I’m looking for some insight into recommendation letters, please post if you have any sample or link.
How do you need to use this information, in other words, are you writing one or requesting one? Is it for a high school senior for college or for a professional student for a residency? What is the context?
MIT’s site has some nice information about what they find useful in recommendation letters: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs
His math teacher is an ESL immigrant and new to this district and he never wrote a recommendation letter for any highly competitive college or a high ranking student. We are wondering if we can provide some samples so he has some idea of what people do here in states.He is a great math teacher though.
Our kids did not see most of their letters of reference. They were sent…sealed…from the college. Tepheir music teachers did write them awesome letters of reference. But really…I doubt those would be helpful to a math teacher.
I think this teacher could likely seek assistance from his department chairperson at the HS.
My younger son’s math teacher’s recommendation said he had one of the best math minds in the class even though he didn’t have the best grades. My son was always forgetting the easy way to do problems so his tests were full of him figuring theorems out from scratch. The letter apparently was quite specific about how my son had a command of math theory even if he didn’t always master math facts or math shortcuts. I didn’t see the letter though, so I can’t provide it, I just heard about it.
My older son’s best letter was from a professor for whom he wrote a program that sequenced peptides for his medical research. He talked about how none of his own graduate students knew how to do this kind of program, and how surprised at how quickly my son was able to provide him what he needed. But that’s not particularly relevant to what a high school teacher would provide.
I second @mathmom suggestion to direct the teacher to the MIT site. There are examples of things they like and don’t like to see in LORs.
Useful- specifics. Less useful- platitudes. Useless- comments about the college.
What does this mean?
Useful- “Joey was the first in the class to connect-the-dots on the use of the blah blah formula to predicting election results or the impact of interest rates on stock prices. I hadn’t taught all the relevant details yet- but he was able to intuitively figure out the real-world relevance and then help other students master the concepts”.
Less useful- “Joey is a joy to have in class. He has a great attitude and is a real team player”.
Useless- “Given UIUC’s strong interdisciplinary offerings in math and economics, a student like Joey would really add a lot to the university”.
Teachers don’t need to be experts at writing letters. Just ask them to stick to specifics about the student and they’ll be fine.
Some students I have interviewed as an alumna bring along their letters of recommendation. This is dumb- since clearly the teachers know that the students will be reading the letters. But the letters are often useless. I don’t need to read from an AP English teacher that Brown has an outstanding English department, or that the joint program with RISD will really benefit from Joey’s participation. And I really don’t need to read about team-playing, win/win attitudes, work ethic, etc.
Teachers who get specific- an example, a story, description of a kid’s accomplishment- that’s what works. The team players all mix together in a giant pot of platitudes.
The one for John Nash.
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/6/8738229/john-nash-recommendation-letter
^ Good one. Mind you the guy who wrote the letter (and it was for a PhD program I assume as Carnegie Tech is what Carnegie Mellon used to be called), was no mathematical slouch himself. Not every mathematician gets a NYT obituary. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/10/us/richard-duffin-87-researcher-in-many-areas-of-mathematics.html
Here’s one that might help a kid.
“…And just to show you that life is not fair, he’s exceptionally well adjusted. He is normal, has a good sense of humor, gets along well with his classmates (even though they are 4-5 years his senior), and has a winning smile. He’s one of those wonderkinds you read about in the newspaper. He is exceptional beyond reproach, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for him. You should accept him immediately, and I give him my highest recommendation.”
OP: fantastic rec letters are a combination of two things: 1) a writer who can put down great experiences and perspectives down on paper. 2) a great student.
You can somewhat hope for #1. You can’t create #2. #2 is or isn’t already and that won’t change.
Agree with those who say encourage the teacher to look at some of these sites. Don’t ghostwrite the LOR.
Here is a good link:
https://blog.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/college-letter-of-recommendation/