class, they should be considered a “teacher.”</p>
<p>Anyone else have any knowledge about this?</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that you can do this for most recs. But, it may not be the best option. I considered asking university professors for recommendations when I was applying for colleges, but then decided that they could provide little information that could not be gleaned from a transcript. Some of the classes i took were huge, and all the professor could honestly say would pertain to how well i did in the class. Conversely, recommendations from high school teachers can often be more personal. High school teachers have the opportunity to get to know you better, to advise clubs, to see how you interact with other students. They can tell colleges about your character and personality - most college professors would not be able to do this.</p>
<p>If you think your university professors honestly know you better personally than your high school ones, then go for it! But if you’re just doing it because you want a professor recommendation, it might not be a great idea. I don’t think just having a recommendation from a university professor detailing your academic strength is as helpful and impressive to colleges (especially in the Stanford tier, where most applicants are academically top-notch) as a personal recommendation from a high school teacher that offers insight into who you are beyond your grades.</p>
<p>^ yeah, that’s always true, but the reason I wanted to do it was because I had no high school teachers from which I could get a valuable recommendation. I would honestly not want a professor recommendation if I had other options, because I doubt it will be very good.</p>
<p>wellthatsokay: Thanks a lot, that’s a great point. I ended up having very close contact with my professors due to doing a large amount of research with them outside of class (in fact, the class was a 3000 level independent study in research in their field). I’ve known one professor for over three years now, so a recommendation from him would be really valuable to have. That is, if colleges will accept it :P</p>