As spring approaches, juniors and seniors alike are focused on college. For juniors, it’s all about discovering the basics and intricacies of the college application process. Meanwhile, seniors are anxiously awaiting judgment from the colleges they have applied to.
Students will pour over each minute aspect of their applications, yet there is one pivotal component that remains top- secret to anyone but the admissions office—teacher recommendations.
On average, students are required to submit two teacher recommendations per college as a part of their application. Students usually ask teachers with whom they have a strong relationship, as the recommendation will provide an insightful perspective of the student.
“Teacher recommendations give life to an application,” senior Billy Yuan said. “When an admission officer needs an application, he doesn’t know anything about the applicant other than their grades, so the recommendations provide the admissions officers with the students’ personal qualities.”
“[Teacher recommendations] are an essential communication between those who have taught you and those who will teach you,” senior Matt Battifarano said. “The recommendation tells the colleges who you are as a student more than any other document you could possibly send them.”
University of Pennsylvania’s (UPenn) Admissions officer Kathryn Bezella believes that teacher recommendations are fundamental to an application. “They are a fairly vital component,” Bezella said. “They give the admissions officers an idea of how the student is in classes. The applications we receive are mainly numbers. [...] Tthey don’t tell us about the student’s participation.”
Students usually ask teachers they had as juniors. “It’s not good for seniors to ask [teachers they have in their senior year] because two to three months is usually not enough time to get to know a student,” math teacher Susan Rubin said.
On the other hand, English teacher Philip Mott “only write[s] for seniors because [his students] don’t ask until their senior year.”
Considering the importance of these recommendations, students must choose carefully which teachers to ask.
“I chose teachers who I had for more than a year,” senior Jimmy Finley said. “I wanted to have a teacher who could write a lot about me.”
“I take the [recommendations] very seriously,” Mott said. “[I’m] meticulous and conscientious about them. […] I take time to make sure the recommendations capture who the student really is.”
The pressure put on students to get teacher recommendations extends over to the teachers’ as well. These teachers, whose schedules are already packed with classes to teach, papers to examine and tests to grade, have an astounding number of recommendations to write per year.
“I write 35 thirty-five recommendations,” English teacher Annie Thoms said. “It puts a lot of pressure on me, [especially because] I teach many intensive classes.”
Teachers must try to capture students in ways that grades and SAT scores cannot. “There are a lot of key phrases, like ‘conscientious,’ that fit a lot of students,” Rubin said. “It’s important to capture students in a unique way.”
Rubin is usually asked to write around 20 recommendations per year. And now, with the limit on college applications removed, many teachers find themselves filling out and sending in recommendations to over 15 colleges per student.
That makes for some heavy-duty paper cuts.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Mott, who is asked to write 50 to 56 recommendations per year. “[Students] don’t take no for an answer. [...] These college recommendations have put a strain on me.”
The process proves easier for some students than for others. “It’s really easy to ask a teacher for a recommendation if the student has been responsible in class,” senior Mark Kim said. “If the student has good teacher-student relations, it’s not a problem at all.”
“The student must have a good relationship [with me],” Mott said. “[Students also] must have a good sense of purpose, a clear direction in life and a global view as citizens of the world.”
There are other factors that contribute to the student’s choice of whom they want to write their recommendations. “I chose an English teacher to write one of [mine], because I thought that an English teacher would make the most convincing argument,” Finley said.
“I tried my best to ask responsible teachers who I could trust to send in my letters on time,” Kim said.
For the most part, colleges are fairly lenient when it comes to recommendations being sent in past the deadline. In fact, at UPenn, the policy they have against late recommendations is extremely “soft,” according to Bezella. “We realize that it’s out of the students’ hands.,” she said.
The same rule also applies for Dartmouth College. “It depends on how late they are, but we do give some leeway,” Dartmouth admissions officer Tom Crady said.
Because teacher recommendations are a crucial part of an application, students have to plan out the process well in advance. Juniors learn about the process and receive tips from the guidance office.
“I’m optimistic about the process, because I already have a pretty good idea of which teachers I’m going to ask for recommendations,” junior Aidan Bonner said.
The art of asking for and writing the teacher recommendation can be tricky to master, but in the end, according to Crady, they “provide a perspective that’s integral to the application process.”