I’ve been having a hard time finding teachers for recommendations…I’ve always been in good standing with all of my teachers, but throughout high school I had the mindset that I was bothering my teachers if I tried to speak to them outside of class or about matters not related to the course material (I know this was stupid, but I’m going into my senior year and don’t really have time to fix it.) I am also in a dual enrollment curriculum, which has resulted in me taking several online classes from professors I never really got to know, as well as taking a variety of classes from professors that I only had for a semester and haven’t talked to since.
The only teachers I feel comfortable asking for recommendations are my 10th grade English teacher (who I still talk to on a regular basis due to extra curriculars), and my 11th grade British Literature professor, who liked me alright. My question is, are there any schools that would dislike this so much that it may be grounds for rejecting my application? I know you’re technically supposed to have a recommendation from a science/math teacher and from a humanities teacher, but I’m not stellar at math or science and I don’t feel comfortable asking for a recommendation from any of those teachers.
Well, having two good English teacher recs is good, but could cause an AdCom to wonder if nobody outside English thinks very highly of you. But if everything else looks good (GPA, essay, dual enrollment grades etc) it shouldn’t be a big deal UNLESS the college specifies otherwise. Some colleges tell you how to pick your recommenders and I would go along with that.
On the other hand, some colleges (a growing number it seems) only want one rec, or one teacher rec and one counselor rec, so no problem for you there.
If you end up having to ask another teacher, it doesn’t have to be a class where you were the top student. It’s more about personal attributes than how you did in their class. So a teacher could have lots of good things to say about you even if it was a hard class for you.
I will keep that in mind. Most of the schools I’m applying to (like Kenyon and Sarah Lawrence) are big on writing/English, so I’m hoping it won’t be too much of a problem. Thanks for your advice! @alooknac
@mrskite I see you are considering some more other LACs different from your other posts. Doing your research! Definitely hope you make to the Eight of the Best, on Sept 12. Admissions reps from Kenyon and SLC will be there.
@mrskite My two recs were both science–one chem teacher and another physics (and I’m going into STEM so it seemed logical, plus they knew me the best and I didn’t have that strong of relationships with my other non-science teachers). Unless the school specifically states that they want one STEM and one humanities (such as MIT) then colleges definitely won’t outright reject you because your English teachers knew you better, especially since you state you took some online classes where professors could hardly be able to know who you are/write you a good rec.
So, only elite schools really ask for two LORs these days, and generally they are looking for different perspectives. When you ask for your letters, ask your teachers to write about different things. So, maybe your teacher who knows you from extracurriculars talks a lot about your ECs, while the prof from British Lit class writes about you from the perspective of being a strong English student and how you handled the transition to a college-level class. (Just guessing here - change it up depending on what makes sense from your own perspective.)