[esm90]

This is the part I'm scared of in applications. How much should you know the teacher to ask for them to write you a recommendation? How do you approach them?

[Emy]

Yeah, I'm kind of worried about what they write too. I wonder if we can read it before sending it off. >>
Also...what do we need to give the teacher other than a stamped envelope?!? lol

[FLAMELUV]

i need all the help I can get in this part of the apps as well @__@.

[gwendolyn]

same heree .. anybody know ?? the only thing i kno about reccomendations is the teachers i'm gonna ask lol

[chinese tears <3]

it only matters that the teacher knows you better than just another student in his/her class. having done well in their class is also important. sometimes recommendations ask questions that seem personal, so that's why it's important to have a teacher who knows you. it's best to ask a teacher from your junior year because the previous years were too long ago and senior year is too short to be sure. there isn't really much to say. you just go up to a teacher and say "hey, i'm applying to ____ and i was wondering if you would be willing to sign this recommendation for me, please?" and also remember to tell you when you need it to be sent by... teacher's are often very forgetful.

some schools give you an actual recommendation with specific questions for you to give to your teachers, but if not... your school has recommendation forms that the teachers can write on.

you are allowed to read your recommendations. all of my recommendation forms have a spot where it asks whether i want to waive my right to access to my recommendation forms or not. it's okay if you don't want to give up your right. but most teachers send the recommendations directly in anyways, so you can't really see it. but i think after you get into a college you're allowed to view your recommendation forms in some file they have for you.

[esm90]

Thanks. Makes me less worried. =)

I already have a few teachers in mind.

Oh, it's ok if you give them the forms for multiple school right? I mean, just give them all to them at once rather than keep going to them.

[chinese tears <3]

haha yeah, give it to them all at once. some teachers get all pissed off and annoyed when you give them forms separately... i have a lot of those kinds of teachers and you want them to be all "i would be happy to write your recommendation"-ish! xD maybe you can even consider another teacher too... but probably to the school you don't care as much about.. just in case ;;

[saera]

Yeah. If you know a certain teacher is going to have a lot of students asking for recommendations, I suggest NOT asking that teacher. One teacher last year wrote 175 recommendations, and that wasn't all the ones she had to do. One kid had a college call him and tell him they never received a recommendation letter. Also, a lot of teachers get pissed off if you keep bringing them more recommendations; so you should tell them ahead of time whether or not some of the apps for certain schools have not been released yet and that you'll bring those in ASAP.

My school tells us not to write a return address on the envelopes that we send to the schools because of some reason I forgot. Well, we give all our envelopes to the counselors and they mail it out for us, I think they put a school stamp on it and stuff. Anyways, you should give them a big yellow envelope with at least two stamps and the address already printed out. And perhaps a sticky indicating when they should send it in by.

Some kids like to give their teachers a brief explanation in writing as to why they're applying to that certain school + major, just so each teacher gets a better idea of what's going on.

[tHe_aRisTocRatiC_aSSaSSiN]

I'm also in the process of applying, but my counselor told me that you should choose not to read the recommendations so that it looks better (it looks like you have a good relationship with your teacher since you can trust them to write something good about you).

[hesaid143]

Just adding on:

+Ask ahead of time, possibly more than a month because those letters take a long time. teachers have a life too
+Give them some information about yourself. Sure, they know you, but they might not know you are the president of so-and-so club or the captain of the so-and-so team. Give them information about yourself (grades, community service, clubs, extracurriculars, etc) so they can talk about THAT other than just say "yeah she was a good student in my ___ class"

[daehanminguk1345]

I'm not worried about the recommendations. I'm VERY worried about the application itself, though.

[Tammie]

Is it true that it's not as good to get recommendations from elective classes?
How about a foreign language teacher?

[1lasthope]

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[ritzy!]

Crap, I've always been the type to not raise my hands or get into class discussions in fear of sounding stupid, sigh*
I guess this year I have to get it up a notch.. phooey.
Does a school require a certain amount of recommendations? The only classes I do well in is Math, Spanish and.. my electives -.-;

I remember a thread on soompi, the girl didn't want to send the recommendation letter anymore or something and so she read it and it contained some .. not so nice stuff? or stuff you wouldn't want teh colleges to know or something.

[1lasthope]

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[hpnotiq]

The school I'm applying to doesn't require recommendations, but they would like to have them.
But what if the school you're applying to doesn't have specific forms for the recommendations from teachers?

What do I do?

[boom]

just tell the teacher that you want him/her to write you rec and that there aren't any forms. give the teachers stamped and addressed envelopes to the admissions office of your college. the forms that colleges hand out in their apps are mostly just things where you have to fill out your name, teacher's name, etc. and they leave a big space for whatever your teacher wants to write anyway.

[hpnotiq]

just tell the teacher that you want him/her to write you rec and that there aren't any forms. give the teachers stamped and addressed envelopes to the admissions office of your college. the forms that colleges hand out in their apps are mostly just things where you have to fill out your name, teacher's name, etc. and they leave a big space for whatever your teacher wants to write anyway.

Thank you so much.