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Everything You Need to Know About Gathering Stellar Letters of Recommendation for College

Like your college application essays, recommendation letters tell colleges who you are beyond your GPA, SAT score, and resume.

It’s the only part of your application where colleges learn about you from someone else’s perspective.

Letters of recommendation may not be the most important component of your application, but their value should not be underestimated. In fact, many schools rate them as more important than factors like class rank , subject test scores (AP/IB), and extracurriculars .

You may feel like you don’t have much control over how your recommendation letters turn out, but that’s not the case. Read on to learn what you can do to gather the best letters of recommendation possible.

Who should write my recommendation letters?

Carefully read the instructions in the college’s application or on the school’s website. Some schools specify who needs to write your letters, so pay attention to this information.

For example, a recommendation from a counselor may be required. Some colleges may prefer recommendations from teachers of certain subjects.

If you aren’t limited by these guidelines, find someone who:

• Knows you well
• Taught you recently
• Teaches a core subject or a subject related to your academic and career goals
• Has coached or managed you outside the classroom

Of course, you want the person who writes your recommendation to know you well and like you. Otherwise, the letter won’t be compelling and persuasive. It’ll also lack the personal touches that make for a truly great letter of recommendation.

Colleges want to hear from teachers who taught you recently. Your middle school teacher, for instance, isn’t the best choice. It’s a good idea to ask someone who taught you during your junior year (since senior year is just getting started).

You may also want to ask a teacher who knows you outside of the classroom — someone who coached your sports team, directed you in a play, or is the sponsor of a club that you’re active in.

Finally, ask someone who teaches a core subject like reading, math, history, or science. There are some exceptions to this rule, though. If you’re planning to major in art history and have expressed your passion for art throughout your application, for instance, a recommendation from your art teacher would be a great fit.

When should I ask for letters of recommendation?

Ask for your letters of recommendation as far in advance as possible. Teachers are busy as it is, and many teachers will receive recommendation requests from multiple students. The earlier you ask, the more your teacher will appreciate it (and the better your letter will turn out).

At the absolute minimum, you should give your teachers three weeks’ notice. However, more notice is even better. Plus, it’s helpful to be one of the first students your teacher writes a letter for, before he or she gets “recommendation-writing fatigue.”

How should I ask for recommendation letters?

Once you’ve selected the teachers you’d like to ask for recommendations, it’s time to put in your request.

Here are a few guidelines for asking for letters of recommendation:

• Ask in person, not via e-mail.
• Ask when your teacher isn’t busy and won’t feel put on the spot (e.g., not in the middle of class while surrounded by other students). Say, “Mr. Thomas, do you have five minutes to talk?” You can also e-mail your teacher in advance to schedule a time to talk about college.
• Ask one-on-one. Again, you don’t want your teacher to feel put on the spot.
• Unsure if the teacher will write you a positive letter? Ask, “Would you feel comfortable writing a letter of recommendation for me?” or, “Would you be willing and able to write a strong letter of recommendation for me?” If their response is anything less than enthusiastic, it may be a good idea to choose someone else.

If the teacher says, “yes,” thank them and let them know you’ll email your resume (or you can have a printed copy ready to provide). Ask if there’s any more information the teacher will need to write your recommendation. If there is, or if the teacher has their own process they’d like you to follow, do as asked.

In most cases, teachers will submit the letter of recommendation electronically. If it needs to be mailed in, however, it’s your responsibility to supply the teacher with a stamped, addressed envelope.

And finally, here’s one way not to ask your teacher: Do not simply add the teacher’s name and email to your Common App with no prior conversation. This will reflect poorly on you and is unlikely to lead to a positive letter. To ask for a letter of recommendation, you’ll need to actually ask, not just assume.

What information should I provide?

After your teacher has agreed to write the letter, you’ll need to send a follow-up email. The follow-up email serves a few purposes.

Since teachers are busy and working with so many students, it’s easy to forget a five-minute conversation unless it’s also put in writing.

Your follow-up will also include helpful information that will enable your teacher to write a detailed, persuasive letter of recommendation.

Start the follow-up by thanking your teacher again for writing your letter of recommendation. In a few bullet points, list the following:

• The schools you’re applying to
• The deadlines
• Your plans: Major, minor (if applicable), which school is your first choice (if applicable), and career goals

Next, provide some information about your academic performance and your performance in this teacher’s class (again, the teacher has a lot of students):

• Weighted and unweighted GPA and grade in the teacher’s class
• How you contributed to your teacher’s classroom
• Your favorite lessons, memories, projects or accomplishments you’re most proud of in that class, etc.
• Any strengths, passions, or other personal qualities you’d like the teacher to highlight in your letter
• Any challenges or obstacles you’ve overcome — and if you feel your grades aren’t a reflection of your ability, why? What difficulties did you have and what have you done to improve?

Finally, attach your resume to the email. It should mention extracurricular activities, awards and accomplishments, and any work experience that you’ve had too.

Sign off by expressing more gratitude and telling the teacher to let you know if there’s anything else you can provide to be helpful.

With a week or two left before the deadline, follow up with the teacher to make sure all is well and ask if there’s any additional information you can provide. You can do this in person or via email, but email is always a helpful way to ensure the teacher remembers what you’ve discussed.

What should I do after receiving the letter of recommendation?

Once the letter of recommendation is complete, do something to thank your teacher(s) for the time and effort it took to write your letter(s).

You may want to purchase a small gift or a gift card to Starbucks, Target, or another place you know your teacher frequents. If you don’t have the funds to buy a gift, provide a handwritten thank you note to show your appreciation.

When you decide where you’re going to school, let your recommenders know which college you’re attending and thank them again for their support.

Other Tips for Great Letters of Recommendation

• Waive your FERPA rights through the Common App. This means that you won’t get to see what your teacher wrote. Colleges trust letters of recommendation more when you’ve waived your FERPA rights, because they feel the teacher wasn’t influenced by the knowledge that you would read the letter.
• If you still have time before applying to college, build relationships with your counselor and teachers. It’ll be difficult to gather quality letters of recommendation if your teachers and counselor haven’t gotten a chance to know you.
• What if it’s time to ask for letters of recommendation and you haven’t gotten to know your teachers? Stop by and have a conversation. Make an extra effort in the time you have remaining. And when it’s time to supply information, provide more extensive info for teachers who may not know you well.
• If you’re getting letters from multiple teachers, choose teachers who can highlight separate strengths, forming a more complete picture of you and your qualities/abilities.

Final Thoughts: Everything You Need to Know About Gathering Stellar Letters of Recommendation for College

And there you have it! Gathering quality letters of recommendation isn’t rocket science, but it does require planning and politeness.

Choose teachers who know you well, like you, teach core subject areas (in most cases), and have taught you recently, preferably during junior year.

Ask well in advance, provide your teacher with plenty of helpful information, and express your gratitude.

Follow the tips in this guide, and you’ll set your application apart from the rest with thorough, compelling letters of recommendation.

Author: Jason Patel

Jason Patel is the founder of Transizion, a college counseling and career services company that provides mentorship and consulting on college applications, college essays, resumes, cover letters, interviews, and finding jobs and internships. Jason’s work has been cited in The Washington Post, BBC, NBC News, Forbes, Fast Company, Bustle, Inc., Fox Business, and other great outlets. Transizion donates a portion of profits to underserved students and veterans in of college prep and career development assistance.

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College Recommendation Letter Samples & Writing Guide

It's important to review college recommendation letter samples if you are applying to college soon or if you have been asked to write a letter for a prospective student. In this increasingly competitive admissions climate, college letters of recommendation as just as important as college essays and GPA. Keep reading to learn more about college recommendation letters, how to make sure you secure and write a compelling one, as well as examples of great letters of recommendation that will definitely inspire your own.

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Article Contents 14 min read

What are college recommendation letters and why do they matter.

As the name suggests, college recommendation letters are essentially positive endorsements of an applicant's skills and qualities. Their aim is to recommend the applicant in question for a particular college or university. Most four-year colleges, like the easiest ivy schools to get into , or the best undergraduate business schools, for example, have a holistic admissions process. This means that they want to know the "whole person" behind the IB or AP courses, grades, and test scores. Recommendation letters and personal essays play a significant role in making that happen. They give the admissions board more information about how students view themselves and how others see them.

A strong letter of recommendation holds substantial weight in admissions decisions. It allows the admissions committee to get a better idea of who you are as a person and what you would be like as a student. A strong letter can be the deciding factor between receiving an acceptance letter, an interview invitation, or a rejection letter when the school is faced with two equally qualified applicants. 

Want to know more about the college application process? This video will walk you through it:

College recommendation letters should be written by someone familiar with your work, character, and accomplishments. Someone who knows you well enough to illuminate your intellectual and personal qualities will write a better letter than someone who has little knowledge of who you are.  Depending on your academic and professional background, there are three main types of letters that you can request from various referees.  

A personal reference, also called a character reference, is a letter written by a friend, family member, mentor, neighbor, or anyone who knows the candidate well enough personally and who can attest to the traits that would make them a good addition to the school or program that they are applying to. This type of letter should explain how the writer knows the applicant and discuss the qualities and attributes that make them the ideal candidate.  ","label":"Personal references","title":"Personal references"}]" code="tab1" template="BlogArticle">

Regardless of the type of letter you are requesting, one important thing keeps coming up: the referee should know you well! You do not want writers with whom you have not worked personally or with whom you’ve only had brief interactions. These have not had time to evaluate you and your skills, so they will most likely end up writing a very generic sounding letter. Remember that the recommendation letter is supposed to give the admissions team information about you that can't be found anywhere else in your application. 

Before we get into the structure of a recommendation letter, what it needs to include, and those examples that we promised, we want to go over a few things that you need to keep in mind if you want to have recommendation letters that stand out. 

• The earlier, the better:   Any good college advisor will tell you that you need to start planning and working on your college applications early. College applications have a lot of components that require time and focus to get right. That's why it is ideal for you to request your recommendation letters early, as it gives you more time to focus on other aspects of your college application, like writing your common app essay or reviewing common college interview questions . Furthermore, the earlier you speak with your chosen writers about your reference letter, the sooner they can start working on it. Therefore, the higher your chances of getting a strong letter of recommendation.
•  Ask tactfully:   It's important to remember that when you're asking for a letter of recommendation, you are essentially asking for a professional favor. It's therefore important to be courteous and professional when asking your chosen writers for one. We recommend doing it face to face whenever possible, but if that's not an option for you, then you may send the request by email. In both cases, you should explicitly ask for a letter of recommendation and provide them with all the information they may need. This brings us to our last point...  
•   It's your responsibility:   As the applicant, it is your responsibility to provide your chosen writers with everything they need to write the strongest letter they can. You should provide them with supporting documents like your supplemental essay, high school resume if you have one, and a short biography to fill in any gaps. They also need to know what format the letter should be in, if anything specific is required by the school, whom they should send the letter to, and when. You should also make sure they have your contact information to get in touch with you if they need additional information. At the end of the day, this is your college application, so you need to follow up with every single component, even if you are not writing your own letter of recommendation .    

There is no golden template for college recommendation letters. You just need to make sure that the letter is grammatically correct, easy to read and follow, and communicates the right information. It is important to check the guidelines and instructions given by the school you are applying to. Some colleges can request that references be submitted in a specific format, and it is your responsibility to inform your chosen writers of this. You may have a form that your selected referee will need to fill out or specific questions that the school requires them to answer in their letter.  

Unless otherwise stated, we recommend using the following format: 

A letter of recommendation is a document that is supposed to highlight an applicant\u2019s positive attributes, skills, and accomplishments. A strong letter will be clear and provide specific examples to back up any claims made about the student. People tend to remember narratives, so this is one of those instances where it is better to show instead of telling. We recommend using brief anecdotes and specific examples of exceptional projects or meaningful interactions. "}]">

Conclusion and college recommendation letter examples

College letters of recommendation are challenging. Whether you're requesting a letter of recommendation or have been asked to write one for a prospective college student, there are a lot of things that you need to keep in mind. It's important to use a format that is easy to read, a structure that is easy to follow, and to have specific examples that will show the admissions board why a candidate belongs in their school or university. Following the tips outlined above will definitely help you come up with a recommendation letter that is as compelling or maybe even better than the outstanding examples that we'll share with you below.

Have you started working on your college admissions essay? This video has some great tips you can use:

College recommendation letter sample # 1 

To whom it may concern,  

It is with great pleasure that I write this letter of recommendation on behalf of Jane Doe. I have known her for three years, having served as both her English teacher and her supervisor on the XYZ High School newspaper. I firmly believe that Jane would be an excellent addition to the XX College English program.  

 I have watched Jane grow into a capable and confident leader. She started as one of the junior writers of our high school paper, and from the very beginning, Jane was always early to newspaper meetings, and she always came prepared. Whether it was with research for the stories she wanted to pitch or a pen and paper to take notes on whatever assignment she would get. She worked her way up to features editor and she has been occupying this role for one year.   

  Her leadership skills are reflected every day in how she delegates work to her assistant staff and motivates the other writers on her team with words and creative contests that appeal to their competitive side. For example, she recently bought two tickets to a concert and offered them as a prize for the junior writer who came up with the most interesting angle for a story about renovating the school cafeteria. All of the writers had been staying away from it because it seemed like a pretty boring subject but now, they are all looking for ways to make it interesting.   

  She has also been able to manage her commitments to the school paper and the cheerleading team without compromising her grades, which is a testament to her organizational skills. She has consistently been an active participant in class discussions and has demonstrated her impressive written and verbal communication skills through numerous research papers, newspaper articles, and class presentations. Jane intends to spend her years in university honing those communication skills and learning how to be a better journalist, something that I know she is very passionate about and will excel at.  

  I am confident that Jane would be a great addition to your school, as she has so much to offer, both inside and outside the classroom.    If you have any questions regarding Jane's qualifications, please feel free to contact me at (514) 123-4567 or [email protected] .  

Regards,   

Izzie Stevens,   

English teacher, XYZ high school   

College recommendation letter sample # 2 

  To Whom It May Concern,  

I have had the pleasure of supervising George Yang at BBG Auto dealership for a little over two years now, and I can say without a doubt that he would make a great addition to the student body of ABC program.   

I have been impressed with how reliable and responsible George is. Many part-timers in the car dealership business are high school or college students, and often, they require a certain amount of handholding, but this has never been the case with George. From the very beginning, he was always punctual and respectful with customers. One gentleman in particular was so impressed with the service that he received that he booked a separate appointment with me, just to tell me how friendly and helpful George was as he went through the process of buying his daughter’s first car. The customer insisted that George deserved a raise.   

  Moreover, when he is not using his downtime to catch up on schoolwork, he is either taking initiative and cold calling potential customers to tell them about upcoming promotions that might interest them or helping his coworkers complete additional tasks, like cleaning up the cars in the showroom, updating the price tags on the cars and sometimes even helping the other salespeople close on a deal.   

  In addition to being a team player, he also shows great leadership potential. At his request, I gave him the opportunity to run one of our promotional campaigns, and he did a fantastic job. He came up with a marketing plan that attracted over 60 customers to the dealership in one day, and he delegated tasks when he had to make sure things ran smoothly. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, in my opinion, he sought help from myself and other members of management whenever he needed it.   

  George has mentioned that he is interested in pursuing a degree in business, a niche in which I am positive he will excel. His dedication to learning makes him a focused student, and I am optimistic that he will graduate with flying colors.   

  I give George my highest recommendation for enrollment in the business program in your college, without reservation. Please feel free to contact me at (819) 123-5678 or [email protected] for any further information.  

Sincerely,  

Jacob Blake  

Sales Manager, BBG Auto Dealership  

To Whom It May Concern  

I am writing this recommendation letter at the request of Jonathan Smith, who is applying for admission to X university. Jonathan has been a student at JKL High School for three years and the captain of our football team for a year now. As the team's coach, I have had the pleasure of getting to know him as an athlete but also as a person and a student.  

 As an athlete, it is evident that Jonathan strives to win and enjoys the sport in its pure form. As a person, I have watched him learn to be a better leader by listening to his teammates and often asking questions that gave me a pause. I remember a particular instance where he sat next to me on the bus as we were coming back from a game and asked if it was his role to intervene when two team members were having a personal dispute that could potentially affect the game but had not gotten to that point yet. It was one of those moments that showed me that he takes his role as a captain seriously.  

As a student, Jonathan is always eager to learn. I have noticed it when we study plays, and he takes careful notes and asks follow-up questions. Many of my colleagues at JKL high school have also commented on his ability to quickly grasp concepts and follow up on the rare occasions where he is not able to do so on the first try. It is one of the main reasons why he was able to secure an ‘A’ in his AP Biology class even though he joined the class later than the other students.   

As you can probably tell from the few stories that I have shared with you, Jonathan is a focused young man who takes his responsibilities and commitments very seriously. He has assured me that he is committed to becoming one of the best physical therapists in the country and that X university gives him the best chance of achieving this goal.   

I recommend Jonathan for your program without any reservations, as I am confident that he will contribute to your alma matter in great ways, both in and out of the classroom and on the football field. I can be reached by phone at (800) 123-8888 or email at [email protected] if you require any further information.  

Tucker O'Malley,   

JKL High School   

College recommendation letter sample # 4 

It is without hesitation and with great pleasure that I write to you today regarding Aisha Bellgam's application to your prestigious institution. I have been a counselor at XYZ high school for over ten years, and Aisha is one of the most promising students that I have had the pleasure of working with.   

  Aisha first came to me for guidance during her first year of high school. She was new to the country, unfamiliar with our educational system, and dealing with some pretty heavy family problems that made it difficult for her to focus in school. The reality of my job is that I often have to offer my help to students who need it, or other teachers have to send them to my office. So, as you can imagine, I was pleasantly surprised that Aisha had decided to take this step by herself.   

  Over the years, I have noticed that taking this kind of initiative comes naturally to her. For example, once we had worked through her issues and she was more comfortable in school, she decided to help other students like her. Our school is located in an urban community with many children from immigrant families. Being one herself, Aisha is uniquely qualified to identify some of the things that make it difficult for these children to adapt to their new environment, and she recognized that. In her sophomore year, she came to me and asked if she could volunteer in my office and provide resources to help students new to the country integrate faster.   

  Furthermore, many of her teachers have commended her for often taking the time to tutor other students after school. Her compassion, willingness to help, and amicable nature are why she was elected president of the student council. They are also the reason I believe that she will excel in college and go on to change many lives for the better after graduation if she is admitted into your social work program.   

  I am writing this letter today because I wholeheartedly believe that Aisha will be a fantastic addition to your social work program. I have watched her grow into a confident, compassionate young woman who is continually working to better herself and those around her. I look forward to seeing her continue to do so in college and beyond.   

  Please do not hesitate to contact me by phone at (204) 123-4567 or email at [email protected] for any additional information regarding this application.   

  Sincerely,  

Iris Doe  

XYZ High School counselor  

College recommendation letter sample # 5 

My name is Jonathan Sheperd, and I am writing to you today in support of Mr. James Doe's application to the pre-med program at X university.   

  I have been a family physician for over twenty-five years. I currently own and operate a small walk-in clinic in downtown Toronto, and James has been volunteering with us since January 20xx. I have had the pleasure of supervising him and observing him work for over a year now, and I can confidently say that he will make an excellent doctor in the future.   

  I personally believe that bedside manner is one of the hardest things to teach future doctors, but I do not think that will be the case with James. He is always patient, friendly, and courteous with the incoming patients. I realized this during one of his first full shifts at the clinic when a patient who was having a problem controlling their bowel movements came into the clinic and was looking for assistance. Even some of the most experienced members of my staff were having a hard time staying professional, but James volunteered to help this young man with no complaints, and he did so with a smile. In the end, I heard the patient thank him for helping him through one of the most embarrassing days of his life.   

  This is the type of great impression that James leaves with patients and colleagues as well. Even though he only works the front desk at the clinic for 20 hours every other week, the entirety of my staff has acknowledged that his willingness to help and work ethic are things we can always rely on. He has often volunteered to work longer hours when we need extra help, and he always accepts new assignments with enthusiasm.  

  He recently informed me that he made the dean's list again this spring. It did not surprise me because I know that he brings the same level of dedication and work ethic to his studies. He has a very curious mind that is always at work. We actually have a running joke in the office about the little notebook that he carries around and writes in constantly. When I finally asked him about it, he told me that he likes to write down some of the terms that he repeatedly hears in the office so that he can research them or ask his biology teacher about them.   

  His work ethic and eagerness to learn are undeniable, and I am convinced that they will help him succeed as a student and, later on, as a physician. I strongly recommend this applicant for your pre-medicine program as I believe that his professionalism, positive learning attitude, and thirst for knowledge will make him a great addition to your student body.   

  Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any additional questions. You can reach me by phone at (618) 123-3698 or email at [email protected] .    

Dr. Jonathan Sheperd  

  FAQs

It's a document that highlights a candidate's skills and qualifications and recommends that they be admitted to a particular college or university. 

Very important! College admission boards like to get a sense of who is the applicant is beyond their academic background, and college essays and letters of recommendation allow them to do just that. In other words, a strong letter of recommendation can mean the difference between an acceptance letter and a rejection one.

You can ask your high school teachers, school counselors, mentors, supervisors, etc. Just make sure that it is someone who knows you well enough to talk about your skills and other positive attributes.

The earlier, the better. You should ask for your recommendation letters at the very beginning of your college application process. You can even mention it to your chosen writers before then and simply remind them when it comes time to apply to colleges.

We recommend that you ask for a letter of recommendation face to face. Remember to be polite and professional, be specific in your ask, and provide all the information your referee will need to write a strong letter.

You should provide your chosen writer with supporting documents about your background, like your personal essay or high school resume, and information about the letter format, content, and submission deadline.

Ideally, college recommendation letters shouldn't be longer than one page.

In short, a narrative and specific example. Instead of just telling the admissions board that the applicant is a capable student with leadership skills, it would be best to share an example or a brief anecdote that shows that they are.

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Have a question ask our admissions experts below and we'll answer your questions.

Please can the recommender's email be personal?.

BeMo Academic Consulting

Hello Valetine! Thanks for your comment. It is always best to put down the professional email of your referees, so do your best to include them instead of personal email. However, if your referee is no longer working in an official capacity (retired, for example), you can use their personal email. Though we always recommend using a professional address. 

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Peer Letter of Recommendation: Everything You Need to Know

Letters of recommendation from teachers and advisors are commonplace in college admissions, but some colleges require or encourage submitting a peer rec letter as well.

Davidson currently requires a peer recommendation, and Dartmouth strongly encourages submitting one, which, at such a selective school, is essentially the same as a requirement. 

If you’re contemplating applying to Dartmouth or Davidson, or have been asked to write a letter of recommendation for a friend, keep reading to learn more about this uncommon college application requirement.  

What is a Peer Letter of Recommendation?

A peer letter of recommendation is just what it sounds like: a letter from someone who knows you well that provides insight into who you are outside of an academic setting. Peer letters of recommendation play an integral part in a holistic admissions process that considers the student as a whole person, not simply a collection of grades and test scores. A letter of recommendation from a friend can speak to your personality, character, and interests outside of school. It can also shed light on how you’ll fit in and contribute on campus. 

A compelling letter can help separate yourself from other applicants at such competitive schools. Formal recommendation letters from teachers generally focus on your academic achievement and potential, and letters from advisors focus on past achievements and future potential. Peer recommendations are typically more personal. At their simplest, a peer letter of recommendation is a friend making a case for why a college would want you on their campus. 

Pros and Cons of Submitting a Peer Rec Letter

There are numerous pros offered by a letter of recommendation from a friend. Friends see more of each other in daily life than they do teachers and advisors, who they might see for just a brief window of time daily or weekly. Because of this, your friends can paint a more vibrant picture of you, including your attitude, unique traits, and how you interact with others. While teachers can speak to how you’ll fit in a college classroom, friends can share how you’ll fit on a college campus. 

Friends and teachers also prioritize different attributes in people. For example, teachers commonly focus on performance and academic achievement, while friends value qualities like leadership, motivation, trustworthiness, and dependability. Even if a teacher values qualities like leadership, they often only witness you displaying it in a small, confined setting. A friend can tell a college about all your positive attributes that teachers don’t get to see. 

Teachers are also subject to their own personal biases, which is something that is particularly harmful to students of color. For example, a 2016 Stanford University study found that teachers are less likely to expect Black and Latinx students to complete more than high school when compared to white students. Similarly, another Stanford study found that Black students are more likely to be labeled as troublemakers and subject to harsher punishment than their white peers. A peer recommendation allows a student to pick someone who is not as influenced by these biases.

Just as there are pros to a peer letter of recommendations, there are also cons. Just as a great letter of recommendation from a friend can bolster your odds of acceptance, a poor letter can hurt them. This makes it vital that students choose the right person to advocate for them—a creative and clear communicator, who knows you well and has your best interest in mind. 

Letters of recommendations from friends can also disadvantage students coming from low-income and less-competitive schools. Students coming from these schools are less likely to have a peer group as capable of writing a highly persuasive letter as students coming from more high-income and private high schools. 

Who Should You Ask for Peer Recommendation?

Both Davidson and Dartmouth offer clear instructions on who should write your peer recommendation. 

Davidson directs applicants to have their letter “completed by a classmate or close friend who knows the applicant well and can evaluate the applicant’s strengths.”

Dartmouth instructs applicants to get their letter written by “anyone the applicant considers a peer. It should not be someone who is in a supervisory or oversight role in the applicant’s life. A few examples are a classmate or teammate; brother, sister, or cousin; a co-worker; a friend met at summer school or summer camp; lab or debate partner.”

Digging deeper, there are certain characteristics you should look for in the person you ask to write your peer recommendation. They should be:

• A strong, engaging, and persuasive writer 
• Someone who can share personal anecdotes or examples of you demonstrating your strengths 
• Someone who knows you well and can speak to your character and personality 
• Supportive of your college ambitions 
• Someone who has the time to devote to writing you a compelling recommendation 
• Willing to learn about the schools you’re applying to and what they’re looking for in applicants 

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How to Write a Rec Letter for a Friend

Writing a letter of recommendation for a friend is a great honor—and an enormous responsibility. If a friend asks you to perform this important task for them, here are a few steps you can take to ensure you make a compelling argument for your friend. 

Generate an Idea

Before putting pen to paper or clicking away on your keyboard, think about the characteristics that you find admirable in the person you’re recommending. 

• What makes them stand out? 
• What qualities in them impress you? 
• What have the two of you bonded over? 
• What successes or adversities have you shared? 

After you’ve identified an area to write about, build a list of examples and experiences that highlight them. The best recommendation letters from friends show that the person you’re writing about has demonstrated a particular strength or skill, rather than plainly stating it. For example, instead of simply writing that your friend is persistent, you can share a story about how they got cut from the baseball team freshman year but, after dedicating themselves to practice, they made the team the following year and started for the varsity team as a senior. 

Create an Outline and Write a Draft 

A peer letter of recommendation is generally about one page long and is less formal than letters of recommendation coming from teachers and advisors. While you can write a letter of recommendation for a friend in a more personal voice, this is still a persuasive piece of writing. A good piece of persuasive writing contains three sections: an introduction, body, and conclusions. 

Introduction: The introduction should tell the reader who you are and what your relationship is to the person you’re writing the letter for, include a statement of recommendation, and grab the reader’s attention. 

Body: In the body of your peer letter of recommendation (normally two paragraphs), you want to offer examples that back up the reasons why you’re recommending your friend that you provided in your statement of recommendation. Remember to show using anecdotes and incidents, not just tell. Attention-grabbing letters make the person you’re writing about jump off the page and provide a fully formed picture of the person you’re writing about. 

Conclusion: This is your closing argument as to why a college should accept your friend, so make it count. It’s important to reaffirm your statement of support for your friend in the conclusion and end with something that the reader will remember. 

Proofread and Revise 

A letter of recommendation is a big deal and deserves to be treated as such. Reread your letter and make sure it presents a clear, concise, and captivating argument for your friend’s acceptance. Also, take time to ensure you’ve used clear examples demonstrating your friend’s strengths and that the tone is something you’re comfortable sending to a college. 

At schools like Davidson and Dartmouth, a peer letter of recommendation is just one part of the admissions process. Our free chancing engine takes into account your GPA, test scores, extracurriculars, and other data to predict your odds of acceptance at over 500 colleges across the U.S. It will also show you how you stack up against other applicants and how to improve your profile. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to get started!

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How to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation for College

College admissions experts offer advice on how to get the strongest recommendations from the best sources.

Get a College Letter of Recommendation

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Obtaining high-quality letters of recommendation takes time and planning.

Letters of recommendation from teachers, school counselors and other sources can help college admissions officers get a more complete picture of applicants.

They give admissions offices a "third dimension" as to who students are as individuals, says Peter Wilson, dean of college admissions at the University of Chicago in Illinois.

"They tell us what a student is like and how they perform in their classroom and overall community," Wilson says. "They tell us how a student would interact with their peers, so they’re giving us a sense of, when you come to our campus, how are you going to interact with our faculty and what are you going to be like in a classroom setting?"

While just one part of the college application process, it's an important one, experts say. Recommendation letters play a bigger role than many students might think, says Richard Tench, a school counselor at St. Albans High School in West Virginia.

"This really paints the bigger picture," he says. "When admissions looks at files, everyone’s going to have a transcript. Everyone is going to have extracurriculars. But those only speak so far. I think those personal stories and those stories of perseverance or their true passion that come out in the letters are what set (some applicants) apart."

Obtaining high-quality letters of recommendation usually doesn't happen overnight – it takes time and planning. Understanding the role that recommendation letters play in the application process can help students plan properly and avoid common pitfalls, experts say.

Here's what high school students need to know about how to ask for letters of recommendation for college applications .

Whom Should I Ask to Write Letters of Recommendation?

Admissions officers generally want to see letters of recommendation from high school teachers and counselors. But some colleges have more specific requirements than others. For example, the University of Chicago requires two letters of recommendation from teachers in "academic subjects," which include: "mathematics, social studies, history, science, English or literature, foreign language, and other courses in which you are doing substantial amounts of reading, writing, or class discussion," according to the school's admissions website .

Generally, students can include letters from elective teachers if that teacher and class are aligned with what they plan to major in, says Colleen Paparella, founder of DC College Counseling. For example, a student planning to major in vocal performance might seek a letter from the choir teacher, or a student planning to study art might request a letter from the art teacher.

A college's website will usually spell out the exact requirements for letters of recommendation.

When it comes to letters of recommendation from teachers, students should approach the instructors with whom they have the best relationships, experts say. Ideally, this is someone who knows them well and can speak to both their academic and personal strengths.

It's important that students consider the context in which the recommender knows them, says Geoff Heckman, a school counselor at Platte County High School in Missouri.

“For instance, if you’re asking me as a school counselor to write a letter for you, it’s probably going to be about your academic promise, your integrity in the school, those pieces," he says. "But if you’re asking somebody like an employer , they’re probably going to be writing it from the perspective of your work ethic."

Students should also make sure they're asking recent teachers for recommendations, meaning those who taught them during the second half of high school. Typically, colleges are looking for recommendations from 11th grade teachers because they've most recently been with the student for a full academic year before applying, experts say.

"By the time an admissions officer reads the letter it’s going to be midway through 12th grade, and the teacher from 9th and 10th grade is going to seem really far away and it’s going to be a red flag," Paparella says. "It’s going to look like they didn’t have somebody more recent to ask."

A student with a part-time job may consider asking his or her manager for a recommendation, and athletes may think about asking their coaches, says Steven Roy Goodman, an educational consultant and admissions strategist in the District of Columbia. Such recommenders may be able to discuss some of a student's strengths that aren't as evident in a classroom setting.

How and When Should I Ask for Letters of Recommendation?

Students should generally ask teachers and counselors for letters of recommendation in person, Paparella says.

At some high schools, students can request counselor recommendations online. And "many faculty members are very happy to schedule a Zoom call who weren't comfortable with that before the pandemic," Goodman says. "That's helped in some ways."

No matter the method, students should be respectful and request letters of recommendation well before an application deadline. Giving teachers, counselors and others ample time to write usually results in stronger recommendations.

Heckman encourages students at his high school to ask for recommendations in late spring or early summer of their junior year . This will give teachers and counselors time to work on a recommendation before seniors inundate them with requests midway through the fall.

Once students ask a teacher or counselor to write a letter of recommendation, they should allow at least two weeks for them to complete it. That gives everyone a fair amount of time to compose a well-written letter, he says.

Another reason not to procrastinate: Some teachers will commit to writing only a certain number of recommendations each year. Students who wait too long to ask may encounter teachers who have already hit their limit.

“Earlier is always better in the college process," says Eric Sherman, a premier college counselor for IvyWise, an educational consulting company. Another result of procrastination, he says, is that letters tend to be more general or shorter because teachers don't have as much time to be thoughtful.

"That’s not necessarily a red flag, but it can raise an eyebrow with admissions offices," he says. "It will essentially not hurt a student, but it might not help them in a way that it could have."

What Makes a Good Recommendation Letter?

Even if students have strong, yearslong relationships with their teachers, experts say it's important not to assume they'll know what to include in the recommendation. Teachers are likely writing letters for other students as well, so preparing a list of things for them to write about will aid the recommender's memory and their writing process.

Sherman says students should supply information about a project or an assignment that was particularly impactful or important to them so that the recommender can address that.

Doing this can be the difference between a good letter and a bad letter, Paparella says.

Successful recommendation letters are descriptive, personal and complement the application rather than being redundant, Sherman says.

Students should welcome the opportunity to list all of their accomplishments and qualities for the recommender, Heckman says.

"Really go over and above in talking about all of those characteristics that you possess," he says. "If you’re willing to say, ‘Hey, I think this is something that’s great,’ and I think it is, too, then together we can write a great letter.”

High schools may have a system to help with this process. Some counseling offices, for instance, ask students to complete a questionnaire to request a letter of recommendation. Heckman says students at his school fill out a Google form that gives recommenders direction on their letters.

“There are times when students want certain areas highlighted about them that you may not be as familiar with," Heckman says. "At times it’s necessary to know everything that a student is involved with so that you’re not only writing about what you know about that student, but also the other things that they want given attention to as well."

If a high school doesn't provide a questionnaire, Paparella says she asks students to answer some generic questions and give the answers to their recommenders.

Questions and answers for teacher recommendations should focus on the student's class performance, while questions and answers for counselors should focus on "more of a holistic view of a student," she says.

Paparella provided some examples, written from the teacher's or counselor's perspective.

Teacher Recommendation Questions

Which experiences from your time in my classroom should I highlight? (Think about your contributions during class discussions, debates, presentations, in-class work, and so on. How has your presence in class made the entire community better?)

What was the most difficult part of my class? How did you handle this challenge? Were you successfully able to overcome the challenge?

What was your favorite unit or subject that we covered in my class? Why did you like it?

Counselor Recommendation Questions

If you had to describe yourself in just three words, what would they be? Please provide concrete examples for each adjective.

What are you passionate about? This could include academic interests, extracurricular activities, hobbies, and so on.

What kind of challenges have you faced in your life (for example: difficult class, learning challenges, loss of a loved one, moving, parents’ divorce, and so on)? What have you learned from these challenges?

She encourages students to provide as much information as possible to give recommenders enough to write a strong letter.

How Many Letters of Recommendation for College Do I Need?

The number of recommendations you will need depends on which colleges you are applying to, so check admissions requirements online.

Paparella says students should obtain two letters, regardless of whether the schools they're applying to ask for them. If students decide later during their senior year to apply to a school that requires them, already having those letters in hand can be crucial, she says.

"It’s better to have them and not need them than to scramble at the last minute to get one," she says.

In addition to what's required, some colleges give applicants the option to submit supplemental letters. It makes sense to ask for an additional letter if it can tell the admissions committee something new about a student, Goodman says.

If a school is test-optional , Goodman says, recommendation letters "are something that admissions officers can hang their hats on," so submitting supplemental letters could be beneficial. "There’s no substitute for somebody being able to talk specifically about your particular interaction with them and their particular interaction with you."

However, schools vary on the number and type of supplemental recommendations they will take. For example, some may accept supplemental letters from clergy and coaches, while others have a more limited list, Paparella says. Some won't take any. Students can find that information either on the Common App or the school's website.

Even when applying to schools that accept several letters, Paparella says it's best to be selective about what you send.

"You have to make sure that the person submitting this is sharing totally new information above and beyond what's already been shared by the counselor and teachers," she says. If they can add something, then it's probably worth sending. "But beyond that, I would say no more than one additional letter from any third party unless it's a very unique situation."

How Do I Submit My Letters of Recommendation?

Students generally don't submit their own letters of recommendation. Teachers, counselors and other recommenders usually send them in electronically via whichever application platform a student is using, such as the Common App.

If it's getting close to the deadline and a recommender hasn't submitted a letter yet, Goodman says students should ask if the person needs anything else to complete the recommendation. This approach is more polite than saying, "I asked you three weeks ago and you haven't done it yet and the deadlines are coming up," Goodman says.

Though it won't have a direct impact on the admissions process, Wilson says he strongly recommends students write a thank-you note to anyone who writes them a recommendation letter.

“We want those types of students in our community,” he says. "I don’t think (students) realize what a big role (these letters) have in our process. When you have 40,000 applicants, teacher recommendations are one of the ways that you can stand out in the process."

What Is an Example of a Good Letter of Recommendation?

For some students and recommenders, it may be helpful to see what a strong letter of recommendation looks like. Paparella shared the following example of a letter written by an employer for a fictitious student to highlight aspects of a good letter.

Introduction

To whom it may concern:

Hermione Granger has been a model employee at my business since I first hired her in November of 2019. I am the owner of Italy’s Best, a local business that sells specialty food items and fresh-made pizza, and I regularly hire teenagers and young adults from the community. Hermione has stood out as an exemplary worker, and I even promoted her to a supervisory position after only three months of employment. She has shown incredible initiative, an unparalleled care for our customers, and fierce dedication to her own and the business’s success.

The introduction provides a strong "general, overarching assessment" that highlights three different characteristics of the student such as "her incredible initiative, her unparalleled care for the customers, and her fierce dedication," Paparella says. It also establishes the author's credibility by stating he regularly works with teenagers and has a good frame of reference, she says.

"The key here is that it doesn't have a paragraph about his own background," she says. "I see this way too often with teachers in particular - they share a whole paragraph about their own background or the course material. The admissions officers don't care about this at all and assume it's just filler because the teacher doesn't have enough to say about the student.

Body Paragraphs

I knew I had made the right decision to hire Hermione when I discovered her re-organizing bags of espresso on some messy shelves. Hermione was primarily responsible for checking out customers and serving food from the pizza bar, yet she would always use time between customers to tidy up the store, make sure boxed and canned goods were straightened, and even check the olive fridge to make sure the Liguria and Gaeta varieties were not too close together so their similar appearance wouldn’t mislead our customers! She was never asked to take on these additional responsibilities; instead, she simply took the initiative upon herself, which is why I created a supervisor position for her in January.

I am often surprised by the deep connection Hermione has established with many of our customers. Every day I hear her referring to our customers by their names, asking about events in their lives, and even remembering their birthdays! Not only does she show such care for our customers, but she came up with the idea for a rewards program. She asked if we could create a stamp card for every $10 spent, offering a 10% discount when the card received 10 stamps, and she offered to design the card herself. She even discovered a stamp in the shape of Italy that we use to mark the cards. She saw the potential to help the store and our customers, and, as a result, I have already seen a nearly 4% increase in revenue.

The body paragraphs elaborate on the characteristics mentioned in the introduction and contain several specific examples and anecdotes that help the recommender make their points, Paparella says.

"Very little space is dedicated to assessing the student. That already happened in the introduction," she says. "Instead, it is chock full of supporting information that would allow an admissions officer to agree with that initial assessment independently after reading it."

I will be deeply saddened to lose Hermione as an employee at Italy’s Best – as will many of our customers who return for the personal touch she provides – but I am very excited for whatever the future holds in store for her. She is truly driven to succeed and she is never satisfied with "good enough" when she knows she can do better. I highly recommend Hermione as an undergraduate in your program, and I know your community will be enriched by her presence.

Giovanni Boccaccio

The conclusion ties it all together. "It describes how the organization is different because the student took part in it, using quantifiable information," Paparella says. "It also describes how the organization will be impacted after the student leaves for college and why this will matter."

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3 Incredible College Recommendation Letter Samples To Help Your Child Get Into College & Win Scholarships

While it is important to have a high GPA and great test scores, your teacher recommendation letters might just make the difference between whether or not you get into your dream school.

Colleges and universities want to see that their applicants are well-rounded, passionate, and determined. Thousands upon thousands of students can earn a 4.0 GPA, but far fewer students are able to do so while also demonstrating strong leadership skills, advanced critical thinking skills, and impeccable character.

Schools rely on recommendations from teachers to get a more holistic view of their applicants, allowing them to see which students have what it takes to thrive on their campus and contribute to the institutions.

If you want to get into your dream school, you are going to need to get great letters of recommendation from your teachers that showcase your strengths.

The last thing you want is a generic letter that makes it sound like you were just another face in a sea of hundreds of students within a teacher’s classroom.

Asking teachers who know you well and giving them plenty of advanced notice (at least two weeks) will help you receive better recommendations.

 Here are four college recommendation letter samples of effective letters that will help you know what type of letter can boost your chances of admission:

Dear Admissions Committee,

My name is Mr. Smith, and I have had the honor of teaching John in AP Literature and Composition at High School X, during which I noticed his impeccable character, discipline, and leadership. John is a self-motivated student who always went above and beyond in my class. It is a pleasure to recommend him.

John has an insatiable desire to learn, and he demonstrated this throughout his year in my class. His questions were insightful and eloquent, and he produced work that was far above that of the average student. John’s writing and research skills are phenomenal. For his final project, he produced a truly remarkable essay analyzing cultural identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. John’s academic strengths are unparalleled, and I know he will be an asset to your institution.

John’s character is also impressive. He acts with generosity and compassion, and he is well respected by his peers and teachers alike. John is a natural leader, and he was such a joy to have in class.

As a learner and a leader, John is beyond exemplary. He has my strongest recommendation. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.

English Teacher

High School X

It is with great pleasure that I recommend Jill for admission to your institution. Jill is one of the strongest students I have taught in my 22 years of teaching, and I am beyond impressed by her academic performance and her leadership skills. Jill was in my AP Literature and Composition class, and I had the honor of coaching her on the High School X debate team. I am happy to recommend her, and I know that she will be a great addition to your university.

As captain of the debate team, Jill has spent countless hours conducting research and analyzing sources to prepare for our competitions. Her hard work and dedication led to her winning first place at the Iowa State Tournament this year. Jill not only has a strong aptitude for learning and debate, but she is also a strong leader. I watched her go beyond what is required of her to take students under her wing and help them become better debaters throughout our season. She is an incredible captain that understands the importance of leading by example and serving others. I firmly believe that both her personal and academic strengths will contribute greatly to your school.

Jill is an exceptional student, and she has my strongest recommendation. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.

Debate Coach

It has been a pleasure to have Jason in my English classes over the past four years. Jason is an exceptional student, and I have long been impressed by both his academic and interpersonal skills. Throughout the years that I have known Jason, his natural curiosity and desire for learning, his maturity and leadership, and his desire to serve his community have been remarkable. He has my strongest recommendation for admittance into your institution.

In my AP Literature and Composition class, Jason wrote some of the most insightful papers I have read in my 12 years of teaching. I was blown away by his analytical skills and his ability to make connections between different texts. His paper on Toni Morrison’s Sula, was one of the most incredible pieces of student work that I have ever had the joy to read.

Jason’s personal strengths are also strong. He treats his peers and teachers with respect, and he is one of the most compassionate and gracious students I have had in class. Jason is a strong applicant, and I know he will be the perfect addition to your university.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.

Dear admissions committee,

Teaching AP Physics at High School X is rewarding because of students like Abigail. I have had the joy of watching Abigail’s critical thinking skills and passion for science grow over the past four years in my AP Physics class and as captain of the High School X Robotics team. Abigail is one of the brightest and hardest working students I have had in all of my years of teaching, and it is truly an honor to recommend her for admission to your institution.

Abigail takes her position as captain of the Robotics team very seriously. I have seen her go above and beyond what is required of her to make new members feel welcome and ensure our team is prepared to do well during our competitions. I have never met a student with her level of dedication and passion for sciences, and I know she will be a strong addition to your school’s engineering program.

In addition to her academic strengths, Abigail also has strong leadership skills. She always takes initiative, tackles challenges head on, and serves as a role model for the other students on the team. I know her work ethic and leadership abilities will make a positive impact at your institution.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Physics Teacher

Robotics Team Coach

These four college recommendation letter samples are so strong because they highlight the student’s strengths, back these qualifications with strong and specific examples, and use language that makes it clear that they know the student well.

When you request a letter of recommendation from your educators, make sure you choose teachers that know you well enough to write insightful, detailed letters of recommendation. It might just make the difference that helps you get accepted into a great college.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, my successful harvard application (complete common app + supplement).

Other High School , College Admissions , Letters of Recommendation , Extracurriculars , College Essays

In 2005, I applied to college and got into every school I applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. I decided to attend Harvard.

In this guide, I'll show you the entire college application that got me into Harvard—page by page, word for word .

In my complete analysis, I'll take you through my Common Application, Harvard supplemental application, personal statements and essays, extracurricular activities, teachers' letters of recommendation, counselor recommendation, complete high school transcript, and more. I'll also give you in-depth commentary on every part of my application.

To my knowledge, a college application analysis like this has never been done before . This is the application guide I wished I had when I was in high school.

If you're applying to top schools like the Ivy Leagues, you'll see firsthand what a successful application to Harvard and Princeton looks like. You'll learn the strategies I used to build a compelling application. You'll see what items were critical in getting me admitted, and what didn't end up helping much at all.

Reading this guide from beginning to end will be well worth your time—you might completely change your college application strategy as a result.

First Things First

Here's the letter offering me admission into Harvard College under Early Action.

I was so thrilled when I got this letter. It validated many years of hard work, and I was excited to take my next step into college (...and work even harder).

I received similar successful letters from every college I applied to: Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. (After getting into Harvard early, I decided not to apply to Yale, Columbia, UChicago, UPenn, and other Ivy League-level schools, since I already knew I would rather go to Harvard.)

The application that got me admitted everywhere is the subject of this guide. You're going to see everything that the admissions officers saw.

If you're hoping to see an acceptance letter like this in your academic future, I highly recommend you read this entire article. I'll start first with an introduction to this guide and important disclaimers. Then I'll share the #1 question you need to be thinking about as you construct your application. Finally, we'll spend a lot of time going through every page of my college application, both the Common App and the Harvard Supplemental App.

Important Note: the foundational principles of my application are explored in detail in my How to Get Into Harvard guide . In this popular guide, I explain:

• what top schools like the Ivy League are looking for
• how to be truly distinctive among thousands of applicants
• why being well-rounded is the kiss of death

If you have the time and are committed to maximizing your college application success, I recommend you read through my Harvard guide first, then come back to this one.

You might also be interested in my other two major guides:

• How to Get a Perfect SAT Score / Perfect ACT Score
• How to Get a 4.0 GPA

What's in This Harvard Application Guide?

From my student records, I was able to retrieve the COMPLETE original application I submitted to Harvard. Page by page, word for word, you'll see everything exactly as I presented it : extracurricular activities, awards and honors, personal statements and essays, and more.

In addition to all this detail, there are two special parts of this college application breakdown that I haven't seen anywhere else :

• You'll see my FULL recommendation letters and evaluation forms. This includes recommendations from two teachers, one principal, and supplementary writers. Normally you don't get to see these letters because you waive access to them when applying. You'll see how effective strong teacher advocates will be to your college application, and why it's so important to build strong relationships with your letter writers .
• You'll see the exact pen marks made by my Harvard admissions reader on my application . Members of admissions committees consider thousands of applications every year, which means they highlight the pieces of each application they find noteworthy. You'll see what the admissions officer considered important—and what she didn't.

For every piece of my application, I'll provide commentary on what made it so effective and my strategies behind creating it. You'll learn what it takes to build a compelling overall application.

Importantly, even though my application was strong, it wasn't perfect. I'll point out mistakes I made that I could have corrected to build an even stronger application.

Here's a complete table of contents for what we'll be covering. Each link goes directly to that section, although I'd recommend you read this from beginning to end on your first go.

Common Application

Personal Data

Educational data, test information.

• Activities: Extracurricular, Personal, Volunteer
• Short Answer
• Additional Information

Academic Honors

Personal statement, teacher and counselor recommendations.

• Teacher Letter #1: AP Chemistry
• Teacher Letter #2: AP English Lang

School Report

• Principal Recommendation

Harvard Application Supplement

• Supplement Form
• Writing Supplement Essay

Supplementary Recommendation #1

Supplementary recommendation #2, supplemental application materials.

Final Advice for You

I mean it—you'll see literally everything in my application.

In revealing my teenage self, some parts of my application will be pretty embarrassing (you'll see why below). But my mission through my company PrepScholar is to give the world the most helpful resources possible, so I'm publishing it.

One last thing before we dive in—I'm going to anticipate some common concerns beforehand and talk through important disclaimers so that you'll get the most out of this guide.

Important Disclaimers

My biggest caveat for you when reading this guide: thousands of students get into Harvard and Ivy League schools every year. This guide tells a story about one person and presents one archetype of a strong applicant. As you'll see, I had a huge academic focus, especially in science ( this was my Spike ). I'm also irreverent and have a strong, direct personality.

What you see in this guide is NOT what YOU need to do to get into Harvard , especially if you don't match my interests and personality at all.

As I explain in my Harvard guide , I believe I fit into one archetype of a strong applicant—the "academic superstar" (humor me for a second, I know calling myself this sounds obnoxious). There are other distinct ways to impress, like:

• being world-class in a non-academic talent
• achieving something difficult and noteworthy—building a meaningful organization, writing a novel
• coming from tremendous adversity and performing remarkably well relative to expectations

Therefore, DON'T worry about copying my approach one-for-one . Don't worry if you're taking a different number of AP courses or have lower test scores or do different extracurriculars or write totally different personal statements. This is what schools like Stanford and Yale want to see—a diversity in the student population!

The point of this guide is to use my application as a vehicle to discuss what top colleges are looking for in strong applicants. Even though the specific details of what you'll do are different from what I did, the principles are the same. What makes a candidate truly stand out is the same, at a high level. What makes for a super strong recommendation letter is the same. The strategies on how to build a cohesive, compelling application are the same.

There's a final reason you shouldn't worry about replicating my work—the application game has probably changed quite a bit since 2005. Technology is much more pervasive, the social issues teens care about are different, the extracurricular activities that are truly noteworthy have probably gotten even more advanced. What I did might not be as impressive as it used to be. So focus on my general points, not the specifics, and think about how you can take what you learn here to achieve something even greater than I ever did.

With that major caveat aside, here are a string of smaller disclaimers.

I'm going to present my application factually and be 100% straightforward about what I achieved and what I believed was strong in my application. This is what I believe will be most helpful for you. I hope you don't misinterpret this as bragging about my accomplishments. I'm here to show you what it took for me to get into Harvard and other Ivy League schools, not to ask for your admiration. So if you read this guide and are tempted to dismiss my advice because you think I'm boasting, take a step back and focus on the big picture—how you'll improve yourself.

This guide is geared toward admissions into the top colleges in the country , often with admissions rates below 10%. A sample list of schools that fit into this: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, UChicago, Duke, UPenn, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown. The top 3-5 in that list are especially looking for the absolute best students in the country , since they have the pick of the litter.

Admissions for these selective schools works differently from schools with >20% rates. For less selective schools, having an overall strong, well-rounded application is sufficient for getting in. In particular, having an above average GPA and test scores goes the majority of the way toward getting you admission to those schools. The higher the admission rate, the more emphasis will be placed on your scores. The other pieces I'll present below—personal statements, extracurriculars, recommendations—will matter less.

Still, it doesn't hurt to aim for a stronger application. To state the obvious, an application strong enough to get you Columbia will get you into UCLA handily.

In my application, I've redacted pieces of my application for privacy reasons, and one supplementary recommendation letter at the request of the letter writer. Everything else is unaltered.

Throughout my application, we can see marks made by the admissions officer highlighting and circling things of note (you'll see the first example on the very first page). I don't have any other applications to compare these to, so I'm going to interpret these marks as best I can. For the most part, I assume that whatever he underlines or circles is especially important and noteworthy —points that he'll bring up later in committee discussions. It could also be that the reader got bored and just started highlighting things, but I doubt this.

Finally, I co-founded and run a company called PrepScholar . We create online SAT/ACT prep programs that adapt to you and your strengths and weaknesses . I believe we've created the best prep program available, and if you feel you need to raise your SAT/ACT score, then I encourage you to check us out . I want to emphasize that you do NOT need to buy a prep program to get a great score , and the advice in this guide has little to do with my company. But if you're aren't sure how to improve your score and agree with our unique approach to SAT/ACT prep, our program may be perfect for you.

With all this past us, let's get started.

The #1 Most Important College Application Question: What Is Your PERSONAL NARRATIVE?

If you stepped into an elevator with Yale's Dean of Admissions and you had ten seconds to describe yourself and why you're interesting, what would you say?

This is what I call your PERSONAL NARRATIVE. These are the three main points that represent who you are and what you're about . This is the story that you tell through your application, over and over again. This is how an admissions officer should understand you after just glancing through your application. This is how your admissions officer will present you to the admissions committee to advocate for why they should accept you.

The more unique and noteworthy your Personal Narrative is, the better. This is how you'll stand apart from the tens of thousands of other applicants to your top choice school. This is why I recommend so strongly that you develop a Spike to show deep interest and achievement. A compelling Spike is the core of your Personal Narrative.

Well-rounded applications do NOT form compelling Personal Narratives, because "I'm a well-rounded person who's decent at everything" is the exact same thing every other well-rounded person tries to say.

Everything in your application should support your Personal Narrative , from your course selection and extracurricular activities to your personal statements and recommendation letters. You are a movie director, and your application is your way to tell a compelling, cohesive story through supporting evidence.

Yes, this is overly simplistic and reductionist. It does not represent all your complexities and your 17 years of existence. But admissions offices don't have the time to understand this for all their applicants. Your PERSONAL NARRATIVE is what they will latch onto.

Here's what I would consider my Personal Narrative (humor me since I'm peacocking here):

1) A science obsessive with years of serious research work and ranked 6 th in a national science competition, with future goals of being a neuroscientist or physician

2) Balanced by strong academic performance in all subjects (4.0 GPA and perfect test scores, in both humanities and science) and proficiency in violin

3) An irreverent personality who doesn't take life too seriously, embraces controversy, and says what's on his mind

These three elements were the core to my application. Together they tell a relatively unique Personal Narrative that distinguishes me from many other strong applicants. You get a surprisingly clear picture of what I'm about. There's no question that my work in science was my "Spike" and was the strongest piece of my application, but my Personal Narrative included other supporting elements, especially a description of my personality.

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My College Application, at a High Level

Drilling down into more details, here's an overview of my application.

• This put me comfortably in the 99 th percentile in the country, but it was NOT sufficient to get me into Harvard by itself ! Because there are roughly 4 million high school students per year, the top 1 percentile still has 40,000 students. You need other ways to set yourself apart.
• Your Spike will most often come from your extracurriculars and academic honors, just because it's hard to really set yourself apart with your coursework and test scores.
• My letters of recommendation were very strong. Both my recommending teachers marked me as "one of the best they'd ever taught." Importantly, they corroborated my Personal Narrative, especially regarding my personality. You'll see how below.
• My personal statements were, in retrospect, just satisfactory. They represented my humorous and irreverent side well, but they come across as too self-satisfied. Because of my Spike, I don't think my essays were as important to my application.

Finally, let's get started by digging into the very first pages of my Common Application.

There are a few notable points about how simple questions can actually help build a first impression around what your Personal Narrative is.

First, notice the circle around my email address. This is the first of many marks the admissions officer made on my application. The reason I think he circled this was that the email address I used is a joke pun on my name . I knew it was risky to use this vs something like [email protected], but I thought it showed my personality better (remember point #3 about having an irreverent personality in my Personal Narrative).

Don't be afraid to show who you really are, rather than your perception of what they want. What you think UChicago or Stanford wants is probably VERY wrong, because of how little information you have, both as an 18-year-old and as someone who hasn't read thousands of applications.

(It's also entirely possible that it's a formality to circle email addresses, so I don't want to read too much into it, but I think I'm right.)

Second, I knew in high school that I wanted to go into the medical sciences, either as a physician or as a scientist. I was also really into studying the brain. So I listed both in my Common App to build onto my Personal Narrative.

In the long run, both predictions turned out to be wrong. After college, I did go to Harvard Medical School for the MD/PhD program for 4 years, but I left to pursue entrepreneurship and co-founded PrepScholar . Moreover, in the time I did actually do research, I switched interests from neuroscience to bioengineering/biotech.

Colleges don't expect you to stick to career goals you stated at the age of 18. Figuring out what you want to do is the point of college! But this doesn't give you an excuse to avoid showing a preference. This early question is still a chance to build that Personal Narrative.

Thus, I recommend AGAINST "Undecided" as an area of study —it suggests a lack of flavor and is hard to build a compelling story around. From your high school work thus far, you should at least be leaning to something, even if that's likely to change in the future.

Finally, in the demographic section there is a big red A, possibly for Asian American. I'm not going to read too much into this. If you're a notable minority, this is where you'd indicate it.

Now known as: Education

This section was straightforward for me. I didn't take college courses, and I took a summer chemistry class at a nearby high school because I didn't get into the lottery at my school that year (I refer to this briefly in my 4.0 GPA guide ).

The most notable point of this section: the admissions officer circled Principal here . This is notable because our school Principal only wrote letters for fewer than 10 students each year. Counselors wrote letters for the other hundreds of students in my class, which made my application stand out just a little.

I'll talk more about this below, when I share the Principal's recommendation.

(In the current Common Application, the Education section also includes Grades, Courses, and Honors. We'll be covering each of those below).

Now known as: Testing

Back then AP scores weren't part of this section, but I'll take them from another part of my application here.

However, their standards are still very high. You really do want to be in that top 1 percentile to pass the filter. A 1400 on the SAT IS going to put you at a disadvantage because there are so many students scoring higher than you. You'll really have to dig yourself out of the hole with an amazing application.

I talk about this a lot more in my Get into Harvard guide (sorry to keep linking this, but I really do think it's an important guide for you to read).

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Let's end this section with some personal notes.

Even though math and science were easy for me, I had to put in serious effort to get an 800 on the Reading section of the SAT . As much as I wish I could say it was trivial for me, it wasn't. I learned a bunch of strategies and dissected the test to get to a point where I understood the test super well and reliably earned perfect scores.

I cover the most important points in my How to Get a Perfect SAT Score guide , as well as my 800 Guides for Reading , Writing , and Math .

Between the SAT and ACT, the SAT was my primary focus, but I decided to take the ACT for fun. The tests were so similar that I scored a 36 Composite without much studying. Having two test scores is completely unnecessary —you get pretty much zero additional credit. Again, with one test score, you have already passed their filter.

Finally, class finals or state-required exams are a breeze if you get a 5 on the corresponding AP tests .

Now known as: Family (still)

This section asks for your parent information and family situation. There's not much you can do here besides report the facts.

I'm redacting a lot of stuff again for privacy reasons.

The reader made a number of marks here for occupation and education. There's likely a standard code for different types of occupations and schools.

If I were to guess, I'd say that the numbers add to form some metric of "family prestige." My dad got a Master's at a middle-tier American school, but my mom didn't go to graduate school, and these sections were marked 2 and 3, respectively. So it seems higher numbers are given for less prestigious educations by your parents. I'd expect that if both my parents went to schools like Caltech and Dartmouth, there would be even lower numbers here.

This makes me think that the less prepared your family is, the more points you get, and this might give your application an extra boost. If you were the first one in your family to go to college, for example, you'd be excused for having lower test scores and fewer AP classes. Schools really do care about your background and how you performed relative to expectations.

In the end, schools like Harvard say pretty adamantly they don't use formulas to determine admissions decisions, so I wouldn't read too much into this. But this can be shorthand to help orient an applicant's family background.

Extracurricular, Personal, and Volunteer Activities

Now known as: Activities

For most applicants, your Extracurriculars and your Academic Honors will be where you develop your Spike and where your Personal Narrative shines through. This was how my application worked.

Just below I'll describe the activities in more detail, but first I want to reflect on this list.

As instructed, my extracurriculars were listed in the order of their interest to me. The current Common App doesn't seem to ask for this, but I would still recommend it to focus your reader's attention.

The most important point I have to make about my extracurriculars: as you go down the list, there is a HUGE drop in the importance of each additional activity to the overall application. If I were to guess, I assign the following weights to how much each activity contributed to the strength of my activities section:

In other words, participating in the Research Science Institute (RSI) was far more important than all of my other extracurriculars, combined. You can see that this was the only activity my admissions reader circled.

You can see how Spike-y this is. The RSI just completely dominates all my other activities.

The reason for this is the prestige of RSI. As I noted earlier, RSI was (and likely still is) the most prestigious research program for high school students in the country, with an admission rate of less than 5% . Because the program was so prestigious and selective, getting in served as a big confirmation signal of my academic quality.

In other words, the Harvard admissions reader would likely think, "OK, if this very selective program has already validated Allen as a top student, I'm inclined to believe that Allen is a top student and should pay special attention to him."

Now, it took a lot of prior work to even get into RSI because it's so selective. I had already ranked nationally in the Chemistry Olympiad (more below), and I had done a lot of prior research work in computer science (at Jisan Research Institute—more about this later). But getting into RSI really propelled my application to another level.

Because RSI was so important and was such a big Spike, all my other extracurriculars paled in importance. The admissions officer at Princeton or MIT probably didn't care at all that I volunteered at a hospital or founded a high school club .

This is a good sign of developing a strong Spike. You want to do something so important that everything else you do pales in comparison to it. A strong Spike becomes impossible to ignore.

In contrast, if you're well-rounded, all your activities hold equal weight—which likely means none of them are really that impressive (unless you're a combination of Olympic athlete, internationally-ranked science researcher, and New York Times bestselling author, but then I'd call you unicorn because you don't exist).

Apply this concept to your own interests—what can be so impressive and such a big Spike that it completely overshadows all your other achievements?

This might be worth spending a disproportionate amount of time on. As I recommend in my Harvard guide and 4.0 GPA guide , smartly allocating your time is critical to your high school strategy.

In retrospect, one "mistake" I made was spending a lot of time on the violin. Each week I spent eight hours on practice and a lesson and four hours of orchestra rehearsals. This amounted to over 1,500 hours from freshman to junior year.

The result? I was pretty good, but definitely nowhere near world-class. Remember, there are thousands of orchestras and bands in the country, each with their own concertmasters, drum majors, and section 1 st chairs.

If I were to optimize purely for college applications, I should have spent that time on pushing my spike even further —working on more Olympiad competitions, or doing even more hardcore research.

Looking back I don't mind this much because I generally enjoyed my musical training and had a mostly fun time in orchestra (and I had a strong Spike anyway). But this problem can be a lot worse for well-rounded students who are stretched too thin.

Aside from these considerations about a Spike, I have two major caveats.

First, developing a Spike requires continuous, increasingly ambitious foundational work. It's like climbing a staircase. From the beginning of high school, each step was more and more ambitious—my first academic team, my first research experience, leading up to state and national competitions and more serious research work.

So when I suggest devoting a lot of time to developing your Spike, it's not necessarily the Spike in itself—it's also spending time on foundational work leading up to what will be your major achievement. That's why I don't see my time with academic teams or volunteering as wasted, even though in the end they didn't contribute as much to my application.

Second, it is important to do things you enjoy. I still enjoyed playing the violin and being part of an orchestra, and I really enjoyed my school's academic teams, even though we never went beyond state level. Even if some activities don't contribute as much to your application, it's still fine to spend some time on them—just don't delude yourself into thinking they're stronger than they really are and overspend time on them.

Finally, note that most of my activities were pursued over multiple years. This is a good sign of commitment—rather than hopping from activity year to year, it's better to show sustained commitment, as this is a better signal of genuine passion.

In a future article, I'll break down these activities in more detail. But this guide is already super long, so I want to focus our attention on the main points.

Short Answer: Extracurricular Activities

In today's Common Application, you have 50 characters to describe "Position/Leadership description and organization name" and 150 characters for "Please describe this activity, including what you accomplished and any recognition you received, etc."

Back then, we didn't have as much space per activity, and instead had a short answer question.

The Short Answer prompt:

Please describe which of your activities (extracurricular and personal activities or work experience) has been most meaningful and why.

I chose RSI as my most significant activity for two reasons—one based on the meaning of the work, and another on the social aspect.

It's obvious that schools like Yale and UChicago want the best students in the world that they can get their hands on. Academic honors and awards are a great, quantifiable way to show that.

Here's the complete list of Academic Honors I submitted. The Common Application now limits you to five honors only (probably because they got tired of lists like these), but chances are you capture the top 98% of your honors with the top five.

Charlie wins a Golden Ticket to Harvard.

I know this is intimidating if you don't already have a prestigious honor. But remember there are thousands of nationally-ranked people in a multitude of honor types, from science competitions to essay contests to athletics to weird talents.

And I strongly believe the #1 differentiator of high school students who achieve things is work ethic, NOT intelligence or talent. Yes, you need a baseline level of competence to get places, but people far undervalue the progress they can make if they work hard and persevere. Far too many people give up too quickly or fatigue without putting in serious effort.

If you're stuck thinking, "well I'm just an average person, and there's no way I'm going to become world-class in anything," then you've already lost before you've begun. The truth is everyone who achieves something of note puts in an incredible amount of hard work. Because this is invisible to you, it looks like talent is what distinguishes the two of you, when really it's much more often diligence.

I talk a lot more about the Growth Mindset in my How To Get a 4.0 GPA guide .

So my Chemistry Olympiad honor formed 90% of the value of this page. Just like extracurriculars, there's a quick dropoff in value of each item after that.

My research work took up the next two honors, one a presentation at an academic conference, and the other (Siemens) a research competition for high school researchers.

The rest of my honors were pretty middling:

• National Merit Scholarship semifinalist pretty much equates to PSAT score, which is far less important than your SAT/ACT score. So I didn't really get any credit for this, and you won't either.
• In Science Olympiad (this is a team-based competition that's not as prestigious as the academic Olympiads I just talked about), I earned a number of 1 st place state and regional medals, but we never made it to nationals.
• I was mediocre at competition math because I didn't train for it, and I won some regional awards but nothing amazing. This is one place I would have spent more time, maybe in the time I'd save by not practicing violin as much. There are great resources for this type of training, like Art of Problem Solving , that I didn't know existed and could've helped me rank much higher.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, think about how many state medalists there are in the country, in the hundreds of competitions that exist . The number of state to national rankers is probably at least 20:1 (less than 50:1 because of variation in state size), so if there are 2,000 nationally ranked students, there are 40,000 state-ranked students in something !

So state honors really don't help you stand out on your Princeton application. There are just too many of them around.

On the other hand, if you can get to be nationally ranked in something, you will have an amazing Spike that distinguishes you.

Now known as: Personal Essay

Now, the dreaded personal statement. Boy, oh boy, did I fuss over this one.

"What is the perfect combination of personal, funny, heartrending, and inspirational?"

I know I was wondering this when I applied.

Having read books like 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays , I was frightened. I didn't grow up as a refugee, wrenched from my war-torn home! I didn't have a sibling with a debilitating illness! How could anything I write compare to these tales of personal strength?

The trite truth is that colleges want to know who you really are . Clearly they don't expect everyone to have had immense personal struggle. But they do want students who are:

• growth-oriented
• introspective
• kind and good-hearted

Whatever those words mean to you in the context of your life is what you should write about.

In retrospect, in the context of MY application, the personal statement really wasn't what got me into Harvard . I do think my Spike was nearly sufficient to get me admitted to every school in the country.

I say "nearly" because, even if you're world-class, schools do want to know you're not a jerk and that you're an interesting person (which is conveyed through your personal essay and letters of recommendation).

Back then, we had a set of different prompts :

What did you think?

I'm still cringing a bit. Parts of this are very smug (see /r/iamverysmart ), and if you want to punch the writer in the face, I don't blame you. I want to as well.

We'll get to areas of improvement later, but first, let's talk about what this personal essay did well.

As I said above, I saw the theme of the snooze button as a VEHICLE to showcase a few qualities I cared about :

1) I fancied myself a Renaissance man (obnoxious, I know) and wanted to become an inventor and creator . I showed this through mentioning different interests (Rubik's cube, chemistry, Nietzsche) and iterating through a few designs for an alarm clock (electric shocks, explosions, Shakespearean sonnet recitation).

2) My personality was whimsical and irreverent. I don't take life too seriously. The theme of the essay—battling an alarm clock—shows this well, in comparison to the gravitas of the typical student essay. I also found individual lines funny, like "All right, so I had violated the divine honor of the family and the tenets of Confucius." At once I acknowledge my Chinese heritage but also make light of the situation.

3) I was open to admitting weaknesses , which I think is refreshing among people taking college applications too seriously and trying too hard to impress. The frank admission of a realistic lazy habit—pushing the Snooze button—served as a nice foil to my academic honors and shows that I can be down-to-earth.

So you see how the snooze button acts as a vehicle to carry these major points and a lot of details, tied together to the same theme .

In the same way, The Walking Dead is NOT a zombie show—the zombie environment is a VEHICLE by which to show human drama and conflict. Packaging my points together under the snooze button theme makes it a lot more interesting than just outright saying "I'm such an interesting guy."

So overall, I believe the essay accomplishes my goals and the main points of what I wanted to convey about myself.

Note that this is just one of many ways to write an essay . It worked for me, but it may be totally inappropriate for you.

Now let's look at this essay's weaknesses.

Looking at it with a more seasoned perspective, some parts of it are WAY too try-hard. I try too hard to show off my breadth of knowledge in a way that seems artificial and embellishing.

The entire introduction with the Rubik's cube seems bolted on, just to describe my long-standing desire to be a Renaissance man. Only three paragraphs down do I get to the Snooze button, and I don't refer again to the introduction until the end. With just 650 words, I could have made the essay more cohesive by keeping the same theme from beginning to end.

Some phrases really make me roll my eyes. "Always hungry for more" and "ever the inventor" sound too forced and embellishing. A key principle of effective writing is to show, not say . You don't say "I'm passionate about X," you describe what extraordinary lengths you took to achieve X.

The mention of Nietzsche is over-the-top. I mean, come on. The reader probably thought, "OK, this kid just read it in English class and now he thinks he's a philosopher." The reader would be right.

The ending: "with the extra nine minutes, maybe I'll teach myself to cook fried rice" is silly. Where in the world did fried rice come from? I meant it as a nod to my Chinese heritage, but it's too sudden to work. I could have deleted the sentence and wrapped up the essay more cleanly.

So I have mixed feelings of my essay. I think it accomplished my major goals and showed the humorous, irreverent side of my personality well. However, it also gave the impression of a kid who thought he knew more than he did, a pseudo-sophisticate bordering on obnoxious. I still think it was a net positive.

At the end of the day, I believe the safest, surefire strategy is to develop a Spike so big that the importance of the Personal Essay pales in comparison to your achievements. You want your Personal Essay to be a supplement to your application, not the only reason you get in.

There are probably some cases where a well-rounded student writes an amazing Personal Essay and gets in through the strength of that. As a Hail Mary if you're a senior and can't improve your application further, this might work. But the results are very variable—some readers may love your essay, others may just think it's OK. Without a strong application to back it up, your mileage may vary.

Want to build the best possible college application?

We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools .

This is a really fun section. Usually you don't get to read your letter of recommendation because you sign the FERPA waiver. I've also reached out to my letter writers to make sure they're ok with my showing this.

Teacher recommendations are incredibly important to your application. I would say that after your coursework/test scores and activities/honors, they're the 3 rd most important component of your application .

The average teacher sees thousands of students through a career, and so he or she is very well equipped to position you relative to all other students. Furthermore, your teachers are experienced adults—their impressions of you are much more reliable than your impressions of yourself (see my Personal Essay above). They can corroborate your entire Personal Narrative as an outside observer.

The most effective recommendation letters speak both to your academic strengths and to your personality. For the second factor, the teacher needs to have interacted with you meaningfully, ideally both in and out of class. Check out our guide on what makes for effective letters of recommendation .

Starting from sophomore year, I started thinking about whom I connected better with and chose to engage with those teachers more deeply . Because it's standard for colleges to require two teachers in different subjects, I made sure to engage with English and history teachers as well as math and science.

The minimum requirement for a good letter is someone who taught a class in which you did well. I got straight A's in my coursework, so this wasn't an issue.

Beyond this, I had to look for teachers who would be strong advocates for me on both an academic and personal level . These tended to be teachers I vibed more strongly with, and typically these were teachers who demonstrably cared about teaching. This was made clear by their enthusiasm, how they treated students, and how much they went above expectations to help.

I had a lot of teachers who really just phoned it in and treated their job perfunctorily—these people are likely to write pretty blasé letters.

A final note before reading my actual teacher evaluations— you should avoid getting in the mindset where you get to know teachers JUST because you want a good recommendation letter . Your teachers have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of students pass through, and it's much easier to detect insincerity than you think.

If you honestly like learning and are an enthusiastic, responsible, engaging student, a great recommendation letter will follow naturally. The horse should lead the cart.

Read my How to Get a 4.0 GPA for tips on how to interact with teachers in a genuine way that'll make them love you.

Teacher Letter #1: AP Chemistry Teacher

I took AP Chemistry in 10 th grade and had Miss Cherryl Vorak (now Mynster). She was young, having taught for fewer than 5 years when I had her. She was my favorite teacher throughout high school for these reasons:

• She was enthusiastic, very caring, and spent a lot of time helping struggling students. She exuded pride in her work and seemed to consider teaching her craft.
• She had a kind personality and was universally well liked by her students, even if they weren't doing so well. She was fair in her policies (it probably helped that science is more objective than English). She was also a younger teacher, and this helped her relate to kids more closely.
• She was my advocate for much of the US National Chemistry Olympiad stuff, and in this capacity I got to know her even better outside of class. She provided me a lot of training materials, helped me figure out college chemistry, and directed me to resources to learn more.

By the time of the letter writing, I had known her for two full years and engaged with her continuously, even when I wasn't taking a class with her in junior year. We'd build up a strong relationship over the course of many small interactions.

All of this flowed down to the recommendation you see here. Remember, the horse leads the cart.

First, we'll look at the teacher evaluation page. The Common Application now has 16 qualities to rate, rather than the 10 here. But they're largely the same.

You can see a very strong evaluation here, giving me the highest ratings possible for all qualities.

In today's Common Application, all of these Ratings are retained, aside from "Potential for Growth." Today's Common App also now includes Faculty Respect, Maturity, Leadership, Integrity, Reaction to Setbacks, Concern for Others, and TE Overall. You can tell that the updated Common App places a great emphasis on personality.

The most important point here: it is important to be ranked "One of the top few encountered in my career" for as many ratings as possible . If you're part of a big school, this is CRITICAL to distinguish yourself from other students. The more experienced and trustworthy the teacher, the more meaningful this is.

Again, it's a numbers game. Think about the 20,000+ high schools in the country housing 4 million+ high school students—how many people fit in the top 5% bucket?

Thus, being marked merely as Excellent (top 10%) is actually a negative rating , as far as admissions to top colleges is concerned. If you're in top 10%, and someone else with the SAME teacher recommender is being rated as "One of the top ever," it's really hard for the admissions officer to vouch for you over the other student.

You really want to make sure you're one of the best in your school class, if not one of the best the teacher has ever encountered. You'll see below how you can accomplish this.

Next, let's look at her letter.

As you read this, think— what are the interactions that would prompt the teacher to write a recommendation like this? This was a relationship built up in a period of over 2 years, with every small interaction adding to an overall larger impression.

You can see how seriously they take the letter because of all the underlining . This admissions reader underlined things that weren't even underlined in my application, like my US National Chemistry Olympiad awards. It's one thing for a student to claim things about himself—it's another to have a teacher put her reputation on the line to advocate for her student.

The letter here is very strong for a multitude of reasons. First, the length is notable —most letters are just a page long, but this is nearly two full pages , single spaced. This indicates not just her overall commitment to her students but also of her enthusiastic support for me as an applicant.

The structure is effective: first Miss Vorak talks about my academic accomplishments, then about my personal qualities and interactions, then a summary to the future. This is a perfect blend of what effective letters contain .

On the micro-level, her diction and phrasing are precise and effective . She makes my standing clear with specific statements : "youngest student…top excelling student among the two sections" and "one of twenty students in the nation." She's clear about describing why my achievements are notable and the effort I put in, like studying college-level chemistry and studying independently.

When describing my personality, she's exuberant and fleshes out a range of dimensions: "conscientious, motivated and responsible," "exhibits the qualities of a leader," "actively seeks new experiences," "charismatic," "balanced individual with a warm personality and sense of humor." You can see how she's really checking off all the qualities colleges care about.

Overall, Miss Vorak's letter perfectly supports my Personal Narrative —my love for science, my overall academic performance, and my personality. I'm flattered and grateful to have received this support. This letter was important to complement the overall academic performance and achievements shown on the rest of my application.

Teacher Letter #2: AP English Language Teacher

My second teacher Mrs. Swift was another favorite. A middle-aged, veteran English teacher, the best way I would describe her is "fiery." She was invigorating and passionate, always trying to get a rise out of students and push their thinking, especially in class discussions. Emotionally she was a reliable source of support for students.

First, the evaluation:

You can see right away that her remarks are terser. She didn't even fill out the section about "first words that come to mind to describe this student."

You might chalk this up to my not being as standout of a student in her mind, or her getting inundated with recommendation letter requests after over a decade of teaching.

In ratings, you can see that I only earned 3 of the "one of the top in my career." There are a few explanations for this. As a teacher's career lengthens, it gets increasingly hard to earn this mark. I probably also didn't stand out as much as I did to my Chemistry teacher—most of my achievement was in science (which she wasn't closely connected to), and I had talented classmates. Regardless, I did appreciate the 3 marks she gave me.

Now, the letter. Once again, as you read this letter, think: what are the hundreds of micro-interactions that would have made a teacher write a letter like this?

Overall, this letter is very strong. It's only one page long, but her points about my personality are the critical piece of this recommendation. She also writes with the flair of an English teacher:

"In other situations where students would never speak their minds, he showed no hesitation to voice questions, thoughts, and ideas."

"controversial positions often being the spark that set off the entire class"

"ability to take the quiet and shy student and actively engage"…"went out of my way to partner him with other students who needed"

"strength of conviction"…"raw, unbridled passion"…"He will argue on any topic that has touched a nerve."

These comments most support the personality aspect of my Personal Narrative—having an irreverent, bold personality and not being afraid of speaking my mind. She stops just short of making me sound obnoxious and argumentative. An experienced teacher vouching for this adds so much more weight than just my writing it about myself.

Teacher recommendations are some of the most important components of your application. Getting very strong letters take a lot of sustained, genuine interaction over time to build mutual trust and respect. If you want detailed advice on how to interact with teachers earnestly, check out my How to Get a 4.0 GPA and Better Grades guide .

Let's go to the final recommendation, from the school counselor.

Now known as: School Report

The first piece of this is reporting your academic status and how the school works overall. There's not much to say here, other than the fact that my Principal wrote my recommendation for me, which we'll get into next.

Counselor Recommendation

Now known as: Counselor Recommendation

Let's talk about my school principal writing my recommendation, rather than a school counselor.

This was definitely advantageous—remember how, way up top in Educational Data, the reader circled the "Principal." Our Principal only wrote a handful of these recommendations each year , often for people who worked closely with him, like student body presidents. So it was pretty distinctive that I got a letter from our Principal, compared to other leading applicants from my school.

This was also a blessing because our counseling department was terrible . Our school had nearly 1,000 students per grade, and only 1 counselor per grade. They were overworked and ornery, and because they were the gatekeepers of academic enrollment (like class selection and prerequisites), this led to constant frictions in getting the classes you wanted.

I can empathize with them, because having 500+ neurotic parents pushing for advantages for their own kids can get REALLY annoying really fast. But the counseling department was still the worst part of our high school administration, and I could have guessed that the letters they wrote were mediocre because they just had too many students.

So how did my Principal come to write my recommendation and not those for hundreds of other students?

I don't remember exactly how this came to be, to be honest. I didn't strategize to have him write a letter for me years in advance. I didn't even interact with him much at all until junior year, when I got on his radar because of my national rankings. Come senior year I might have talked to him about my difficulty in reaching counselors and asked that he write my recommendation. Since I was a top student he was probably happy to do this.

He was very supportive, but as you can tell from the letter to come, it was clear he didn't know me that well.

Interestingly, the prompt for the recommendation has changed. It used to start with: "Please write whatever you think is important about this student."

Now, it starts with: " Please provide comments that will help us differentiate this student from others ."

The purpose of the recommendation has shifted to the specific: colleges probably found that one counselor was serving hundreds of students, so the letters started getting mushy and indistinguishable from each other.

Here's the letter:

This letter is probably the weakest overall of all my letters. It reads more like a verbal resume than a personal account of how he understands me.

Unlike my two teacher recommendations, he doesn't comment on the nature of our interactions or about my personality (because he truly didn't understand them well). He also misreported by SAT score as 1530 instead of 1600 (I did score a 1530 in an early test, but my 1600 was ready by January 2004, so I don't know what source he was using).

Notably, the letter writer didn't underline anything.

I still appreciate that he wrote my letter, and it was probably more effective than a generic counselor letter. But this didn't add much to my application.

At this point, we've covered my entire Common Application. This is the same application I sent to every school I applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Thanks for reading this far—I hope you've gotten a lot out of this already.

If you keep reading to the end, I'll have advice for both younger students and current applicants to build the strongest application possible.

Next, we'll go over the Harvard Supplemental Application, which of course is unique to Harvard.

For most top colleges like Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and so on, you will need to complete a supplemental application to provide more info than what's listed on the Common Application.

Harvard was and is the same. The good news is that it's an extra chance for you to share more about yourself and keep pushing your Personal Narrative.

There are four major components here:

• The application form
• Writing supplement essay
• Supplementary recommendations
• Supplemental application materials

I'll take you through the application section by section.

Harvard Supplement Form

First, the straightforward info and questions.

This section is pretty straightforward and is similar to what you'd see on a Columbia application.

I planned to live in a Harvard residence, as most students do.

Just as in my Common App, I noted that I was most likely to study biological sciences, choose Medicine as my vocation, and participate in orchestra, writing, and research as my extracurriculars. Nothing surprising here—it's all part of my Personal Narrative.

Interestingly, at the time I was "absolutely certain" about my vocational goals, which clearly took a detour once I left medical school to pursue entrepreneurship to create PrepScholar...

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I had the space to list some additional honors, where I listed some musical honors that didn't make the cut in my Common App.

Here are the next two pages of the Harvard supplemental form.

The most interesting note here is that the admissions officer wrote a question mark above "Music tape or CD." Clearly this was inconsistent with my Personal Narrative —if violin was such an important part of my story, why didn't I want to include it?

The reason was that I was actually pretty mediocre at violin and was nowhere near national-ranked. Again, remember how many concertmasters in the thousands of orchestras there are in the world—I wasn't good enough to even be in the top 3 chairs in my school orchestra (violin was very competitive).

I wanted to focus attention on my most important materials, which for my Personal Narrative meant my research work. You'll see these supplementary materials later.

Additional Essays

Now known as: Writing Supplement

For the most part, the Harvard supplemental essay prompt has stayed the same. You can write about a topic of your choice or about any of the suggestions. There are now two more prompts that weren't previously there: "What you would want your future college roommate to know about you" and "How you hope to use your college education."

Even though this is optional, I highly recommend you write something here. Again, you have so few chances in the overall application to convey your personal voice—an extra 500 words gives you a huge opportunity. I would guess that the majority of admitted Harvard students submit a Writing Supplement.

After a lot of brainstorming, I settled on the idea that I wanted to balance my application by writing about the major non-academic piece of my Personal Narrative—my music training . Also, I don't think I explicitly recognized this at the time, but I wanted to distance myself from the Asian-American stereotype—driven entirely by parent pressure, doing most things perfunctorily and without interest. I wanted to show I'd broken out of that mold.

Here's my essay:

Reading it now, I actually think this was a pretty bad essay, and I cringe to high heaven. But once again, let's focus on the positive first.

I used my violin teacher as a vehicle for talking about what the violin meant to me. (You can tell I love the concept of the vehicle in essays.) He represented passion for the violin—I represented my academic priorities. Our personal conflict was really the conflict between what we represented.

By the end of the essay, I'd articulated the value of musical training to me—it was cathartic and a way to balance my hard academic pursuits.

Halfway in the essay, I also explicitly acknowledged the Asian stereotype of parents who drove their kids, and said my parents were no different. The reader underlined this sentence. By pointing this out and showing how my interest took on a life of its own, I wanted to distance myself from that stereotype.

So overall I think my aims were accomplished.

Despite all that, this essay was WAY overdramatic and overwrought . Some especially terrible lines:

"I was playing for that cathartic moment when I could feel Tchaikovsky himself looking over my shoulder."

"I was wandering through the fog in search of a lighthouse, finally setting foot on a dock pervaded by white light."

OK, please. Who really honestly feels this way? This is clumsy, contrived writing. It signals insincerity, actually, which is bad.

To be fair, all of this is grounded in truth. I did have a strict violin teacher who did get pretty upset when I showed lack of improvement. I did appreciate music as a diversion to round out my academic focus. I did practice hard each day, and I did have a pretty gross callus on my pinky.

But I would have done far better by making it more sincere and less overworked.

As an applicant, you're tempted to try so hard to impress your reader. You want to show that you're Worthy of Consideration. But really the best approach is to be honest.

I think this essay was probably neutral to my application, not a strong net positive or net negative.

Supplementary Recommendations

Harvard lets you submit letters from up to two Other Recommenders. The Princeton application, Penn application, and others are usually the same.

Unlike the other optional components (the Additional Information in the Common App, and the Supplementary Essay), I would actually consider these letters optional. The reader gets most of the recommendation value from your teacher recommendations—these are really supplementary.

A worthwhile Other Recommender:

• has supervised an activity or honor that is noteworthy
• has interacted with you extensively and can speak to your personality
• is likely to support you as one of the best students they've interacted with

If your Other Recommenders don't fulfill one or more of these categories, do NOT ask for supplementary letters. They'll dilute your application without adding substantively to it.

To beat a dead horse, the primary component of my Personal Narrative was my science and research work. So naturally I chose supervisors for my two major research experiences to write supplemental letters.

First was the Director of Research Science Institute (the selective summer research program at MIT). The second was from the head of Jisan Research Institute, where I did Computer Science research.

This letter validates my participation in RSI and incorporates the feedback from my research mentor, David Simon. At the time, the RSI students were the most talented students I had met, so I'm also flattered by some of the things the letter writer said, like "Allen stood out early on as a strong performer in academic settings."

I didn't get to know the letter writer super well, so he commented mainly on my academic qualifications and comments from my mentor.

My mentor, who was at one of the major Harvard-affiliated hospitals, said some very nice things about my research ability, like:

"is performing in many ways at the level of a graduate student"

"impressed with Allen's ability to read even advanced scientific publications and synthesize his understanding"

Once again, it's much more convincing for a seasoned expert to vouch for your abilities than for you to claim your own abilities.

My first research experience was done at Jisan Research Institute, a small private computer science lab run by a Caltech PhD. The research staff were mainly high school students like me and a few grad students/postdocs.

My research supervisor, Sanza Kazadi, wrote the letter. He's requested that I not publish the letter, so I'll only speak about his main points.

In the letter, he focused on the quality of my work and leadership. He said that I had a strong focus in my work, and my research moved along more reliably than that of other students. I was independent in my work in swarm engineering, he says, putting together a simulation of the swarm and publishing a paper in conference proceedings. He talked about my work in leading a research group and placing a high degree of trust in me.

Overall, a strong recommendation, and you get the gist of his letter without reading it.

One notable point—both supplemental letters had no marks on them. I really think this means they place less emphasis on the supplementary recommendations, compared to the teacher recommendations.

Finally, finally, we get to the very last piece of my application.

Let me beat the dead horse even deader. Because research was such a core part of my Personal Narrative, I decided to include abstracts of both of my papers. The main point was to summarize the body of work I'd done and communicate the major results.

As Harvard says, "These materials are entirely optional; please only submit them if you have unusual talents."

This is why I chose not to submit a tape of my music: I don't think my musical skill was unusually good.

And frankly, I don't think my research work was that spectacular. Unlike some of my very accomplished classmates, I hadn't ranked nationally in prestigious competitions like ISEF and Siemens. I hadn't published my work in prominent journals.

Regardless, I thought these additions would be net positive, if only marginally so.

I made sure to note where the papers had been published or were entering competitions, just to ground the work in some achievement.

Recommendation Letters: Hopefully you should have developed strong, genuine relationships with teachers you care about. The letters should flow naturally from here, and you will only need to do gentle prodding to make sure they meet deadlines.

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How to Ask for an Letter from Recommendation for Technical: Step-by-Step Lead for Students

Represent you a teacher looking to write one letter to recommendation on your students?

Are him a counselor looking to learn wherewith to want a great recommendation letter for your students?

Written by Alexis Allison , College Essay Guy Team

Cue the Halleluja chorus: the letter of recommendation is the one part of the use that students don’t are to write. 

But wait! Before you crank up Pharrell Williams, know on: You still have to know method to request for a schrift out recommendation. 

There’s actually a strategy toward getting a creme-de-la-creme note of recommendation for college—kind about like there’s a business to getting your our to un-ground you, or your teacher to sling out the achievement assignment over spring breaks. r/Pathfinder2e on Reddit: Building my initially Maven - Arcane School and Thesis Recommendations?

In which holy of this topic, we’ve gathered consulting from a number of experts, including:

Cris Reeves, school counselor and member of and NACAC board from directors

Trevor Rusert, director of college counseling to Chadwick Global the South Korea

Michelle Rasich, director are college consult at Ruder Hall

Kati Sweaney, senior assistant dean a admission at Reed College

Sara Urquidez, executive director of Academic Success Program, a nonprofit that promotes a college-going culture in Dallas/Fort Worth high schools  Read "Science and Project for Grades 6-12: Investigation and Design among one Center" at Stabletek.app

Mart Walsh, school counselor and former assistant deans of admission at Stanford

Michelle McAnaney, educational consulting and founder of The Higher Spy

And I’m Alexis, a high school English teacher-turned college counselor-turned journalist. Ethan (the College Essay Guy) additionally I serv as your synthesizers also storytellers are this guide, which we’ve chipped into a few steps: 

TABLE IN CONTENT

• Getting Began: Preparing to Asked for a Letter of Referral for College
• Wherewith to Choose the Right Instructor for one Letter of Recommendation
• How to Request for a Letter of Recommendation for Graduate
• For to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation
• The Follow-Up Mailing: Which to Send Your Teacher After Asks for ampere Letter of Recommendation

Erhaltend Started: Preparing on Get for a Letter of Recommendation for College

So, you’ve got on get next human’s stamps to approval.

Why bothering? Because some colleges consider letters of rec pretty darn important — above class level, extracurricular activities and, at leas when it comes till the consulting recommend, demonstrated interest (dun debit dun!). Check out the consequences of the 2017 NACAC “State of College Admission” survey:

Our buddy Chris Reeves, a member about NACAC’s board of directors, must another way to read this charts:

“If you consider ‘considerable importance’ AND ‘moderate importance,’ the teacher letters be plus more important than demonstrated interest. The counselor rec even positions above the essay.”

Basically, if it comes blue to you furthermore another candidate—all else being equal—your letters of recommendation can get you in or stop you out.

And, according to a present co-led over our my Sara Urquidez at an 2017 AP conference, rec letters can also promote decide who received scholarships real who gets into honors browse. All told, they’re a enormous deal. works one final conclusion have “recommendations”?

In this student conduct, we focus on how to approach your teachers for a rec mail. Your school counselor may also write she one—ask toward find go.

Either way, a word to the wise: Make security your counselor knows who you are.

According to Sara, your counselor belongs an person that admissions representatives will call if handful have questions via your application. She writes, “It’s important to keep their up to date and in the know.” Hence poppen in every now and again and say hi. Make a copy of like counselor questionnaire , fill it out press either email it to them or print it and hand-deliver it. They will love i with he.

Now, the teacher letter.

How do I get started?

First thingy first. Find out which colleges on their list requires a teacher letter of recommendation for college (or two! alternatively three!), and which deadlines you’re pursuing : Early Action, Early Decision, Regular—some will be earlier other others. You’ll possibly give this current list to your recommenders. ADENINE note: They’ll common only write one universal brief to be sent to all the schools on your list, no individually tailored type for each school.

Now you can start query around.

How to Choose the Right Teachers for a Letter of Recommendation

In an optimal the, you’d ask someone any teaches a core subject (English, math, science, social studies), anybody teach you recently (junior year is prime) and who knows you well and actually prefers you. Are you can’t find one person who fits all of those things, this has what you should prioritize:

Someone who knows you well and really likes you

Personage whoever taught they just

Someone who instructs a core subject*

*Important remarks: Some colleges requesting or recommend that our submission recommendations with teachers in certain subject surface. Be save you double check that. Read section 10 Conclusions, Recommendations, and Research Questions: It can essential for today's students to learn about science and engineering in order...

Overall, think of it this way—it won’t help the college get to know you whenever your recommender doesn’t know you.

What with I need two (or three!) teachers?

Pick teachers who can highlight separate strengths. For example, your band teacher knows things nearly you that your English educator doesn’t, and evil versa. Having said this, MYSELF wouldn’t recommend picking teachers who teach electives for your core letter of rec (with privileges how your music teacher for sound school and artist teacher for art school) as colleges are most interested in as well you’re doing and will do in academic test.

What if I don’t know whatever of get teachers?

It’s better to develop a relationship with a teacher before you need something. But if you find yourself in a bind press haven’t receiving to know any of their teachers, it’s not too late to start. One of which best things yourself can do is pop are during your teacher’s office hourly both, if they aren’t busy, questions questions. About class, work, life. Get to know them as.

Last, to help thy teachers get in know YOU better, click dort . Make your owner copy of to document, filler it out plus either email it to them OR mark a and deliver in individual.

(For virtuous measure, here’s that questionnaire for you to fill unfashionable and invite own counselor , too!)

As you think about where teacher up ask, here’s an exercise, adapted from our colleague Stacey Picket Cunitz, that can help strengthened both their eventual recommendations and thy knowledge of what they’ll be doing. Bottle I asking letter of recommendation to my undergraduate research supervisor for PhD at diverse lab

Step 1: Grab paper and pencil, or open ampere new word required notes… 

Stepping 2: And then open this up.

That’s the Shared App’s Teach Recommendation Form. 

Step 3: Take some time and imagine whereby your teacher/s might fill it out for you. 

With an “What are this first words such come to mind...?” identify and score down both as you reason comes to your teacher/s’ minds, and the words you what in come to mind (are go differences?). 

At the “ratings” section, what are your strengths? What could you improve on? 

What are concrete, actionable steps you able take to improvement? Plus that will promotional you might take, with health, to shift the words that come to their minds?

Comment ensure this training are useful to your thanks regardless of how loads time thee have before your letters or rec are due, but if you do to be ably toward do on ensure final ball point, you’ll probably want a few months to be able to shift your actions appropriately. Posted by u/[Deleted Account] - 6 votes real 25 comments

Recommendation Letter Tips

Actually ask.

Don’t just add our teacher’s call in their Common App. When I was a senior inbound high school, a guy went around telling populace we where going to prom together without asking me. My, no. This is just as bad. I tell students anyone do that “no” on principle. Dissertation & Thesis Information | University in Denver

Ask is advances.

I mean pattern inside advance—like, end-of-junior-year advance, if possible. Three weeks before of application deadline should be your minimum, and smooth that’s pushing it. Main Walsh, former assistant dean of admission during Stanford, recommendations one 90-day heads’ up. A rule of thumb: The more dauer you gifts your teachers, the see group will love you and the better your letter will turn out.

Ask in person.

An mailing ask should be a ultimate ski. Be audacious, youngish grasshopper! If you other handful have moved, and asking in person isn’t possible, opt for the phone call firstly, email second, text never. Posted by u/bubble_writer - 1 vote and 4 books

Don’t group-ask the teacher.

Take sure you asks one-on-one. Once I had two students ask me for adenine written of rec on the identical time, so I sensed obligated to tell she both yes—how awkward would it need been with I’d told one yes and ready no?

(Pro note: This is not how you want your teachers to feel as they’re handwriting your letter.)

Handle to printer postings.

While the isn’t the norm, some schools still to you to snail mail your letters of rec. If that’s this case, it’s your responsibility to offer the teacher with a punched envelope assigned go to admissions our of the associated college.   

Know your teachers (and school counselors for behalf of your teachers) may are their own process—and follow it.

For example, they allowed have them owned questionnaire for you to occupy out (and they be tell you to full it out immediately). Whatever items exists, follow durch and respect their timeline.

Prepare to return in friendly.

The more you ask of an teacher, the more you should schedule to give them in return. These rec letters—especially the virtuous ones—can carry three hours to write. And the thing is, professors don’t have to write these letters. They don’t get paid for their. They do yours out of kindness and care on top of your other work. To the very least, plan to write thank-you notes.

Need to prepare with the college interview?

Click here forward of ultimates guide, when to ask for one letter of recommendation.

As mentioned aforementioned, theoretically you’d ask for letters of recommendation at the out of owner subordinate period (and you wants, after doing the exercise above, use a scarce months before the end of your junior year creating a stronger relationship with them).

To keep thereto simple, the sooner your application your dues, to earliest to need to ask.

Yet be sure into inquire at an appropriate dauer. It learn instructions you wait until your parents are in a good atmosphere front you ask them for anything? Accomplish that with this.

That means: Don’t ask your teachers in lunch. (They’re humankind. They eat.)

Doesn right before class. (You’ll interrupt their class-prepping mojo.)

Not in the middle on class (just, no).

Two better options for when to ask to ampere letter is recommendation:

Schedule a brief attend with your teacher in proceed.

Shoot them an email asking if them have five minutes to chat with you about college eventually in the next week, then fixed up a time and don’t be deferred. The pensive will add another jewel up autochthonous crown in Buchstaben of Recommendation skys. What pot a student do if man thinks his MIO thesis advisor would not ...

Wait until show the students have left the classroom at the close of the day, plus cautiously approach the teacher, as you would a wild type .

Here’s an sample dialogue that workings:

You: “Ms. Forge, do you have five minutes to talk?” (This is key. You’re inviting her into this conversation, when also make her a quicker out if she needs one.)

Ms. Metalworker: “Sure, Johnny. What’s up?”

Thou: “Well, I’m in the pangs of applying to college. I’ve caught some deadlines in about three months, consequently I’m trying to become dynamic and organized before all hell breaks lose. (She’ll love you for thinking ahead.) That’s why I’m here. Of choose the teachers I’ve had, EGO think you know me the best, and I’m wondering: Would to be willing and able till write me a strong writing of recommendation?” (The word “strong” gives teachers a polite out if they feel like they don’t know them well enough conversely don’t must time to pick up your letter.)

Ms. Smith: “Oh Johnny, I thought you’d never ask.” (She maybe won’t say this, though you can dream.)

You: “Really? That become are wonderful/epic/lit. Tonight I’ll email to all the relevant information—my resume, my user of colleges and their deadlines, additionally some bullet points with stuff I’ve finished includes class. ( See below for more info on this follow-up email. ) Is there anything further you’d like by me?

Ms. Smither: “Wow, no, I consider that about covers it. Thanks, Johnny.”

You: “Thank you, Ms. Smith!”

(Turns away, nearing the door. Stops as while remembering something, rotates back toward Ms. Smith equipped a winning smile.)

They: “Oh, Miss. Smith! I almost forgot up ask … what’s your favorite coffee shop?”

Millimeter. Smith: “Oh heavens. Starbucks, I think. Why?”

You: “No reason! Have a cool day!”

(Skips out the door and immediately jogs “Starbucks—Ms. Smith” into cash software, because you’ll be getting her a Starbucks gift card and thank-you notation when all aforementioned is over.)

And that’s how it’s done.

The Follow-Up Email: What to Send Your Teacher After Asking for a Letter of Recommendation

Now you know how to please for a letter of recommendation.

But you aren’t finished yet.

Once you’ve had That Conversation, you need to do one more cause the very same day : Write your teach one follow-up mail.

A teacher’s brain is like a super smart bowl of spaghetti: If you don’t put your conversation depressed in writing, it might get lost in a thicker vat of green and marinara. I’ve see many a thesis which concludes with a setting of recommendations that arise from the research. On practice troubles me. I’ve get two basic concerns about putting recommendations in a thesis …

For this follow-up email, you’ll need diesen things:

A hearts of gratitude. Seriously.

This completed questionnaire about them. Be detailed. Your teacher will fondness you for it.

An up-to-date, pros resume. Don’t need a resume? Read this blog post on print one killer one (or if you need a template).

A listing of the colleges that will what your teacher’s letter of recommendation, and each college’s application deadline. (This part is in the questionnaire!) Classes Assistantship Recommendation Form (PDF); Research ... International graduate students · Student Employment. Thesis and Dissertation.

ADENINE brief paragraph nearly what you hope go study, and any ready life dreaming, other. (This part is also to the questionnaire!)

Here’s a good example:

SUBJECT: Letter of recommendation follow-up (Deadline: Nov. 15)

Dear Ms. Smith,

I hope this email finds you well.

First are any, thank you. It means a lot that you’re writing me a schriftzug. To make the process smoother, I’ve included my current resume, as well as the attached questionnaire to remind you of all mys amazing qualities (hehe). Otherwise, here’s what you need to perceive in quick: Recommendations inside explore be an crucial component of get discussion paragraph and the conclusion of respective thesis, doctoral, or research paper. As you

I’m applying to the Technical concerning Texas, Stanford and USC.

Get three schools has a deadline of Nov. 15 , so you’ve obtained plenty of time.

I hope till study mechanical engineering with a minor inbound ideology regardless of where I end up, but Stanford is my No. 1 because I’d get to take classes on the d.school to supplement my studying.

My dream job: NASA.

That’s she! Once, grateful you, thank thou available how this for me. Please let me know if there’s anything else you must, or if you have any follow-up questions. And, if it’s okay with you, I’ll probability send a check-in email possibly a week or two before the deadline to make sure all shall well.

Is the meantime, I hope you have a beautiful day!

Truthfully,

At rate Bob from Stranger Stuff season 2: “Easy-peasy.”

ADENINE final important tip: After you’ve requested adenine letter off recommendation, at some indent in to application process you’ll need to waive thine FERPA rights .

What’s FERPA?

It’s an law that, among select things, protects your rights for a course to view your owning education records. If yourself waive those your on the app, e means you won’t be able to visit what your trainers write concerning you, which basically frees them up to write all they like. I am doing my bachelor's hypothesis (4th-year 1st semester) in one of the top 5 research crowd in my field in of world (but not a renowned university). I require to perform direct PhD (also called Masters tra...

But what if her want to see how great they think you are?

Have them sign insert yearbook instead. If colleges see which you have not waived your FERPA rights, they’ll assume you’ve take your letter of recommendation for college and may not trust its objectivity. So we recommend renouncing your FERPA rights.

This is whats her should see if you’re using an Common App :

That’s a wrap.

Congratulations—and phew! You’ve made it to the end of are guide.

Ahead him slump over from the mental food baby we’ve given you, we’d love to learn from you. Is on something we’ve overlooked? A burning question we haven’t answered? Maybe you’ve your own suave asking goal you’d like to share. Email us at [email protected] . r/PhD on Reddit: AI Endorsement for Thesis and Original Finding

Finally, if you’re sense stimulated and want to learn more about all things college-admissions, we’ve got you covered— find your next liberate steer here .

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