What the title says, I’m mainly worried because a lot of my teachers are first or second year teachers, and haven’t really had much experience with writing rec letters for college. I also don’t know how to strengthen my relationship with teachers to make me stand out, at least beyond the generic “raise your hand a lot and do good in class”.
First of all, if they are new teachers, they probably didn’t go to college all that long ago so maybe they are very familiar with what should go into a LOR. Secondly, make appointments to talk to them after class, bring in interesting info related to the course subject if possible, and ask if you can provide them with a summary about yourself (Including things you remember about their class and interactions you had with them in class that stand out in your mind, to remind them). Don’t assume a letter will be mediocre. Pic teachers, even if new, who stand out to you and who think you are a student in their class who has made a difference.
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So to answer your question, normal, generally positive recommendations plus excellent academic qualifications will be sufficient for admissions at many excellent US colleges. However, the most selective holistic review US colleges get so many highly qualified applicants they can generally afford to look both for top academic qualifications AND also what they deem to be very compelling non-academic traits. And studies have suggested recommendations can play a significant role in who gets very strong non-academic ratings at the most selective holistic review colleges.
So first, if you are unsure about your recommendations meeting that standard, and want to go to a selective US college, you should make sure to apply to several carefully chosen colleges that are not among the most selective.
Second, you could try informing your recommenders about what these colleges are looking for. But that’s tricky and you still don’t know if they will be willing and able to do that.
Third, teachers are human, and basic social things work with them as much as anyone. Make eye contact and smile and say hello when you see them outside of class. Find opportunities to have one on one conversations and be an active listener. This may sound manipulative, but it is how humans get to know each other.
Finally, be the sort of person they can see is valued in your school community. If others in class obviously need help, volunteer help. If there is a team, be a great team member. If you are a team leader, be the sort of team leader that lifts up the whole team. That sort of stuff.
If they see that, then they can write about it.
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Thank you! I liked that second point, I’ve heard of some people mentioning that giving “brag sheets” and asking teachers to write about specific moments is useful, but I’m not really sure how to go about that.
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Here is a form from the Common App you can use if you like:
I note the second to last section is very relevant to what I was mentioning:
Below is a list of attributes colleges consider when evaluating your application. Select 1 or 2 of these attributes and share an example of a time you demonstrated these characteristics in class.
Academic achievement, intellectual promise, quality of writing, creative and original thought, productive class discussion, respect accorded by faculty, disciplined work habits, maturity, motivation, leadership, integrity, reaction to setbacks, concern for others, self-confidence, initiative, and independence.
Generally speaking toward the front of this list, say through disciplined work habits, are what I would call normally good academic attributes. And while those are important, the stuff toward the back, so roughly starting with maturity, are getting into the attributes that might really stand out to the most selective colleges, at least if your teachers can discuss some of them in a concrete and compelling way.
So you might reflect on which of these attributes you want to focus, and about what you could remind your teachers that would help them write on those subjects in a compelling way.
If you like, the sections before and after, “What is something your teacher probably doesn’t know about you?” and “Additional information. Use this space to share any additional information with your teacher. Is there anything not already stated that you want to make sure they know prior to writing your letter of recommendation?,” could also be used to help your recommenders understand better what sort of narratives you are really hoping to get out of these recommendations, and what concrete details about you they could perhaps use to support those narratives.
Some guidance offices have these forms and encourage students to fill them out. Standard questions generally about classes and grades, but usually there is room to ‘remind’ this teacher about what you did in her class, what groups you led, what papers you wrote. If she has several to write, she’d probably like the notes so she can just think “oh yeah, @nivikasadeva did that.”
I think letters oi recommendation are a mixed bag. Some teachers are great teachers but their writing is not great (boring, bad grammar, run on sentence). I think schools know this and they are just looking for the letter to say ‘he’s a good guy’ or 'she was a real leader in her small group."
I don’t think new teachers will necessarily write inadequate letters. On the contrary, they might be especially enthusiastic about the task and will have a less established template for such letters, so they might even write more individually tailored letters (I’m not denigrating long-serving teachers. I’ve been teaching for decades, and I take a lot of care with the letters I write, but it does take less time now than it used to.). A brag sheet is a very good idea – think of it as an extended resume. You can list basics (gpa, scores, AP and honors classes) along with honors and awards, main activities, leadership positions, and so on. You can ask teachers if it would help to share your common app essay (some will appreciate this, and others won’t need it). Most of their letters will focus on what you’ve done in their classes, but it often helps to have other info for context.
My kids’ HS had a standard process for requesting recommendations, which included an info sheet that students filled out for every teacher writing a letter. That info sheet included questions about what the student liked most about or learned most from the recommender’s class(es) and why the student chose that person as a recommender. I don’t really remember what else was on those forms, but I think they were probably helpful for teachers who wanted to highlights students’ strengths and accomplishments.
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At my kid’s school, each teacher had their own form of brag sheet/info page that they wanted filled out. I think OP should check with counselor and/or teachers to see if they already have an established format they prefer working from or whether to do his/her own.
Presumably seeing less of this with AI editing help these days.
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In my experience, giving them a “brag sheet” is sort of a given, especially if they have a lot of students they’re writing letters for and especially if they only have the student in one or two classes. What’s important though is, as noted above, to give specific examples of things you did with them or for their class so that their LOr is personalized. What you don’t want is for two different letters of recommendation to sound exactly the same based on the brag sheet
I hope not. Then admissions officers will discount the letters because they look like they’re AI-generated (which is becoming all too common for rec letters, sadly).
There’s a difference between AI writing something and AI editing for grammar.
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To OP…You can provide, politely, if you know teachers well some ideas - projects you were proud of what you did in class, a favorite memory of class, something you would want an AO to know about your work from that class, why you picked that teacher, how you grew in that class (these were some of the questions my kid was asked to answer for teachers at their school)… Generally, you want the teacher to talk about your work in the classroom specifically..
All of these things are good suggestions and some are useful background for the teacher, but ultimately you want the teacher to know who you are and what you contribute in class without having to tell them.
Our school counselors suggested asking the teachers something like “do you think you could comfortably write me a good letter of recommendation” and choose another teacher if the answer isn’t a clear yes.
And some people actually can use LLMs well.
I sat on a plane next to a teacher who had actually spent time setting up a prompt and using chatGPT to write recs that sound like them - not generic at all, it was based on each kids brag sheets, prior letters the teacher had written, and the specific class and a short set of bullet points the teacher put in from scratch. It took a bit of time for the teacher to set it up the system upfront, but it was saving them a ton of time cumulatively. From what I gathered, it wasn’t generic at all. Most people aren’t this savvy, though. This teacher was whipping out a new rec every 10 minutes (copy/upload brag sheet, write bullets, run prompt, skim and edit rec based on class kid was in). This totally makes sense if you actually know what you are doing and have spent time up front.
I do not know their school’s privacy policy or what models they were using though.. (There are other issues with this beyond it being generic.)
I always assumed many teachers at many schools basically had templates anyway they used and that basically sent similar ones for many kids, so pretending AI generic letters are that much worse seems idealistic to me. I could be wrong, though…Though I guess each teacher’s template would be different at least, even if same for multiple kids? Not sure that is actually, in end, better though better for the reader..
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This is template our kids excellent public school which sends tons to ivys and top 20s gives out.
But thanks for assuming I don’t know what I am talking about:)
And yes, they ask the teacher first! it makes it easier for the the teacher to remember in July remembering back to October of prior year when thinking through 80 students they taught that year.
I’m not sure where you got the impression I thought you didn’t know what you were talking about? I was simply adding a suggestion. Fwiw, our excellent public also sends a ton of kids to ivies and t20s, and has a dedicated college counseling team. Each teacher has their own format of the brag sheet they want to see. I guess there’s not only one way to do things. I will say our student:teacher ratio seems a lot lower than yours so that probably helps.
Some might not have this option due to some teachers already reaching their max on recs or just not having a better relationship with another teacher. My kids didn’t have a lot of choices.
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