Teacher Recs

mikemac
Sat, 10 Jun 2017 02:27:23 +0000

While I can’t speak for everyone, few out here are mindreaders. The only person who knows what your AP teacher will write is the teacher.

Every student asking for recs should ask the teacher(s) whether they can write a positive letter for you. This is always appropriate, phrased politely of course. While it can be uncomfortable for a student to ask a direct question like this to a teacher I would never assume a teacher will write a positive rec.

In “The Gatekeepers”,in which a NY Times reporter followed the admissions committee at Wesleyan for a year, is a real-world example of a bad rec. Obviously when the student asked for a rec she assumed it would be positive, but here is what she got:

There were times, I must admit,that I thought Tiffany might have taken a stronger interest in mastering the material in our course. When I saw that Tiffany was a National Merit Semi-Finalist I was a bit surprised. While clearly bright and competent, I had seen in Tiffany neither an exceptional skill for testing nor a particular affinity for the subject.

This could have been avoided if the teacher had been asked if they would write a strong rec. The student did not get in