Teacher Rec's- asking for essays, scores etc

Northstarmom
Mon, 03 Oct 2005 20:47:34 +0000

My advice is to go with the flow. The teacher sounds like a person who is doing a careful job with the recommendation. It can help for the teacher to see your D’s essays to find out more about your D including how she fits with the college she’s applying to or how math may fit into her vocational plans.

A couple of years ago, when S applied to a summer engineering program, he gave his math teacher a copy of his resume (that included scores) and his essay to the program. That’s when the math teacher realized that S had always loved math and was considering fields like engineering and teaching high school.

The teacher was very caring and supportive and S was a strong student. Partly because S is quiet and the teacher had lots of students, the teacher had not realized the strength of S’s interests or the strength of his scores. Learning S’s scores also helped the teacher rate S in comparison to other students, something that the teachers typically have to do on those recc forms.

As a result of seeing the essay and the resume and scores, the teacher was able to write a very strong, very individualized recommendation, and the teacher started taking a more presonal interest in S.

IMO you are lucky that the teacher asks for the extra info instead of throwing together something off the top of the teacher’s head.