Five Steps to Getting Great Letters of Recommendation

Copyright (c) 2010 Marjorie Hansen Shaevitz

Letters of recommendations from high school teachers and counselors play an important role in helping college admissions officers decide whether a student gets admitted. Many colleges require two letters of recommendation, often called Teacher Evaluation forms. Most applications also ask for a letter of recommendation called a School Report from a student's high school college counselor. Given that there are usually more qualified applicants than there are slots for next year's freshman class, having teachers and counselors sing your praises can make the difference between getting rejected or waitlisted and getting onto a college's acceptance list.

There are five things you can do to increase your chances of getting great letters of recommendation:

1. Carefully Choose Your Recommenders First of all, generate a list of potential teachers that you might ask to write recommendations. Start off with teachers in whose classes you've performed well, getting at least an B or B+, but preferably an A. Also add the names of teachers with whom you've developed a personal relationship. To decide which teachers to ask, assign each teacher on your list a score from 1 to 10 (1 = not good letter, and 10 = the best possible letter). After you've given each name a number, go back and circle the two teachers with the highest numbers. These are the people you should ask. Who you choose to complete the School Report is simple: Your assigned college counselor. It's very important that you communicate well and often with this person. Of all the high school professionals college admissions officer consult with about students, the college counselor is the one they talk to the most.

2. Start Early Whatever you do, don't go waltzing into your college counselor's office or teachers' classrooms on December 1st, asking them to write your letters of recommendation! At that late date, what kind of job do you think they will do? Ideally, students should ask their teachers about recommendations before school ends their junior year. If you haven't done the asking then, be sure to see them sometime during on the first week of school in the fall. Don't send teachers an email or text message; go meet them face-to-face and politely ask about completing the Teacher Evaluation forms.

3. Make it Easy for Them Letters of recommendation should provide college admissions people with information about what kind of student you are, and also what kind of person you are. Help your recommenders with their jobs by providing an Activities Resume, a summary of everything you've done, accomplished, or achieved as a freshman, sophomore and junior in and outside of school. Take a few minutes and go over the resume with them so that you can answer any questions they may have. The more helpful you are and the more comprehensive the information is, the better their letters will be. Your attitude toward them should be, "I want to make your job of writing recommendations for me as easy as I can."

4. Follow Up Yes, teachers and counselors can get behind and even forget to write recommendations. Remember, you are one of many students with whom they are working. To help them keep on time, provide a list of your colleges and the dates when the applications are due. Cycle back to the recommenders a few weeks after you have made your recommendation request to "see how it's going." This is a gentle way of nudging them. Right before the application materials are due, make a final stop by a recommender's office to make sure that a recommendation is done and gone.

5. Say Thank You You may not realize this, but teachers don't have to write recommendation letters. It's something that they do as a special favor. Therefore, you need to thank them for their efforts, and do it more than once. While high school counselors are expected to complete School Reports as a part of their job, it's still very important for you to say thank you to them. This is more than just being polite; it's the right thing to do. And you never know when you might need to come back to a recommender for some kind of follow-up letter. For example, if you get waitlisted at one of your favorite colleges and want to get off the waitlist, a counselor or teacher follow-up phone call or letter might just do the trick.

Remember, every other senior who is applying to a four-year college is also in the process of asking for letters of recommendation. By following the five program steps above, you can make it easier on the recommenders and yourself.