My kid is a junior and he will be studying game design. He is applying to schools like Clark, Champlain, WPI, etc. Some of these schools want a recommendation letter from the counselor plus 1 teacher (in some it is optional to send a second letter from a teacher). My kids choice to ask for the letters are his current APUSH teacher and his current English teacher (who is also his Drama teacher and in charge of the after school theatre program y kid is super involved with). Should he have a recommendation letter from a math or science teacher because he is planning on studying game design? He took game design his freshman year and had a great relationship with the teacher but I feel freshman is too long ago. He will be taking AP computer science his senior year but it would be too late to ask for a letter by the time the teacher gets to know him. Last semester he took Chemistry and got an A- so that could be another option even though I do not think my kid established a close relationship with this teacher like he has with the APUSH and English one. Also, if you send more letters than what they require will they look at them? Is this a good or bad idea? Thanks!
Of those schools which needed a rec letter, most of only needed 1. Some accepted 2 if there were 2. One had an optional 3rd from anyone. The college counselor said they will only look at the number requested.
Also, ideally a rec is from a junior year core subject teacher.
It’s nice to have letters from teachers who’ve taught a balance of core subjects, but it’s much better to have teachers who know the student well. And as you suspect, they should be teachers in the junior or senior year (an exception would be a teacher from an earlier year who continues to be a mentor in an elective or structured EC so still has a current acquaintance). So I think you should be fine with the teachers you have. It’s especially useful that the English teacher knows him in multiple capacities.
Focusing on the CS side, art side, or storytelling side of game design?
English (particularly creative writing) and history are relevant to the storytelling side of game design.
My son ended up needing to get one of his LORs from a 12th grade teacher, because he started asking 11th grade teachers somewhat late in the process, and they have strict policies limiting the number of LORs that they will write each year. But this did turn out OK for my son. The teacher that wrote the LOR got to know him pretty well by the end of October when the LOR was due, and he also talked to one of my son’s other teachers from junior year to get additional background.
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