What is important in a teacher recommendation?

Applying to College
1

<p>I have 4 recommenders to choose from for college. Help me pick 2!</p>

<p>Teacher 1: Sophmore history teacher and sports coach. Knows me the best/jokes with me all the time, but is only an okay writer.</p>

<p>Teacher 2: junior english teacher. Thinks I am a good kid and student, but we aren't super close. Excellent writer.</p>

<p>Teacher 3: junior math teacher. He is super nice and an excellet writer. We are okay close, but I'm not a mathematical genius.</p>

<p>Teacher 4: junior science teacher. this is the field I want to go into. He knows how smart I am, and I am close to best in career here. But he doesn't know me to well as a person, not too close. Good writer.</p>

<p>HELP ME CHOOSE! thanks so much everyone!</p>

<p>More about me: impression as a semi-quiet smart kid until you get to know me, then I joke alot obnoxiously but wittily.</p>

2

<p>help me? pleaseeee</p>

3

<p>hmm… If I were you, I would choose #4 and whichever you are closer to 2 or 3. I don’t really understand where “aren’t super close” and “okay close” fall on the closeness scale XD</p>

<p>Even though #1 is closest to you, if he can’t write a good letter then it’s moot.</p>

<p>I learned this kinda the hard way. I needed a science teacher(teacher rec from subject of major) but my original choice, my chem teacher of freshman and sophomore year left the school. In junior year I took 2 science classes, AP environmental Science and AP physics C. My physics C teacher and I don’t have a good relationship haha but my APES teacher knew me tons better. He’s one of the teachers that knows me very well.</p>

<p>Yet he doesn’t know how to write a recommendation letter at all. He admitted this and said he would look through his old recs and write one for me. By the way, I gave him notice several months in advance. Time wasn’t an issue.</p>

<p>Once he finished and uploaded it to commonAPP he also emailed a copy to me, so I could use it for other things, he said. I didn’t ask him to send it, and I also had waived my rights to see it. Anyways it was 1 paragraph and a couple sentences long and consisted of generic nice statements and a laundry list of some of my achievements in his class.</p>

<p>And when my twin sister asked for a rec from him, our recommendation letters were IDENTICAL except for the name. (we both were separate capt of our teams, we had worked on a project together… convenient for him)</p>

<p>and as a side note, when I needed him to send the rec to another school(this school was a last minute, saw the letter in the mail, might as well apply type school) that didn’t use CommonAPP, he had lost the file. It was very ironic how he emailed it to me, so I just emailed it back to him so he could upload it.</p>

<p>I’m grateful that he took the time to write a rec but I truly wished he included more specific details. I mean, he’s like the second closest teacher I had! The year I had him, it was his first year teaching APES and he’s very young(but my other rec was from a young teacher that could write moving letters so I can’t really say much on age)</p>

<p>but anyways I was waitlisted at my 2 reach schools(commonapp). I sure hope this wasn’t one of the reason why.</p>

4

<p>How bad is #1? I asked for letters from my Science and Language teachers; the former knew me better; the latter wrote way better. They both showed me first drafts of their letters and, while my Language teacher’s letter read very well, my Science teacher’s letter was more substantial, and spoke about my personal qualities besides my achievements. If #1 doesn’t write well stylistically, but will be able to give more details, perhaps that’s whom you should pick?</p>

5

<p>Read what the colleges want. And you decide which teacher can best deliver:</p>

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

6

<p>We have learned this the hard way. Ask a teacher you really trust to write the letter. My daughter asked a favorite teacher and since her letter was sent directly to the school, we did not read it (I didn’t know the etiquette of asking to see the letter first so did not ask) and I suspect that it was not a good letter at all. We later asked for her to do another letter, thinking she could easily revise it for a scholarship that my daughter was applying for and we were supposed to send the letter, along with the application, so we asked the teacher for it directly. She got very snooty with us, and ultimately ended up not sending us the letter. We asked someone else to do the letter, the vp on the board of her crew team, who did a WONDERFUL letter for her. My feeling is that the teacher either did not send a very good letter the first time we asked or she did not send it at all. Make sure you ask someone who really knows you and will really take the time to do a good letter and does not mind seeing the letter. We learned the hard way. </p>

<p>Also, (we learned this the hard way), make sure to send the teahcer/coach/whoever a thank you letter, promptly. The same snooty teacher who did not bother even with the letter posted a nasty post on her facebook about kids not doing a timely thank you letter for all the letters of rec. I was so mortified, because we had indeed not done one quickly and in our frenzy to get everything done, it was late, but she was so nasty about it to put it on facebook. Turns out, this same teacher, her own kid, a year younger than mine, does not do thank you notes at all! Spare yourself that humiliation, do a prompt thank you letter and ask someone you know will do a great letter.</p>

7

<p>Additional info for me:
Rank of my closeness to teachers from highest to lowest: teacher 1, 3, 4, 2
Rank of teachers’ writing ability from highest to lowest: 3,2,4,1
Rank of teacher’s perception of my ability highest to lowest: 4, 1/3, 2</p>

<p>I am in a pretty awful conundrum. None of my teacher write terribly–they all teach high level AP courses, and I trust all of them.</p>

<p>I am so confused. :(</p>

8

<p>I would say go with 1 and 3 honestly. I think the recs are an opportunity for the colleges to understand a bit more about who you are so you should pick teachers who know you well. They’ll see how good you are in other classes through your grades.</p>