recommendation dilemma

Applying to College
1

<p>I am an international student planning to apply to some top-tier US colleges…</p>

<p>I got my recommendation letters from my teachers just a few weeks ago, and now I have a dilemma on my hands. </p>

<p>One teacher wrote me a really strong recommendation letter, but the teacher did not give me very good evaluations on the common app. </p>

<p>I had a chance to read the evaluation, and he noted in the paper that he evaluated me based on “25 years of her career” rather than based on the graduating class of that year (which was what he was supposed to do according to the commonapp instruction).
So he mostly gave me “excellent” checkmarks…but I don’t think top colleges will look at that too favorably…</p>

<p>Should I talk to my teacher about this? Or would the college admission officers note that he based his evaluation on his whole career rather than on the graudating class? </p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

2

<p>Perhaps he should send in a note saying that he based it on his entire 25 year teaching career. Also, he could send in some extra information estimating that you are in the top x percentile of students he has ever had–that would be more informative. Of course, he could still mess this up and think that the percentile over career should be lower than the percentile only for the graduating class. I’ve seen that happen.</p>

3

<p>I don’t think you have too much to worry about. If you picked up on the fact that he was comparing you to ALL the students he’s taught, the adcoms probably will too. I think they are used to having their forms filled out in all sorts of ways.</p>