What if I get two very different recs?

Applying to College
1

<p>What happens if your recommendations from your two teachers are very different? I know one of my teachers said he's going to write me a really good rec letter, marking the best options, but I'm not sure about the other one. He's my only social studies teacher so I had to get a rec from him.</p>

<p>He seems like the kind of person who would really let the kind of day he was having influence my rec. Like, if he was having a bad day my rec would probably reflect that - whether I was involved or not. The same goes for having a good day.</p>

<p>Worse cast scenario is (I hope) only a mediocre letter, but what if he says he wouldn't recommend me? That's why I'm wondering if I have two very different ones. Say I have one that says like I'm really smart, nice and helpful with checks in the "One of the top few in my career" options and one that says they wouldn't recommend me - how would colleges view that, having two drastically different recommendations?</p>

2

<p>Why do you have to have this teacher write for you? Schools that I know about don’t specify which teachers write for you; they say they prefer two different academic teachers (that is, they would rather not have art, PE, or other elective teachers-- for some unknown reason). Does your HS say this teacher must write? I would say that colleges would be, rightfully, confused if they got two very different letters. On the other hand, perhaps you can speak with this teacher before you ask him, and then depending on what he says, you can probably trust that he will do the right thing! Good luck!</p>

3

<p>Some of the schools I applied to specified. MIT wanted one math/science and one social studies.</p>

4

<p>MIT only asks that the other rec be a humanities teacher, aka pretty much any class that isn’t math or science. you could get an English teacher or someone different.</p>