[『ⓢweet°ⓣea』]

So my teachers said they would write me a recommendation over the summer

so all i told them was the college i wanted to go to


but are they going to send it to the colleges right away????

I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS WORKS AND I NEED TO STOP MY TEACHER IF SHES PLANNING TO SEND MY RECOMMENDATIONS DIRECTLY TO SCHOOL CUS I DID NOT EVEN START MY APPLICATIONS =(((

[dhillman]

it doesn't matter if you haven't sent your apps yet. even if you end up not applying to the colleges where you asked your teacher to send recommendation letters, its no big deal. better to ask your teachers to send the letters asap while they're still free before the other kids start asking them to write letters too.

[joogrlpekaun]

Yeah, it doesn't matter if your teacher recs arrive early; order doesn't really matter as long as everything gets there before the deadlines, and they'll still open a file for you if your teacher recs arrive before the rest of your application.

But usually you need to do more than just tell your teachers which schools you plan to apply to. It's common courtesy to give each teacher one big envelope per school with the address of the admissions office and postage already on them.

[m i s z CHEN]

so how exactly do teacher recommendations work? does the teacher just write it up or is there some kind of paper we have to give them? >_<

[lovablekrnstar63]

m i s z CHEN:
it depends on the school
but teacher recs take a VERY long time
hours per student
that's why most teachers have a limit on the number of recommendations they do everything.
they are EXTREMELY time consuming.
so if there's a popular teacher on your campus, make sure to ask ASAP =]

..i, on the hand, dont have a teacher i can ask a recommendation from..
*sigh*

[dhillman]

this is how you do it.

1. think about how many recommendation letters required/recommended for each college you apply to.
2. let's say each college requires 2 recommendation letters and you're applying to 10 different colleges.
3. naturally, you'd have to get 20 envelopes and 20 stamps.
4. then write on those envelopes the mailing address of the college where you're sending those letters. (eg. 2 for harvard, 2 for yale, etc)
5. stamp them.
6. go up to your teachers and POLITELY ask them to write letters. Give the envelopes to them and give them a list of the deadlines for each college, if you're asking one teacher to write to more than 1 college for you. (don't forget to ask teachers who love you. teachers who teach class that you're really good at.)
7. it can be more than 2 teachers overall. but the envelopes would still be 20 only. for example, mr brown and mr smith who teach math and physics are writing your letters to harvard and yale, then you can ask ms. arsty and mr arsta who teach art to write your letters when you apply to RISD, Pratt, SCAD, etc.

so all in all, you need to literally prepare everything. all the teachers gotta do is write letters, put them in the envelopes that you provided, then mail them. you're supposed to write the addresses of the colleges and put the stamps on them already.

hope that helps ^^

[knickstorm]

it's good you got an early start.......

that's the way you're supposed to do it. Go to the teacher you want recs from during the end of jr year. Because if you wait till senior year starts.........maybe so many people have asked the teacher cant write anymore. So you ask towards the end of jr year........they say ok, then they do it for you...........as far as how it goes after that depends on you and your teachers. In my year some wanted to mail it in themselves....so i just gave them a stamped envelope with the college's address on it.

SOme colleges wanted/preferred everything in one packet.......so i'd collect the recommendation from the teacher and put it with all my other materials before mailing it in. Hope that helped.

[m i s z CHEN]

my friend told me that UCs don't require them and if you send it, they'll just throw it away. then should recommendation letters still be sent? >_<

[hpnotiq]

^ I thought that UC's DO require college recommendations..

[hellogoodbye765]

wait question..
say you are applying to 10 different colleges and each requires 2 recs, then would you have to get 20 DIFFERENT letters in all? or can you send the same one to many different schools..
ie. mrs.smith and mr.jones both wrote you letters, can you just send the same two letters to 10 different schools?

[mmonkey]

^ yuup.

for letters of rec... you can have the same teacher send it to different schools.
they usually make copies of their own letter but change the school's name.
so you don't need 20 different letters.
for example, if you're applying to 10 different schools, you just need to ask mrs. smit and mr. brown to send their letters those 10 different schools.
if a school requires you to have at least 2 (i believe its usually 3, but it depends i guess), you just need to ask 2 different teachers for a letter of rec.

if you asked your teacher for a letter of rec, don't forget to follow up. especially since its summer and they go on vacations. so the teachers may have forgotten about it. email them and remind them about the letter. i had a professor who forgot to write the letter cuz she went on vacation for about a month. so i had to remind her about the letter and she got it out for me.

good luck with apps!

[hellogoodbye765]

^ohhh alright i get it now
thanks for answering my question, i was kind of confused before

[joonieballoonie]

Hey I have a question about recommendations - I remember someone telling me that most colleges require a recommendation from your senior year English teacher and your senior year math teacher...is this true? Or do you choose your own teachers to get recommendations from? Because you're only with your senior teachers for a couple months before they write recommendations, won't their views of you be skewed...like they won't know you very well? And if these particular teachers don't like you very much, is it possible to get another teacher's letter of recommendation?

[knickstorm]

Hey I have a question about recommendations - I remember someone telling me that most colleges require a recommendation from your senior year English teacher and your senior year math teacher...is this true? Or do you choose your own teachers to get recommendations from? Because you're only with your senior teachers for a couple months before they write recommendations, won't their views of you be skewed...like they won't know you very well? And if these particular teachers don't like you very much, is it possible to get another teacher's letter of recommendation?

unless things changed drastically since i applied for college, i never remember that being the case. I dont recall colleges asking for a recommendation from a teacher of a specific subject, you just get recs from whoever you want.