Teacher recommendations?

Applying to College Common and Coalition Application
1

<p>I've just started my senior year of high school, and I want to get a head start on my teacher recommendations for colleges. Also, two of my apps will be due by November 1st, so that's a big factor as well. I just have a few questions.</p>

<p>1) I'm applying to approx 10 colleges in all. It sounds like so many apps compared to my classmates, and to be honest, I'm kind of scared my teachers will think I'm crazy. Anyway, for now, I should only ask for the apps for the two schools whose apps are due soonest, right? </p>

<p>2) Will it be unreasonable to expect a teacher to complete apps for all 10 colleges? Most of the colleges are on the common app, so it would only be one main app, and then the supplement teacher recs for each specific college anyway, I think...</p>

<p>3) Is it bad if teachers aren't specific about the particular college? Since I'm applying to so many colleges, I don't think I can expect the teacher to put school-specific tidbits in each rec, so I'm thinking they'll have to be kind of generalized...</p>

<p>4) Would it be horrible for both of my recs to be from humanities teachers? My best subject is English. My English teacher loves me, she nominated me for a national writing contest, which I won an award for, I did amazingly in her class, and I got a 5 on the AP lang exam. On the other hand, I also did quite well in AP Spanish. Despite being the only non-native speaker in the class, I got a 5 on the exam, generally got A's in the class, I'm in National Spanish Honor Society, and my teacher gave me a schoolwide award. These are obv my two best subjects, and I think I'd get wonderful recs, but maybe I wouldn't seem well-rounded enough...? I liked my calc teacher and she liked me, but I just got B+s in the class, and although I did well, I wasn't #1 in the class or anything. She also doesn't know me as well.</p>

<p>Please help! Thank you :)</p>

2

<p>1) Ten is actually not that abnormal, don’t worry about it :)</p>

<p>2 and 3) From what I know, teachers never write for any specific college because that’s just too many to write. And how much could they possibly change from one college to another? Most if not all colleges expect teacher recs to be general, in terms of which institution it is addressed to. </p>

<p>4) It’s nice to have one in math/science and one in humanities, but it is far more important to have recs from teachers that know you well and have good things to say about you. Unless you are applying to a STEM program, I think that should be fine.</p>

3

<ol>
<li>You should create a spreadsheet (or type of list) with each school you’re applying to with the due date next to them organized by date not alphabetically or by preference (though you could also note with a star or something your first few choices). Ex:</li>
</ol>

<p>School X…10/15/12
School A…11/2/12</p>

<p>Give each teacher this list as soon as possible. Don’t just give them the schools whose deadline is closest. Sometimes they’d rather send all the letters at once.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>It’s not unreasonable for teachers to write that many. While they may tweak parts for certain schools, it’s unlikely and even if they did it wouldn’t be a significant change.</p></li>
<li><p>Teachers are rarely specific for each college. The idea is to show who YOU are which shouldn’t change on a per school basis</p></li>
</ol>

4

<p>If your 10 schools are common app schools and your school lets teachers upload their recs then each teacher writes and uploads their rec once and they are sent to the colleges automatically through the common app. You only need to meet your first deadline.</p>

<p>At our HS, the teachers gave a copy of the common ap rec for the counselor to keep then the counselor would send them to each non common app school with their counselor rec and the student’s transcript.</p>

<p>You need to find out how your school does teacher recs.</p>