College Application Series - Part 4: LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION & COUNSELOR REPORTS
By Karen Treon
Has your student asked two teachers for Letters of Recommendation? If your student did this in the late spring, great! (We covered it in our Sixth Semester blog post). If not, no worries. The conventional (and good) wisdom on Letters of Recommendation (“LoRs”) is that students should ask two teachers in core academic areas for LoRs. Most often, students ask teachers they had their junior year for LORs as those teachers had a full year to get to know the student. If your student didn’t ask teachers for these letters at the end of the school year, we suggest that they send an inquiry email over the summer. Some teachers might appreciate having the opportunity to write these letters in the summer, while others might not be able to write it until the beginning of the next school year. Your student’s inquiry should keep this in mind and be accommodating of teachers’ schedules. Some other guidance for students asking for LoRs follows:
Don’t presume that the teacher will write the LoR – ASK if the teacher would be willing to write an LoR! Some teachers limit the number they can write each year because they are very time-consuming and most teachers write them on their own time, so students should not take it too personally if a teacher says no.
Include a resume or outline of activities inside and outside of school. Teachers might be very familiar with a student’s in class accomplishments but not know a lot about other activities. Providing extra information is helpful.
Ask if the teacher has a form they would like submitted - some teachers do this to ensure they have the information they need to write a compelling LoR. If your teacher does not have a form, they still might want to know what a student is interested in studying or pursuing.
Students should understand that they will be asked to waive FERPA in the Common App and will not see the teacher’s LoR. In the vast majority of cases, teachers will submit these letters directly to universities or the Common App.
Most schools also require that a school counselor submit a report called the “School Report” to the Common App. Counselors are very familiar with this, but their workloads are heavy. Make sure that your student makes their request for one at the beginning of the school year and fills out any required request forms. Again, this will be uploaded to the Common App and will not go through the student.
For more information on Letters of Recommendation and how to ask for them, visit the always helpful Admissions Mom website. She is a wealth of information on all things college.
