With so many different elements contributing to the American college application process, it’s easy to occasionally feel like you’ve lost control of the narrative you are presenting. Your academic record/transcript is one of those elements that is, to a large degree, out of your control. Your grades from sophomore year simply can’t be changed. Extracurricular activities outside your senior year are the same. It’s easy to put teacher recommendations into the same category. You go ask if they are willing to write on your behalf, and you hope that they say nice things and send it off to the university on time. However, I would argue that you have a great deal of control over what is written about you, but you have to be proactive.
First, it’s important to recognize that no matter what you do, you will never see the contents of your recommendations. I’ve worked with teachers in the past who have voluntarily offered a student to read their letter, but I generally discourage this simply because it’s not fair if a teacher allows some students to read their letters of recommendation but not all students. Anyway, barring some special circumstance, you should accept the fact that you will never see the contents of your letters of recommendation.
So what can you do to influence the contents of your letter of recommendation? It turns out, quite a lot. Before we get into the details of what you should and shouldn’t do, it’s fundamentally important to acknowledge that you need to be proactive. Being proactive is important for all aspects of the applications, not just the recommendations. Students who passively sit by and allow the application process to happen to them will most likely end up submitting an application the doesn’t masterfully represent the entire student. So here’s what you do.
First things first: who do you choose? Generally speaking, it doesn’t matter which subject your teachers teach as long as they are academic subjects. Unfortunately, the instructor who teaches your orchestra class or your favorite PE teacher probably are not good candidates for this assignment. Universities want to see how you perform in academic subjects. This also applies if you’re applying for a particular concentration in a university, like business; you don’t necessarily need to have a recommendation from your math or economics teachers. Really any academic subject will do. In some countries, it’s very popular to get a recommendation from a person of power like the principal or a politician. In the American application process, this is strongly discouraged, because that person most likely doesn’t know you very well and, certainly, they would know you a lot less than a teacher who sees you on a daily basis.
Writing skills may be another piece of the puzzle when considering which teachers to choose. For example, if you are caught between two beloved teachers and are genuinely unsure which one to ask, consider which one has the most practice writing. I’ve had many experiences in the past where math and science teachers struggle with recommendations because they don’t typically write long-form prose or cast a critical eye on literature quite as often as an English, economics, or history teacher. This is by no means meant to be slanderous toward math and science teachers; my experiences are purely anecdotal. If a teacher is worried about their ability to write a clear letter, they should say something before agreeing to write on your behalf.
So when should you ask them? That depends. If your favorite teacher from junior year is going to be leaving your school at the end of the year, you better ask that teacher before they leave. Do not wait until they are 5 months into a new job to ask them. Their recollection of detail will have drastically diminished. Teachers who are leaving at the end of your junior year need to know about this request by the middle of second semester junior year. All other teachers who will be around during your senior year need to know at the beginning of the school year. Asking for a letter of recommendation and getting a letter of recommendation or two different things. You can ask at the very beginning of the year and still give them three or four months to accumulate details to use as support. The longer the teacher knows you, the more weight their comments carry.
So now you know who to ask and when to ask. What else can you do? This is where the real work comes in. You need to collect as much information about your performance in that classroom as possible, put it into an easily accessible readable format, and give it to your teacher. This list of accomplishments is different from what some counselors call a “brag sheet” or “senior profile.” It should be a list of accomplishments specific to that subject/course. If your economics teacher also happens to be your basketball coach, you are also welcome to include details about your performance in that realm as well. However, the letter must focus primarily on your classroom performance.
Remembering that you will never see the contents of the letter, you have to accept that this list of accomplishments is merely a suggestion. The teacher has every right to write whatever they want about you, but if you consider the process of writing a letter of recommendation, you will see that how helpful and tempting your contribution will be when it comes time to write. Some teachers are very popular among the students and are asked to write ten, twenty, or even thirty letters of recommendation for one graduating class. That’s a lot of writing, especially for a teacher who doesn’t do a lot of writing otherwise in their subject. Teachers who have a lot of letters to write have a lot of detail to remember. Anything you can do to help them remember positive details about your particular performance in their class is going to be welcomed when they sit down and begin writing.
The most important part of this list is the amount of detail you include. Detail is essential.
What qualities and contributions do you bring to their class? Are you typically engaged in class? Do you love answering questions? Are you the type of student who does lots of work behind the scenes? Perhaps you’re an excellent test taker? Maybe you are the student who volunteers to help a new student? None of this should be new to you, because many of these themes should already be popping out of your application elsewhere. It is part of the overall narrative that you are trying to communicate about yourself. Specific details make or break a letter of recommendation. Making statements like, “I work well with other students,” means nothing to the admissions office. They want to hear anecdotes about specific events when you worked well with another student. An example of this might be that time that a classmate had an anxiety attack just as your group was going to present a project to the classroom, and you not only stepped in to console and help the student with their anxiety, but you also stepped up and presented her information in addition to yours. Include details like the topic presented, length of the presentation, the number of people in attendance, the time frame that you had to prepare, and the timeframe that you had to pivot and reorganize and get things ready for the final presentation. All of these details take time to collate, but they are absolute gold mines for the admissions officer who’s reading your file, desperately trying to distinguish you from the other 3,000 applications that they are reading in the month of January.
Here is a sample list of qualities that you may want to address when writing a brag sheet for your teacher letter of recommendations:
- Resilience: overcoming a challenge
- Empathy: considering others before yourself
- Social Skills: working well with others
- Motivation: pushing yourself to accomplish
- Communication Skills: clear communication that improved the classroom environment
- Analytical/Quantitative Abilities: intellectual agility
- Leadership: setting a good example and motivating others to be their best
- ….and many more
Is there anything else you can do beyond making the right choices and timing the request and providing details to your teacher? The only other thing that I would recommend you do is occasionally check in with your teacher to see if they have any questions. It is imperative that this check-in does not appear to be a sign of aggression or be interpreted as a taskmaster pushing the timeline. You need to be positive and ready to answer any question that they may have. Here are a few examples of short, sweet emails that you could send to your teacher as the deadline approaches.
- “I have no interest in sounding like a taskmaster. I just want to check in to see if you had any questions for me or if there is anything you’d like for me to do on my end.”
- “I hope my request and information was clear. If there are any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me if you need supplemental information. I’m always happy to help!”
- “I can’t tell you how much your letter means to me. I am always happy to help if you need any additional information, okay? Thanks again!”
In summary, letters of recommendation are not out of your control. If you’re smart, proactive, and willing to do a little extra work, you can have a direct impact on the quality of your letters of recommendation as well as the contents of those confidential letters of recommendation.
