<p>I was at MIT and was told by a tour guide that my teacher recommendations need to come from a teacher who's known me for at least a year and has had me in junior or senior year. Is this true, or can I submit a recommendation from a sophomore year teacher?</p>
<p>Good question. It depends on school. Typicallly, people tend to choose teachers from their junior year. However, for almost all colleges, it is perfectly fine to choose a teacher from your sophomore year. I am, in fact.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was wondering if MIT in specific required it</p>
<p>im also interested in this because i have a sort of predicament where i switched to an international school from a local system ( im an international student). anyway, i took english in the equivilant of 9th and 10th grade. however, this year im not taking any humanities ( im taking ap calc, ap stats, ap chem and ap physics). my dad called mit and they verified that it was okay and that my O level english ( which i did last year) is enough for mit. i would be taking ap english next year, however. but im worried about getting into problems with recommendations ( concerning humanities teachers)</p>
<p>I'm not 10000% sure, but I think as long as the teacher knows you well, then there shouldn't be a problem. I think MIT mostly says this to prevent people going to their history teacher whom they haven't seen since the last day of class freshman year, and asking them for a rec.</p>
<p>oh well then i can ask my english or spanish teacher or so from 10th grade?</p>
<p>what about the teacher(s) that i would have for humanities classes in senior year? the problem with that is they would only know me for about 3 months.... >_></p>
<p>There's nothing on the admissions website that mentions those requirements, so I think what you heard on the tour might have been a suggestion rather than a hard and fast rule. (I forwarded the question to Ben, but he's traveling until Oct. 15.)</p>
<p>All things being equal, you should choose teachers who know you well and can write a detailed, example-filled letter of recommendation. It all comes down to your evaluation of the teachers you've had, and who you think will write the best letter.</p>
<p>The word from Ben:
[quote]
There's no specific rule about this. They should simply choose teachers who know them really well. So if it's a teacher they had in 10th grade and they haven't spoken since, prob not the best choice. If it's a teacher they had in 10th grade and they hang out all the time in some other context(s) other than a classroom, sounds like a great choice.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>A general rule I knew is a junior year teacher or a teacher from both sophomore and senior year. But I think Ben is more right (when is he wrong?!) than I am.</p>
<p>ahh great thanks so much!</p>