Teacher Recs and Your Application: An Introduction

DanAdmiss_Tufts
Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:21:06 +0000

The teacher recommendation is an important part of helping us understand who you are as a person, student, and thinker. We look for descriptions of stories, moments, and qualities that reflect who you are and what you can add to our campus environment - both socially and intellectually (but especially intellectually).

It’s not so much about the subject of the teacher as it is about what they can tell us about you. Your teachers can know you in different ways and be able to say different things about you. You want to look at the relationships that you’ve built with your teachers and ask, “Who could best describe me to a stranger?” Many teacher recommendations end up filling in the gaps in a student’s file. Things that you would never think are interesting about yourself may be interested to others, and they can cue us into what those particulars are. (You spend so much time being you that it’s easy to get used to it)

We also look to the recommendations to provide us with an outside assessment on who you are and to reinforce/confirm the things we hear from you. I read a short essay from an applicant last year, who described his experiences climbing trees. There was an unbelievable level of focus in the way he described climbing, the feeling of the branches, the smell of the sap. I pictured nothing but this student and the tree in my mind occupying nothing but blank white space. Nothing existed but him and the tree. Then I read his teacher rec, who described him as “a tiger waiting to pounce during classroom discussions.” Those two separate messages created a beautiful harmony in what I read, and allowed me to have a much more complete picture of that applicant uses his focus.