Teachers to Ask for Recommendation

Applying to College
1

<p>Hey there,</p>

<p>i have been reading in this forum quite a long time now and I really love the advice you all give! Thank you very much!
Now I have two questions regarding my own application to top universities (Ivy League, MIT, etc.). By the way, I´m an international student and am currently doing military service for my country (I have already completed school), if that makes any difference.</p>

<ol>
<li>I have a few teachers who would write me a letter of recommendation, but I can´t decide which ones to ask. I´m sure they would all write them equally good and all of them qould allow me to read it before they send it to colleges. The following are their qualifications:</li>
</ol>

<p>My former Project Management teacher, who recruited me after school to manage part of a real investment fund with him part-time after school (I think I will definitely ask him, because he knows me really well)</p>

<p>The principle of my school</p>

<p>My physics and math teacher, who was also my class teacher for the first three years (I had 5 years of highschool tough, because it is one with a technical specialization) (He would be the hardest to convince to write me a real good recommendation)</p>

<p>A friend of my dad who conducted reasearch at Harvard and tought at MIT for a short time</p>

<p>My questions are now: Is it better to get a recommendation by a teacher in a main subject like math? Who of those people would you ask to write your recommendation? Should I send more than two recommendations, as the unis I want to apply to require?</p>

<ol>
<li>The last two years in school I have had a very good GPA (Last year 4.0, Leaving Certificate 4.0 and Second Last year like 3.95, converted to U.S. scale of course). In my country GPAs are generally calculated only for one year and they don´t even show up on any reports. My problem is, that the three years before that my GPA was worse. One year, due to personal problems, I even had like below 3.0. Now do I really have to send the combined GPA of all years, or can I just put in the better ones? I read the one form of the COmmonApp and there the teacher could also add a time period to the GPAs. Would it be OK to only send the grades and GPA of the last two or three years and just adjust the time period to thatz? What would I do with the GPA, I have to write on the CommonApp online in that case?</li>
</ol>

<p>Thank you in advance and I would really appreciate a helpful answer!
desibug</p>

2

<p>Read this:
[Writing</a> Recommendations | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs]Writing”>How to write good letters of recommendation | MIT Admissions)</p>

<p>Which of your people can best produce one of these? Choose those.</p>

<p>However, your dad’s Harvard friend is worthless to you since it seems he did not know your work. The letter is about YOU and not HIM or his school</p>

<p>Send in two teacher recs. I would send in the third from your Project Mgr. And that’s it – no more.</p>

3

<p>Thank you very much. Thats a great article. But it also raises a few more questions to me.</p>

<p>Does that mean you would not advise me choose the principle of my school either because I did not directly work with him, although he could include the views of nearly all of my teachers on how able I was in their classes?</p>

<p>And does the subject the teacher taught matter at all?</p>

<p>Also, do you have advice on my GPA question too?</p>

4

<p>Don’t stress about how to self-report your GPA. Just leave it blank on your app and let your transcripts speak for themselves. </p>

<p>From the Common App knowledge-base:

</p>

5

<p>Thank you niceday!</p>

<p>In my country we get two transcrits a year and a leaving cert in the end. Do I have to send all 11 transcripts I got since 9th grade or would it be sufficient to send the most recent 4 or 5?</p>

6

<p>bump, Anyone?</p>

7

<p>You have to send transcripts to substantiate all your high school courses and grades. 11 sounds like a lot - most people in your situation end up with about 4, but school systems vary widely so you may indeed need to send all 11 if they each show only a single semester’s results. If any of them are cumulative including prior terms, there is no need to send redundant information.</p>