<p>I asked my English teacher from my junior year to write me a recommendation. He agreed, and later told me that he was going to make a point of putting down his home phone number on the recommendation so college admissions counselors could call him to talk about me personally.</p>
<p>I know he really likes me, so I'm sure he'll write a good recommendation regardless of the phone number. Even so, will any colleges bother calling? If so, what would make colleges more likely to call? I have a pretty wonky transcript (grade-wise, first two years of high school were terrible because of some personal issues, but j+s year have been great), so would those circumstances make a difference?</p>
<p>They might call if they’re on the fence about admitting you. I’m not sure, though.</p>
<p>I doubt they would call regarding your application in general, since they have no reason to believe he’s well-versed in your personal issues. However, if they wanted to know more about you as a student and a person (and you were already a competitive candidate), they might take advantage of the opportunity.</p>
<p>sometimes, they call for clarification</p>
<p>but counselors are supposed to put their phone number on the recommendation anyways.</p>
<p>They will call only if they are interested enough. From what I hear (and it appears reasonable) is that Ad coms cannot talk to every person who recommends and hence will call only in cases there it is a very close call. If there person does not make the cut or has already made the cut clearly and the explanations are satisfactory they will not call. If everything else looks good but they have some questions they will call, but everything else (grades overall, scores, essays, EC’s other recommendations should add up, and if there is only one thing bothering them (say the first and second year grades), then depending on the school they might call. Good luck</p>