Strong Letter Of Recommendation Example – When I applied to college, I was accepted at every school I applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, the Ivy League, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and more. Although I had a strong overall application, two teacher recommendation letters were critical to my admission. Why? Both teachers said I was one of the top students they had taught. Both enthusiastically advocated for my personality, leadership skills and energy. How can you earn letters of recommendation that will get you into your top choice colleges? In this article I will show you how. For the first time, I’m sharing my full, unedited letters of recommendation as examples for you. These are the exact letters I submitted when I applied to college. Even better, you’ll see exactly what my Harvard admissions officer underlined – what’s really important and noteworthy. First things first, quick question – how confident are you in knowing what colleges are looking for in your letter of recommendation? Do you have a strong understanding of what an effective letter entails and what a bad letter looks like? Many students have a completely wrong idea of what colleges are looking for in letters of recommendation. This, naturally, leads to subpar letters for students. Before I show you my letter, I want to explain why letters of recommendation from teachers are an important part of your college application, and then what makes effective letters effective. If you’re chomping at the bit and really want to get straight to my letters, here’s Letter of Recommendation Example #1, and here’s Letter of Recommendation Example #2. But I highly recommend that you stick with me for the next two sections – you’ll get a lot more out of this guide and a lot stronger rec characters as a result. Why Teacher Recommendation Letters Are Important for College The purpose of your overall college application can take 20 minutes (or less) to convey who you are as a person in an easily digestible package. From this package, colleges decide whether you want to join their community or not. Yes, condensing your 18 years of existence into a web form doesn’t feel good. But it’s the best system colleges have ever found to handle the tens of thousands of college applications they receive each year. (Or in UCLA’s case, 135,000+ applications.) What do colleges care about? Ultimately, it comes down to two things: how successful you will be in college and in your career, how much you will benefit the school community as a student, and beyond, which are the ultimate goals of colleges when selecting their next class of students. . Your application must convince the college that you will succeed in both goals. Of course, these are complicated ideas—success isn’t hard to imagine, but different people have different ideas about what success means. But there are some general principles that hold true for most colleges: Past academic success is a good predictor of future academic success, which in turn predicts career success. Certain personality traits are preferred: integrity, leadership, curiosity, creativity, empathy, perseverance, motivation, ambition, collaboration, confidence and others. You don’t need to be perfect in all dimensions, but some of them should apply to you. You generally want to avoid the opposite of these characteristics. These are all bad adjectives: immoral, narrow-minded, unmotivated, self-centered, arrogant, rude. For the first admission requirement of academic success, your coursework and test scores play a large role. If you’ve taken a tough courseload and got a high GPA and you have a high SAT/ACT score, you’ve shown that you can handle high school academics. This means you are well positioned to succeed academically in college. Feeling like your SAT/ACT scores aren’t high enough to impress your top-choice colleges? We’ve written a guide for each test on the top 5 strategies you should use to improve your SAT/ACT score. Download it now for free: The Second Requirement – How Do You Display Personality Traits? Part of this is in your personal essays and extracurriculars, where you show what interests you and give voice to your personality. But of course you describe yourself as interesting, creative, cooperative, kind, etc. Who describes themselves as immoral and vile? This is why colleges need objective, third-party observers to comment on who you are. This is where your teacher’s recommendations come in and why they are so important. The role of a cover letter is to show who you are as a person. Your teacher has been involved with you for at least one year of classes. They have seen you in class with other students and maybe even outside of class. There are hundreds of small interactions that your teacher can make an impression on you. How do you communicate with students? How do you communicate with teachers? How creative was your work? How much did you participate in class discussions? How motivated are you to do well in school? Are you a jerk that no one wants to be around? Or are you someone the teacher entrusts the future to? A good teacher recommendation tells the college all of the above. Let’s hear from Harvard’s Dean of Admissions What if you still don’t believe me? I am a man with his own admission experiences. I call William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard College: Recommendations from high school teachers and counselors are very important at Harvard and many other colleges, especially with selective admissions processes. With more academically qualified applicants than spots in the freshman class, our admissions officers very carefully evaluate the required two teacher recommendations and the counselor’s report, commenting in writing on “reader sheets” on each application. We typically project the recommendations on a large screen so all members of the admissions committee can see them during the subcommittee and full committee review processes in February and March. Recommendations help us look beyond test scores and grades and other credentials and highlight personal qualities such as personality and leadership, and intellectual curiosity, creativity and love of learning. Along with essays, interviews, and other materials in the application, recommendations can provide evidence of an applicant’s ability to make a significant difference to the college community and beyond. The source notes how he says Harvard “faces more academically qualified applicants than places.” What does this mean? “In a group of students with the same academic qualifications, we use personality traits to decide who to accept or reject.” And letters of recommendation for students describe these personality traits. To beat a dead horse: Your teacher’s recommendations add more color to your academic achievements, your test scores, and your GPA. Recommendation letters for colleges talk about your personality and personal qualities. This is why my following two letters are so effective. You don’t want your letter of recommendation to be a repeat of your resume. It gives the admissions officer zero additional information about who you are as a person. You don’t want your letter of recommendation to say, “Johnny got an A and did his homework on time.” This makes it very clear that the teacher has no idea who you are as a person, which means it adds zero to your application. Good recommendations say more than your classroom performance. They discuss your personal qualities, how they interact with you and why you will be successful in the future. First, I will show you with an analysis why my letters are effective. You’ll see the highlights made by my Harvard admissions officer, who tells you what things he found most important. Then I’ll give you advice on how to build a relationship with your teacher so you can get letters like your own. My recommendation letter samples Generally you do not read letters of recommendation to students because you sign a FERPA waiver, giving up your right to read your application. But I was able to retrieve my entire Common Application and Harvard Application from Harvard, complete with my original letter of recommendation. Most colleges require you to have two letters from teachers in different subjects. The two teachers I heard letters from were two of my favorite teachers in all of high school. Personally, I resonate most strongly with teachers who truly care about learning. He empowered engaged students, treated us with kindness and compassion, and went above and beyond expectations to help students succeed. Not only do I have more fun with teachers, they are more likely to enthusiastically support me in their letters. You may not marry a teacher for the same reasons, but it is important to choose the teacher you are with
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