D asked her math teacher for recommendation.
Teacher said she can write recommendation about work ethic and grade improvement.
teacher said she cannot write anything about her personality as she is a quiet kid.
Please advise if D can go ahead an let the teacher know if she wants the teacher to write college recommendation.
or would it be better if she asks her 10th grade or 9th grade teachers for recommendation.
What sort of picture does your student want to paint? If she wants to show that she’s a quiet, hard working, studious person then this is the perfect teacher. If she wants to claim to be a natural leader, this is the wrong teacher.
What do the other junior year teachers say? She can have more than one teacher write a letter, and have the guidance counselor pick the best one to send.
student is quiet, studious, hard working and a very responsible student.
participates in class and also has a leadership role in speech club.
maybe it is ironic that a speech club leader is a quiet person.
student is interested in engineering so wants a science or math teacher recommendation.
Math and Physics are the only stem subjects that are full year classes and all the rest are humanities or semester classes.
Physics teacher chooses who to give recommendations to and lets kids know at end of the year. so it will be too late to wait and see if that physics teacher will give recommendation or not. (student has a B in physics and A in calculus)
for now, looks like the options are this math teacher or 10th or 9th grade teachers recommendations.
Note: student received excellent recommendations from 9th grade biology and computer science teachers for some summer programs. 10th grade chemistry teacher mentioned at the end of 10th grade that she can give college recommendation if needed.
What sort of schools is she applying to? It may not matter that much. That said, I feel like the teacher is strongly suggesting someone else might be a better choice.
My younger son got a recommendation from a math teacher - I thought he was nuts since he’d been a B+ student, but the teacher actually wrote a great recommendation that talked about how my kid actually was better at real mathematical thinking that kids who were better at memorizing formulas. (His tests were full of proofs of things he’d forgotten the exact formula for.) My kid loved the teacher and got along well with him.
any more advice is much appreciated.
You don’t really need a personality reference from your math teacher. Work ethic and grade improvement sounds to me like relevant info for a teacher recommendation.
Check the common data sets for the colleges she would be applying to. Some will weigh the recommendations more than others. Some go just by grades and test scores.
I do interviewing for my alma mater and the primary thing I am trying to figure out is “what kind of person” is the applicant. I say this to show that the personality would come across in that interview. The teacher recommendation is “what kind of student” do we have here.
A 9th or 10th grade recommendation may raise red flags as to why the more current teacher was not used.
Ask for more letters of rec. than you need and choose from the best. They can also be sorted as needed to fit different goals. You may be able to “bundle” together complimentary letters. As a teacher who is often asked to write letters of rec., I will tailor my letter to suit the student’s needs and may even do more than one version emphasizing different strengths.
I won’t fabricate or lie, however. Sometimes there are things I just can’t say about a student because I haven’t observed that strength. I had an English student once who wanted me to also emphasize her leadership and athleticism. While I was also a coach, I had never coached her, so I declined to include anything regarding those attributes. I did, however, edit one of her coach’s letters so that she had multiple high-quality recommendations that she could package together.
Also, make sure that your student gives a PROPER thank you. Handwritten notes and/or nominal gifts are best.
What level of schools are your D applying to? For top tier schools, they do care about your personality because they want to know how the student is going to fit in the community. Otherwise they would be looking at a student’s stats and be done with it. I don’t think I would ask for this teacher’s LOR. He sounds reluctant.
D2 went to a selective summer program. She received what I thought was a very good LOR - her thesis was insightful, she was enthusiastic and well prepared for seminars, but in the LOR made it appear D2 didn’t participate or lead discussions as much. Her private counselor nixed that.
D2 was a humanities students, but her IB physics teacher loved her, thought she was the best student ever. He volunteered to write D2 a LOR. We were reluctant because English wasn’t his native language and D2 wasn’t applying to a STEM school. We ended up asking 3 teachers for LORs and had her school GC pick 2 best ones. Her GC said the physics teacher’s LOR was the best.
I think it is always best to get LORs from people who really know/get you because it will come through in the LOR.
Well, for starters, I think the teacher is being ridiculous. Writing recommendations is part of our job. There are plenty of ways to handle kid who is quiet in class.
That said, I think I would go with another teacher. It sounds like the current math teacher is either unwilling or unable to write the letter your daughter needs and deserves.
Does she have a strong relationship with her guidance counselor? Would she consider asking the GC for advise, since that person knows all the personalities involved?
I wouldn’t ask the math teacher for a recommendation. Reading between the lines, this sounds like this teacher doesn’t want to write this recommendation and it’s unlikely the recommendation will be very strong.
On the other hand, since the chemistry teacher offered to write your daughter a recommendation - ask that teacher. If that teacher offered, s/he obviously thinks highly of your daughter and would write a good LOR. I don’t think it would be odd at all to have a LOR from a 10th grade teacher; sometimes the teachers of the 11th graders are too busy with LORs to write one for everybody.
This student initially had a B to B- grade in math. worked hours on weekends to review math from the beginning and brought up the grade to an A without any tutoring help. Occasionally she did take doubts to math teacher. student loves math.
This student has straight As in all her subjects in 9th and 10th grades.
guidance counselor allows kids to ask recommendations from only 2 teachers and may not agree for more than 2 recommendations. Not sure if parent should ask guidance counselor if student can ask more than 2 teachers and then he can pick two best recommendations.
Student thinks that it will waste a teacher’s effort who wrote a recommendation and if it is not submitted to colleges.
some example universities that want to apply are MIT, Cornell. These colleges look out of reach after this whole recommendation thing.
If this student is looking at schools like MIT & Cornell then the LORs need to be stellar. Student would need more than scores to get in.
Just want to add here that student is planning to ask 11th grade humanities teacher for 2nd recommendation. Not sure if it is helpful for engineering major.
When my son applied MIT required a humanities teacher as well as a STEM teacher. My son used his Latin teacher - he’d had her all four years and he was an excellent Latin student, but he wasn’t that interested in Latin so I can’t imagine what she wrote. She was a very smart woman getting her PhD from Columbia - I am sure she did what was needed. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for an engineer to have a good recommendation from a non-STEM subject. It was certainly clear that MIT didn’t want kids who were too one-sided.
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I agree with other posters who say Math teacher may not be the best. It sounds almost like he/she is politely declining. When a teacher offers to write a letter of rec (like your D’s chem teacher) you can usually be assured it will be strong and not cookie-cutter. When my S&D were applying (2014), there were a couple of teachers (mostly AP) who everyone asked. One especially popular teacher told us he had 3 different letters he used, modifying as need be for the student. He told us S&D would get the “top” letter. We had the chance to see it a year or so later and, frankly, while full of praise and lovely adjectives, it could have applied to any number of kids. Consider the fact that some teachers are asked to write 30 or 40 letters every fall. Some may not be as “personal” as you’d like.
Our S also applied to MIT and, back then at least, it was a separate application with a checklist where the 2 references rated the student on a variety of factors. Questionnaire also asked how long the teacher had been teaching and where this student would fall across his/her entire career. And as @mathmom pointed out, one of them had to be from humanities. You will have a local alumni interview for MIT, too, which you’ll need to schedule in the fall. I seem to recall that that interviewer also was asked to rank students from the area who he/she had interviewed. S did not get into MIT btw.
Your D should also put together a resume of her achievements and email to her recommenders. I think it’s fine to point out what you’d appreciate an interviewer would stress. This might be a situation that needs explaining (i.e. grades) or an activity or strength you’d like to spotlight.
Here is a good link on writing recommendations…
http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs
I agree that the math teacher doesn’t sound that enthusiastic about writing the recommendation. Does your child have any personal connections with teachers? Someone who may be an advisor to a club and knows more than just in class performance? If so, I would start there with recommendations. My daughter is going to be studying chemical engineering and one of her recs came from her APUSH teacher. He had her for two years of classes (he was the AP euro teacher too), worked with her in the school’s theater and music programs, was instrumental in her striving for more leadership positions, and really saw her grow as a person. The other rec was from her physics teacher who she also had senior year for organic chem. He also helped out with her engineering class and sci only so saw her in work group situations.
I agree not to use the math teacher. A lukewarm letter of rec will tank an otherwise solid app every time, and the teacher is saying – in not so many words – that the letter will indeed be lukewarm.
When teacher offer to write letters of rec, they do so for a reason: they think highly of the student and will communicate that. It’s much better to have a strong, solid rec from the 10th grade chemistry teacher than a lukewarm rec from the current math teacher.
Most elite colleges request two letters. It’s good to get one for a humanities teacher and one from a STEM teacher. How is she doing in her history and English classes and how does she get along with the teachers? Which teacher oversees the debate club? Has your D had any classes with him/her?
Thank you all for your replies.
I have an additional question.
student has done internship in the summer and the mentor/teacher said she can write college recommendation.
Can student send a supplemental recommendation (from summer internship mentor) along with 2 recommendations from school teachers?
Would a supplemental recommendation add value to the college application? Are 3 recommendation letters too many?