The question in basically in the title because I don’t really know how to get close to my teachers this year and how to get them to know me as a student and as a person. I was also wondering if you could use the personal recommendation from Gateway to Prep schools for a previous teacher from 7th grade as one of your recommendations.
No, you shouldn’t use a teacher from a previous year. What you need to do, is tall to your teacher outside of class. It can be simply, “hey Mr. Blank, I had a question regarding the homework.” Or, what probably got me a good recommendation, was the fact that my teacher and I were really big NBA ethuisits, so we would often spend time talking about the NBA, which I know, helped my recommendation a ton. Basically, you should just talk to your teacher more.
Something important to remember is yes, you want to get into your teachers good graces and want them to like you, but at the same time didn’t be artificial. If you start acting very diffferently a month before you ask for reccomendations, they might know what’s up. Ask for help outside of class, contribute in class and be a good group worker. Be genuine and put in the effort, and hopefully your teacher will see this.
My son used a teacher from the previous year as personal rec. I absolutely do not see an issue with this. Teacher from the previous year had a full years experience with him and was also his advisor at one point.
@Bunny8280 - @momof3swimmers is correct. You can use a previous year’s teacher under certain circumstances, especially as a personal recommendation, or in a situation where, due to block scheduling, the child doesn’t currently have a teacher in that subject. In our experience, for subject matter recommendations they do want the current teacher to write the recommendation, if you have one. We were questioned on this issue by one school when using a prior year’s teacher, but we had no choice due to block scheduling.
I’m sure what you can get away with will vary by school.
This is where public school kids may be at a disadvantage. It is easier to get to know kids when you aren’t teaching 150-200 kids each week!
@Bunny8280 @Korab1 I’m definitely going to use my current teachers for the subject recommendations but I really liked my English teacher last year so I wanted him to do my personal recommendation.