For most of the past year, I planned to get one rec each from a humanities teacher and a STEM teacher - particularly, my English teacher and my Chem teacher (I’ll be TAing for the first next year, and I’ll have the second as a teacher for 2 years - Honors and AP.)
Some background - I really am not the kind of student who teachers pay attention to. I’m the typical STEM-involved Asian guy in most aspects, and I’m bad at talking to teachers within the classroom, at least in an academic setting. I get pretty good grades and don’t have a criminal record, so yeah, uh. Pretty average, at least in my teacher’s POV.
I’ve asked both teachers for recommendations before (for summer programs and etc.) so they will probably agree to writing one, since it’s just copy-paste for the most part (from what they’ve said.) I didn’t get into any of the programs, which is something I’m totally attributing to my own blunders on the app - but I feel like they might look down on me for seeming desperate for recommendations.
Anyways, I’ve always been planning on majoring in Biochem or Chem, with a double major in English (or even more subjects, depending on how lenient the school I end up attending is on double/triple/minoring.) So, I’ve always thought that Chem/English recs would work well, based on the major.
Over the summer, however, I realized that my Chem teacher is super judgmental. Apparently it’s a common thing for almost all of the STEM faculty (my school is really top STEM) just because they have seen hundreds and thousands of ‘Asian guys with good grades and want a STEM major’ and so, they are super cynical about everything. They refuse to write recs for some scholarships because they’ve experienced too many students in the past who lied about their finances, and view every EC with a kind of ‘faked or BSed before proven legit’ POV.
I have no doubt that my Chem rec will be okay, at the very least - I’m not bad enough that he would actively work to mess me up. But at the same time, it - unless I somehow reverse his opinion of me in the first two months of the school year - won’t be great.
Whew, that was a lot. Baseline is, should I worry about the recs lining up with the majors I have in mind - or are recs more for colleges to get a good look at the personal qualities of the applicant? I feel like the classes I’m taking show my interest in STEM, and I may also be able to get a supplementary rec from the molbio professor I’m doing my internship under (since we get along very well and I actually get to show my personality, unlike in the classroom.) The alternative for the Chem teacher is my Spanish 3/AP Spanish teacher.