<p>I hope I'm not making a big deal out of nothing but anyway,</p>
<p>One of my teachers who submitted a LOR for me came up to me today and handed me the LOR that she submitted. She loved me as a student (said I was top 1%) and told me that she writes great letters, so she wrote me one. </p>
<p>To my surprise, it was actually really generic. Extremely generic. She I was one of the top 1% of students she had ever taught. However, there was absolutely nothing about my personal qualities. She talked extensively about my ECs (which is super pointless because that stuff is already in my app). Most of it was huge generalizations without any anecdotes or specific examples of my work in the two classes I've had with her. </p>
<p>I know that teacher recommendations are extremely important at top schools as ways of differentiating between top students. But I've had a few problems. First, I moved to a different school after 9th grade so I wasn't able to build long-term connections with teachers. Second, my school RARELY sends kids to top schools, so it's not like the teachers here know how to write amazing recs (if I went to a top private school with amazing teachers I'd probably receive better recs). </p>
<p>I hope my personal qualities came through in my essays (which I put months of effort into). I'm just feeling extremely down right now because one of my recs was super generic and the other couldn't have been much better (the other teacher told me she did pretty much the same thing).</p>
<p>What bothers me the most is that I told both teachers specifically that colleges don't want to see a rehash of items on my app. Yet they still wrote about my ECs and not "me". </p>
<p>I don't really know why I'm posting this here. I applied Harvard SCEA and the stress is really bothering me. Do top colleges understand that some teachers write better recs than others? If so, why do they weigh recs so highly in the process? Because I don't go to a top high school I feel like my teachers don't really know how to write super recs. And I'm not a hooked candidate either :/</p>
<p>I will say that at my dd’s school the student has to fill out about 4 pages of information to give to their teacher whom is writing the rec. I found that they almost used her exact words in part of the letter. It is ashame that it is too late for you to craft some better wording for them to use. Hopefully the rest of your application will carry you to an acceptance - goodluck.</p>
<p>@ahsmuoh - My school does the same. I feel upset because it’s completely out of my hands. I tried telling my teachers to focus on my personal qualities rather than retyping my entire resume but they didn’t listen </p>
<p>They both love me and wanted to write excellent recs for me, but I don’t think they knew how to. Eh, whatever. They’ve already been sent in. No use in stressing over it now.</p>
<p>And I wanted to show them that MIT website that tells teachers what a good rec looks like. But I didn’t want to be too pushy. They had already started working on their recs.</p>
<p>I think colleges understand that not everyone has the opportunity to develop a deep relationship with a teacher. Obviously it can only be helpful, but take MIT’s advice in the case that you cannot. I’m using the guidance counselor as an example, a teacher should know you better but I suppose it can be handled as:</p>
<p>Well, in reality, you should never have seen the letter to begin with (maybe things have changed since I applied, but it was a really big deal if a student saw their letters of recommendation). </p>
<p>And it really is you, the applicant, who has to take all the initiative possible. So many things are out of your hands in the application process, so whatever you could affect, you should be making an effect on (i.e. informing the person writing your letters of your needs).</p>
<p>I’ll couple the harshness with a closing comment that application committees tend to be really understanding of a lot of components of an applicant’s application. Having seen so many, they can usually see through it all and identify the core of an applicant.</p>
<p>Did you send her aresume prior to sending and or give her an idea what you hoped she could say? Any ways, I would not swat it. Some people actually say the most important thing the teacher does is comparing you with other students she has had (remember reviewers likely skim through rec’s quickly) and so top 1% may help (although maybe needed to be top .1 percent at harvard, lol). Also, your counselor rec generally is more improtant than teacher rec’s and counselor can fill in the blanks.</p>
<p>“Well, in reality, you should never have seen the letter to begin with (maybe things have changed since I applied, but it was a really big deal if a student saw their letters of recommendation).”</p>
<p>At my sons’ high school, teachers may choose to keep their letters of recommendation confidential, but also may formally choose to permit students to see them.</p>
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