<p>I wanted to know in addition to asking one of my core teachers from high school for a rec, would it be okay to ask one of my middle school science teachers? What's special about him is that he was my 7th grade teacher in addition to being basketball coach at my high school up until my Junior year...so he has definitely known me for a good period of time and I think he'd know more about me than most teachers...</p>
<p>So my question is would colleges allow that? What about sending that type of rec by itself...or would it depend on the college? Thanks.</p>
<p>Um, no. Colleges want high school recommendation letters. If he was you high school basketball coach, that needs to be a supplemental rec, because basketball is not a core academic subject.</p>
<p>I agree with dchow, as a middle school teacher and BB coach, it's pretty weak as one of your two main LORs. If a school permits a supplemental rec, go ahead and send it in that capacity.</p>
<p>You could use the middle school teacher's recommendation letter as an EXTRA recommendation at some schools (not all colleges will accept extra recommendations), but it will NOT replace the requirement for recommendations from your high school teachers. Your middle school teacher may know you well on the basketball court, but he has no recent knowlege of you as a student, which is what colleges are looking for in teacher recommendations. If you sent in his recommendation as your teacher recommendation, colleges would wonder: "What has happened to this kid in the classroom between middle school and high school? How come he can't get a high school teacher to write a letter of recommendation for him? Is there something horrible they'd say about him?"</p>
<p>If you don't feel any of your high school teachers know you well enough to write recommendation letters for you, then you need to sit down with a few of your 11th/12th grade teachers as soon as school starts up and ask them what additional information about you they need to get to know you well enough to write your recommendations.</p>
<p>However, keep in mind that what colleges want to see in teacher recommendations is not information about your extracurriculars and personality (although those can be mentioned as well), but rather, most important is a CURRENT assessment of your intellectual and academic potential. Any teacher who has taught you in the past year or so will definitely know you well enough to write about that.</p>