Having entered my first week of my senior year, I’m faced with a scheduling dilemma as I don’t have any of the teachers who I was planning to ask for a letter of rec simply due to dumb luck. Anyways, I recently found out that dropping my language class(which I’ve now taken for two years) would allow me to get these teachers. I understand many colleges have various recommendations for how many years of a language should be taken(oftentimes four), but I was wondering whether not abiding by these recommendations would seriously affect my admission chances. It may also be worth mentioning that I plan to go into a STEM field, so perhaps language recommendation wouldn’t be so relevant.
Language is not important for you, but I don’t understand why you can’t get the recs even without taking those teachers senior year. You’ll only have them for a couple of months before EA anyway so how much of a difference would that experience make?
^ Some schools do require junior/senior teachers for recommendation. So if OP did not take their class in junior year, he/she will need them in senior year to fulfill this requirement.
I assume OP is talking about foreign language classes. Having 2 years would be the minimum for most schools while many schools (particularly top ones) require/strongly recommend 3+ years.
I would try to take the recommended number of years of language particularly for the highly competitive schools – they will have tons of applicants who do meet all their recommended classes so it could put you at a disadvantage.
You don’t need to have a teacher senior year to get a LOR. Most use junior year teachers.
Thank you for the helpful responses. I’ve finally decided to maintain my current schedule and hope for the best with the letters of rec.