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What should I give my teachers to help them write stellar recommendation letters to go with my college apps?

By Nee21 (Nee21) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 12:26 am: Edit

bump

By Cangel (Cangel) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 11:55 am: Edit

My daughter wrote a thank you in advance note, and delivered them with small bags of chocolates, a couple of days after she asked the teachers for recs - the procedure at her school is students ask teachers for recs, teacher agrees, form is filled out in GC office and GC takes care of badgering for late recs, copies, stapling to college forms, and packaging with the rest of the app.

By Ohio_Mom (Ohio_Mom) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 12:33 pm: Edit

You may wish to give the teacher your college resume so they will have a clearer understanding what you do outside their class.

By Nee21 (Nee21) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 05:55 pm: Edit

i have given my teachers a resume and stamped, addressed envelope and plan to give a thank-you card within a week...is that enough? or do they need any parts of the actual application?

By Nee21 (Nee21) on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 11:18 pm: Edit

any other ideas, please?

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, October 01, 2004 - 01:40 am: Edit

It's good to give teachers copies of any excellent papers or essay exams you took in their class, and to give them an activities list of any things that they may have advised. These are even better than are resumes since colleges want teachers to write about things that they've witnessed students doing.

It also can be good to give teachers a copy of an autobiographical essay and/or info about your career and college goals (meaning what kind of college education you wish to get).

By Dreaming2005 (Dreaming2005) on Friday, October 01, 2004 - 01:54 am: Edit

that's enough.

but i got another issue.
can teachers type the evaluations??
it looks like all i can hand them are 'papers' and to write something manually seems to be very primitive. and perhaps some teachers might be hesitate that.. dont you think?

or did i miss something completely and there is way for teacher to type the evaluations.. ?!??!??

any comments would be graceful!!

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, October 01, 2004 - 02:17 am: Edit

Teachers can hand write, print, type or not fill out the form and instead attach a letter of recommendation.

By Nee21 (Nee21) on Friday, October 01, 2004 - 04:52 pm: Edit

Thank you so much!

By Nee21 (Nee21) on Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - 09:18 pm: Edit

anything else?

By Mikemac (Mikemac) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 10:54 pm: Edit

be SURE to ask any teacher you approach if they are comfortable writing a strong rec for you. Its sometimes hard for a HS kid to scrape up the nerve to ask a teacher this, but it is an entirely appropriate question.

An ethical teacher will either answer yes or suggest you ask someone else. On the other hand, if you just hand a teacher a rec form and they have an unfavorable opinion of you, they are going to go ahead and write just what they think (since that it what the rec asks for and what you just authorized them to do).

My mom was on an alumni scholarship committee and a lot of students just re-submitted their college recs. This was perfectly acceptable to the committee, but my mom was surprised how often a teacher would totally pan a kid in the rec!