<p>My teacher who's writing my letter of rec asked me to send her a resume with my accomplishments.</p>
<p>Would this be a sufficient list, or am I forgetting something/should leave a certain group out? Should I put in GPA/test scores? How specific should these be? Should I only include what'd make for a good rec letter and that I want her to talk about?</p>
<p>Extra-curricular activities:</p>
<p>Yearbook - Editor in Chief
Varsity Forensics
FIRST Robotics
Varsity ski team
JV A tennis team
National Honor Society</p>
<p>Presidential Community Service Award
Distinction in Forensics
AP Scholar
Principal's List (all terms)</p>
<p>Is this sufficient? How should I format it? Should I include time commitments to these? Should I only include significant achievements, like leadership and awards? Thank you for your insights!</p>
<p>She’s going to just work a few details into the recommendation. I suggest including a quick sentence or two after each item to explain exactly it is/what you did. There’s practically no way she’ll be able to work in “Detroit relief summer nonprofit - leader” because she might not have any idea what that is. She can’t work in your Kumon tutoring because she doesn’t know what subject/age you tutored. She can’t work in FIRST Robotics because she doesn’t know what the Robotics team made or accomplished. Etc etc.</p>
<p>GPA and test scores aren’t really necessary but feel free to include them as well.</p>
<p>Good points. Unfortunately, our robotics team really didn’t do too well - we didn’t make it past regionals. The community service role was intentionally vague for this website, hahaha. Should I put only the really significant ECs on, like the ones I made achievements in? Should sports go on?</p>
<p>In addition to the resume, we complete a “brag sheet” that has words to describe applicant, future goals, list of schools in consideration, expected major and why, greatest strength, weakness, etc, and a paragraph about our most important EC and why. It has been bery helpful with the teachers so far. Also, we include the transcript so far and list of senior classes. Anything that helps the teacher write about you as a person can be helpful.</p>
<p>My teacher actually said, “send me a brag sheet, like a resume.” so she’s probably considering to the two the same thing. What is your definition of a brag sheet? Since you seem to have experience with this, what, out of my resume, would you suggest I include on it? Thanks!</p>
<p>Your school doesn’t have a brag sheet for recommendations? I find that a bit odd. Anyway, its basically all your extracurricular activities/involvements, community service, work experience, academic awards, and athletic involvement listed neatly, with some detail, and the year(s) in which you participated in each thing. </p>
<p>Ours also includes GPA and class rank, which I guess you can choose to include or not.</p>
<p>One thing admission officers say is, they hope to learn something new about you from each piece of the application. If they read your form app with stats + ECs and then all your recs and essays repeat the same stuff, what have they missed knowing about you as a person and what you would contribute to their college community?</p>
<p>So to avoid your teacher rec being solely “great in my class” + does all this other stuff, think about some personal characteristics and qualities that you want to also convey about yourself. Even better if you can support them with an anecdote that your teacher will remember from that class. Include these on the resume/brag sheet, e.g., “If you have seen any of these qualities in me (or other positive ones I may not have included!), I would like colleges to know a little bit about who I am as a person, including the fact that I am: a leader - remember my leadership of Team da Vinci during World History; a creative problem solver and communicator - recall the time I videotaped basketball free throws to explain trajectory in Physics; a caring member of the school community - when classmate was out ill for two weeks, I went to her home and tutored her daily; quick wit and effective use of humor without being the class clown - remember when !!!; etc.” </p>
<p>Note how this can be an effective tool for meeting a “weakness” in your profile, for example, if you weren’t a “traditional” leader via officer of this and that among your EC’s, let a teacher inject your leadership skills. It can also demonstrate something that would probably not be made known anywhere else in your app, e.g., If you pride yourself on your organizational and time management skills and how this enables you to achieve your personal best managing academics and ECs, getting a teacher to remark on it is terrific.</p>
<p>Obviously, you don’t want to give the same list of “qualities/examples” to both teachers who are writing your recs. And realistically, each teacher only needs 2-3. But if there is one trait you really want to emphasize, e.g., leadership, then you could include it on both lists, simply customizing the example to each teacher/classroom situation.</p>
<p>When you give your teachers your brag sheet, chat with them about your ideas and what you want to come through in their recs. Obviously, you are picking teachers you have a good relationship with, so they should be very receptive to your ideas and will likely brainstorm with you just what to cover.</p>
<p>liv4physicz- the “we” in my post is rgarding the family. S has a brag sheet, and I as a parent have to complete one for GC and teacher recs. I do also mentor low-income students in another school district nad help them create their own brag sheet.
Here are some sample questions. </p>
<ol>
<li>Give 5 additional descriptive adjectives that tell something about you as a person.</li>
<li>What do you consider to be your academic weakness and what have you done to overcome that weakness?</li>
<li>If you were to describe yourself as a student, how would you do that? Give a specific example of an academic accomplishment in high school of which you are especially proud of and why. </li>
<li>Describe a/an experience/class/teacher/project/lab/book, etc that changed your viewpoint or attitude in some way. Describe the experience in detail and why it changed you.</li>
<li>What kind of person are you?</li>
<li>Tell us about any event or happening that has helped to shape your growth or way of thinking?</li>
<li>What do you consider your MOST important activity and why.</li>
<li>Tell us about your leadership qualities, motivations and passions.</li>
<li>At this time, what are you thinking about as a career choice or college major? If so, what is it?</li>
<li>What do you hope to accomplish in college and after? Consider not only career goals but also broader life goals. </li>
<li>Why is a college education important to you? Be sure to mention first one in immediate family to complete college.</li>
<li>Anything else that would convince a college to say YES to your application for admission?</li>
</ol>