Which teachers should you ask? Anyone who likes you or do you need one science and one humanities teacher? I’ve read in some thread that some colleges have specific requirements for teacher LORs? Please shed some light on this topic if you can.
You are correct. Some colleges have specific preferences. So …start by looking at what your kid’s colleges want.
My music major has three references…his band director, his private music teacher, and his AP English teacher,
My engineering daughter had her AP English teacher, her algebra 2 teacher, and her anatomy/physiology teacher.
There is no secret light to shed. See what the individual colleges say.
And as noted in my example…different majors might want different LORs.
You don’t want teachers that teach the same subject, Ideally a STEM and a humanities, but my D went with 2 humanities (one English; one history) and that was fine. Just pick whoever knows you the best and thinks most highly of you.
If the student is applying to a direct admit engineering program, the school is going to want science and math LORs.
If the student is applying as a music, art, dance or drama major…agin…different LORs.
This poster has given us NO information on which to base an answer, really.
D is still undecided about major in college but scores well across the board. She moved to a new school this year as a junior. She heard from seniors that two science teachers that she has here are known for copy pasting standard letters. Either she can go with one language and one fine arts teachers here or ask a 10th grade teacher at her old school who had her for honors Chem & honors bio. Would that look bad?
Some schools specify one from STEM and one from humanities.
But as for whom you should ask, it’s simple: Ask the teachers who best know and like you. A good LOR is anecdotal and shows knowledge of and admiration for the student in ways that aren’t easily found elsewhere in the app and then reinforces qualities of the student that may also appear in the essays.
Step #1 is to read the directions for the colleges of interest to your D. Many colleges have very specific requirements, e.g., you must submit one from a math or science teacher and another from a social studies, English or foreign language teacher. Others say you can submit any you want. Some specifically require that they be from teachers you had junior or senior year. Others say 10th grade teachers are fine.
My D is a junior and is going to ask her sophomore English teacher who will also be her senior English teacher. She is also going to ask her apush teacher. For an additional one, she’s going to ask the school principal. He loves her and once introduced her to someone as, “this is xxxxx, she pretty much runs this place.”
The first step is to see if the school or major has certain requirements. My D asked her AP physics and AP English teachers. Her guidance counselor also wrote one ( all students had this) and the students were given the opportunity to also get a letter from one of their extra curricular activities that guidance would attach to their letter ( this was optional). Every school that my daughter(s) applied to stated that sending an extra letter of recommendation was fine.
@SugarlessCandy you have to check about asking a teacher from a previous school. If your school uploads letters on Naviance it may be a problem ( not sure). Maybe guidance could attach to his/her letter (see above)? I would have your D call the colleges and ask if letters from her previous school are permitted, and - if yes- would it be possible to email them if necessary. I would also question whether sophomore teachers ( from previous school) are advisable. It may be better to have letters that are more current.
Your D’s recommendation letters should be written by teachers who know her well, and they should not rehash what is already on her application ( this is especially true for competitive schools). The letters should give examples of classroom accomplishments, how she added to the classroom environment, etc. These letters are going to be what helps your daughter stand out amongst the other " perfect" students. Again, these letters may be more or less important depending on the colleges she applies to. For some schools that focus mainly on grades and scores, they may not be as important.
I also suggest asking around to other parents, older students. Some teachers get a reputation - either as an outstanding LOR writer or as one to avoid. My son’s were originally to be from his math and history teacher but in his case the principal asked to write one so his were math and the principal. Neither were his particular major, but the math teacher really has earned that reputation for writing pure gold and really, it’s very hard to so no when the principal asks to write one. He had an additional one that had to be written by the guidance counselor.
Thanks everyone for taking time to give your valuable input.
Some schools allow teachers to limit the number of recommendations they write. Often, first come, first served. So it may make sense to ask teachers whether they would be willing to write a recommendation at the very end of junior year or during the second week of school senior year (not the first week, when teachers are overwhelmed with other work, like straightening out kids’ schedules).
Also, some teachers want a resume or brag sheet of some sort so that they can be sure that anything they say about the student’s extracurricular activities is correct.
One of my kids applied to colleges early decision, but the teachers wanted to write all of her recommendations at the same time. So she had to finalize her full list of colleges in time for the teachers to write recommendations before the ED school’s deadline. We were not aware that this could happen, and it was a challenge to come up with a final list that quickly.
Our kids both asked for LORs the last month of their junior year…so that the teachers could actually DO them before they went on summer break. Both of our kids did the applications in October…so waiting until school started senior year was not going to work.
Both got letters from a few more teachers than they actually used, our guidance office had a record…and sent only the ones needed for DS in 2002.
By 2005, the teachers, in most of our DDs colleges, were asked to upload the LOR to the school. So the kid asked for the LOR, and then provided the uploading information to the teacher at application submission.
I should add…except for a couple who gave our kids copies, we never saw the LORs. They were submitted to the schools directly by the teacher or the school.
Interestingly MIT required a science/math AND a humanities/social science. My older son had not endeared himself to any of his history teachers. He got A’s but tended to have comments on his papers like “you could have used more references”. So he ended up using his physics teacher and his Latin teacher. (He was in AP Latin.) I feel a language teacher is less than ideal, but he felt uncomfortable asking his APUSH teacher.
My younger son loved history and did ask his APUSH. That particular teacher had a long questionaire/list of demands before he’d write the letter. As I recall he asked for the students to list where they were applying and why, what they were considering as majors, what their favorite textbook had been and why, a reminder of what they ended up getting on the AP, and finally a copy of one of the papers they’d written in class with the teacher comments. (No wonder older son didn’t want to go through that!) He ended up also asking his pre-calc teacher even though math was not obviously his strong suit. He loved that teacher, and the teacher appreciated him - actually writing that even though my kid didn’t get the best grades in the class he had one of the best math minds as shown by how he would figure out formulas from scratch when he couldn’t remember them. If often was short on time because he was figuring out problems from first principles. (I didn’t see the letter, but he did show it to my son.)
I suspect my younger kid actually got better recommendations even though objectively he was the less strong student.
Wait, what? Was the teacher writing separate rec letters for each school? This makes no sense to me and doesn’t at all resemble my experiences with LORs. Typically, a teacher writes one LOR per student and each college the student applies to receives that letter.
That isn’t what happened with my second kid…the one where the teacher got a code and had to upload the LOR.
The teacher wrote the letters…but than customized them for the schools…changed the header, and the salutiaion, for example…and the date.
My kids only applied to 7 schools…kid one…and 4 schools…kid two.
For my music major kid…each letter was very individual from the music folks…because often they knew the folks who would be reading them…music major LORs are read by the music deoartment as well as admissions at many schools.
Wow, that’s weird–I grew up at a school where my parents and every adult I knew taught and none of them did it that way. Then I taught at a high school and none of my colleagues did it that way. And of course I didn’t do it that way either. I suspect any benefit from that cursory customization is imaginary and not at all worth the headache. But if good recs come out of it, all’s well that ends well!