If RIT ends up being a contender and you’d like to know more about the area, feel free to ask me.
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We were just talking about this. He hasn’t had the teachers that write good recommendations yet, which is hard. He will have one in the fall for physics, so maybe we’ll wait until September and ask then.
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Thank you so much – I’ll definitely do that.
We’re from the south, and my kid has barely seen snow, much less driven in it or dressed for it, lol (and I grew up in south Florida, so I’m no help). We’ll need some tips on that, too!
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Our school requires the juniors to ask this semester, so yes, my D26 asked her teachers a couple weeks ago. They require two academic teachers. My daughter got lucky that she’s had the same teacher for the last two years of Latin, and it’s a subject she she excels in, so that was an easy choice. The other academic teacher was harder – the school (whose college advising office is really rigid and annoying sometimes) strongly suggests a current junior-year teacher. She ended up asking her Calc AB teacher because he’s a nice guy, and she thought he would be complimentary of her – and she’s only one of two juniors in his class with the rest seniors, so she reasoned he wouldn’t have a lot of letters to write, lol.
She did also ask her band director who knows her very well, in case a school accepted more than the counselor + academic teacher letters. (RIT is one such school – they’ll read as many as you send.)
She also had to upload a brag sheet for each teacher. I’m not sure when the school requires the teachers to be finished with the letters, but I assume by August since the Common App opens then. I wonder if your daughter should mention to the teacher that she plans to apply in early August?
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The Latin teacher puts her in a great position since he’s had her two years in a row! That teacher may be able to expand on character points knowing her so well.
The band director is a great idea as they can perhaps frame it from even a different perspective.
Intreresting how some teachers take to the request. She ended up asking two teachers. The first told her it would have to wait until October/November as that’s the only two months they will honor requests. The second (and honestly, a way better choice) teacher told her he’d have it whenever she wanted it. So one of the forms she handed him included the date (June 2nd).
The counselors office tells them to put the request in by end of March to ensure the teacher being asked has plenty of time. Not sure why the teacher she asked first has his own standards.
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My daughter reached out to her teachers for LORs last month. She is supposed to provide her resume and brag sheet to them before the end of the school year.
She went with her two science teachers who she’s had for 2 years each and her Spanish teacher, who she’ll have for 3 years by the end of senior year.
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I would mention August for sure. My daughter asked in 11th and mentioned she would start applying in August and planned to be done in early October when many of the Michigan colleges are free to apply to. And she reminded her in the fall. And she told her of a scholarship deadline at one college of November 1. The teacher finally submitted her letter on November 17. She had been accepted to all but 1 college already by then. And, no, she was not invited to compete for the scholarship. Whether it was because of the letter being late or not, we don’t know.
After 2 kids and talking to friends about their experiences, we know which teachers write poor letters, have to be constantly reminded, are late, don’t do it at all, etc. It’s difficult!
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Our students have been told they can only ask for letters of rec after spring break, and that the teachers will work on them over summer. They have been told to ask for two though I think also so far the only schools on C26’s list that require them require one. I think C26 will ask English and physics teachers. The counselor letter is always based on a brag sheet.
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Our school is just starting to discuss post-secondary planning with juniors. They are advised to ask teachers by the end of the year, and they (along with parents) also submit a brag sheet to counselors. I’ve only heard of one teacher limiting the number of letters they will write, so there’s not a huge push to ask early. My son is planning to ask his FL teacher, who has the same cohort of students for all four years and develops close relationships with them (she also wrote one for my D and told me she was crying as she wrote the letters for all the kids—a special teacher for sure). She asks students (based on my D’s experience) to fill out a form indicating where they’re applying and what they’d like her to highlight, but not until the fall. He’s thinking he’ll ask his math teacher for the second recommendation; she really likes him and he’ll also have her for Stats next year if he ends up taking that, so that would be good. Only other option if we’re following the one humanities/one STEM rule of thumb would be his physics teacher, and that’s not looking like the best plan at this point. I honestly haven’t even looked to see what his prospective colleges require in terms of letters, but my D asked two teachers and there’s some overlap on their list, so that’s what we’re planning. None of his schools offer rolling admissions, so I’m expecting all apps will be submitted no earlier than EA deadlines in November. If we make solid progress on essays and filling in the activities section in the CA over the summer, I’ll be happy with that!
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We were told that teachers will probably limit themselves to around 10, and to respect that they do this unpaid in their own time. So yeah I’m a little worried that there will be a rush to all the teachers after spring break, where we are coming back a day late to do a college tour.
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Although in other developments we have had a bit of slippage re: the adhd stuff (work getting done) in the last couple of weeks and I don’t know if it’s temporary or not. I find myself veering between optimism at college prospects and fear that they are just not ready to go away on their own yet. One of the reaches on the list has apparently amazing support for ND kids which is one of its attractions. It’s definitely something we’ll have on our college decision spreadsheet.
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That definitely makes sense, and especially in a larger school. My son’s class is fewer than 150 students, so I think the requests just naturally get divided up to a manageable number. The exceptions are probably for the more popular AP classes (USH and Lang/Lit), so I could see needing to get those requests in early (APUSH is in fact the one teacher I’m aware of that caps the number of letters). I don’t think there’s huge demand for letters from the Pre-Calc teacher lol.
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I don’t think at ours either !!! but C26 is one of the few students who likes the teacher (and also does very well in that class) so that will be a “back up” if needed.
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This is really hard. I think I’ve mentioned that I have twins, but it’s a unique situation because my son will graduate this year, and my daughter next year. They’ve never been at the same school – he’s always been in private special ed except for pre-K and kindergarten (various motor skills disabilities plus ADHD), and now the last three years of high school he’s been in public. Whereas she has been at a rigorous private college prep school, where she did an extra year after kindergarten because her ADHD/anxiety was causing social/emotional issues.
I’ve rarely mentioned S25 here because we didn’t think college was on the horizon for him. BUT, thankfully he’s really thrived in public high school with an IEP, and he’s found a path and will be going to an in-state rolling admissions school that doesn’t require SAT/ACT with a certain GPA. His GPA is even high enough to get in-state merit, which is amazing. I worry about him all the time, but he’ll only be 1.5 hours away, which is perfect for his situation. And the process was so easy – he applied on August 1, got in a couple weeks later, and it was all set. Imagine!
D26, though, also struggles with ADHD, but she is much more neurotypical than her brother and academically gifted, so we often wonder about what would be best for her in terms of college. On the weekends, I still have to sit down with her and help organize all the stuff she needs to get done for the week. She’s pretty good at keeping track of stuff in Google Keep – her older sister is an avid list-maker and shared her system, lol – but for example, last night she had a ton of reading and a huge physics assignment, but she was hell bent on cleaning her room because her brother said he was having his film friends over this evening to work on a film project, and could he use her bedroom to film?
Oy. She knew I could have worked on tidying her room during the day today, but prioritizing the important things is not her strength.
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I have to admit, letters of recommendation were not even on our radar! Luckily that’s one thing S26 doesn’t have to worry about, because his Sophomore Civics teacher and last semester’s US History teacher already told him they would gladly write letters for him. Since he is one of the few kids that genuinely geeks out out over history and government topics, he stands out in those classes.
We will have to do a brag sheet for the counselor, as they couldn’t pick their students out of a lineup…
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C26 is 2E too. It’s really not easy. So they are a great test taker, especially in STEM, but the homework has always been a battle. I will say that the IEP has been a huge help, and unlike many other public schools ours does seem to do a good job with things like executive function skills and self-advocacy (C26 also has high anxiety so this has been an important skill to learn). Things are so much better than a couple of years ago, and we had a really good run so far this school year until very recently. I guess I need to figure out what are temporary bumps in the road and what I need to get worried about.
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Officially, not yet. But we’ve been talking about at home.
D26’s school requires 2 LOR per student: 1 from a Humanities teacher (i.e., english, history, foreign language), 1 from a STEM teacher. D26 is stronger in Humanities, so has 2 really good options there - 1 is the APUSH teacher (who she also had in 9th grade for AP US Gov & Politics), with the 2nd/backup option being the AP Euro. History teacher (who she had last year in 10th grade & has this year for AP Human Geography). Our HS requires all teachers to write LOR and they’re not allowed to turn a student down, nor are they allowed to have rules like “I write no more than 10 LOR per year.”
The STEM teacher LOR is a little harder and I’m hoping that the college counselor has some advice. College counselor wants students to have their LORs from teachers who they had in 11th grade wherever possible.
Great…except:
- this year, her science class is Honors Physics and she currently has a C in that class. Plus, D26 doesn’t really like the teacher very much and has been very frustrated with the class. Plus, she’s not going to major in anything that requires physics.
- this year, her math class is AP Calculus AB. She’s got a B in it right now. She’s not excited about math, so she shows up to class, pays attention & participates in class, does all of the normal good student things, but math isn’t the sort of thing that she’s going to stay behind for a couple of min after class to ask curious questions of the teacher.
- then there’s the AP Bio teacher, who she had in 10th grade and she got an A in that class. Loves that teacher & he writes good LOR.
- she also had Honors Chemistry last year, but she doesn’t like that teacher very much and had a frustrating experience in that class. AND she’s not going to be majoring in anything that requires Chemistry.
D26 is meeting w/the college counselor next week, so we’ll see what the counselor says.
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Seems logical that she’d ask her AP Bio teacher, then, if she must have a STEM teacher. I hope the school doesn’t give her a hard time – our college advising office, too, sets some arbitrary rules that don’t make sense for everyone, and it makes me crazy. 
Interesting. Different philosophy to our school, where the college counselor has advised the students to ask their teachers using a phrase like “do you feel you know me well enough to write a positive letter of recommendation” and to understand that it is better to ask another teacher if that teacher responds no.
So far the schools on C26’s provisional list that do not require LORs are the CSUs, UMN and the Arizonas (none of whom need supplemental essays either) and UIUC, while UIC doesn’t require but will consider; meaning in fact that there are only ….two… on the current list that require them (and they each only require one). Of course, one of those two is the top choice and the other one is reachy for their GPA and test blind so every little bit helps. And between now and November there could well be more schools that get on their radar that require them.
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It’s a free-for-all at our high school. No counselor advice, no rules. D isn’t sure she will even get a meeting with the college counselor before the end of the year (S23 got a total of one meeting… and he didn’t know enough to start asking for LORs before senior year, at that point it was a scramble).
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