When applying for an undergraduate degree in the United States, you generally need 2-3 letters of recommendation. Do you know what the meaning of a letter of recommendation is? What should the content of a letter of recommendation include to add points to your application for an American university? The following is the most detailed guide compiled by Embark tutors for students.

1. What is a letter of recommendation?

A letter of recommendation that needs to be submitted when applying for an American university is a letter of support or recommendation from others. It is usually written by your school teacher, guidance counselor, coach or boss, but sometimes you can ask relatives and friends to help write it.

A letter of recommendation is one of the important parts of the application because the university will get to know you through this letter. As you can imagine, the content of the letter of recommendation should not include the part that has been written in the resume, but can focus more on personality, sense of responsibility or potential. As the MIT official website suggests, the content of the letter of recommendation should no longer describe "students' grades and academic performance" because the interviewer can get this information from other places.

2. Why are letters of recommendation important?

Although you have to fill in a lot of data (such as GPA, SAT, extracurricular activities, etc.) on the application form, American universities will use "holistic assessment" (holistic admissions) to select students. In addition to cold data, universities can understand students from a "human" perspective through applicants' on-campus counselor's reports, recommendation letters, and interviews.

The reason why recommendation letters are so important is inseparable from the following four points, because recommendation letters:

1. Confirm and supplement students' comprehensive grades and essay content.
2. It is an assessment of students' intelligence level and personal qualities.
3. It can show students' academic ability and personality characteristics to a certain extent.
4. It is a relatively objective third-party evaluation.

If the purpose of the essay is to show the admissions officer who you are from a first-person perspective, then the role of the recommendation letter is to show the admissions officer who you are from a third-person perspective.

3. What is in the recommendation letter?

The content of the recommendation letter on the Common Application can be divided into two parts:

Part 1: Rating

Your teacher will evaluate you in the following aspects:

Academic achievements, intelligence, writing quality, creativity/originality, participation in class discussions, respect for teachers, rigorous attitude towards work, maturity, autonomy, leadership, integrity, response to frustration, care for others, self-confidence, independence, overall performance

Based on the above aspects, the teacher will first score different items. The scoring options for each item are "Below average", "Average", "Good (above average)", "Very Good (well above average)", "Excellent (top 10%)", "Outstanding (top 5%)", and "One of the top few encountered in my career".

Of course, because the top Ivy League schools only accept the top students, the more "One of the top few encountered in my career" the teacher can give you, the better.

Part 2: Introduction

Your teacher will need to answer the following questions:

1. How long have you known this student? Under what circumstances did you know him?
2. What is your first impression of this student?
3. In which grade did you teach this student?
4. Please list the courses you have taught this student, including the difficulty level of the course (e.g. AP, IB, accelerated, Cambridge, honors, elective; 100-level, 200-level, etc.)
5. Please upload a document that you think is important to this student. The content can include the student's academic performance or personal performance, etc. The more detailed the information, the better.

Part 3: Writing Assessment

Finally, the teacher will upload a 1-2 page letter of recommendation, which is usually written by the teacher and uploaded as a doc or pdf file.

4. Who is the best person to write a letter of recommendation?

Many people have a misunderstanding that the greater the title of the recommender, the better the bonus effect, so they hope that a university professor or a CEO of a large company can help students write a letter of recommendation. However, the title of the recommender is relatively unimportant. What is important in a letter of recommendation is the depth of the recommender's understanding of the student and the interaction with the student.

The order of importance of college recommendation letters is roughly as follows:

The order of importance of recommendation letters: the content of the recommendation letter > the writing style of the recommender > the title of the recommender

This means that if a student is not familiar with Barack Obama, but gets a recommendation letter from Obama (through his parents or other relationships), even if Obama's "recommendation title" is top-notch, the strength of this recommendation letter will be far less than the recommendation letter written by the teacher who taught the student for two years and likes the student very much!

5. How many recommendation letters do you need to write?

Generally, it is recommended that students have at least 2 recommendation letters from teachers and 1 guidance report from the school's admissions counselor. Some schools may only require 1 recommendation letter, but some schools allow students to submit up to 5 recommendation letters, including 1-3 from coaches, bosses, classmates or relatives.

How to choose and ask teachers to write recommendation letters?

Usually, the subject taught by the teacher chosen by students to write recommendation letters is not the focus, but the relationship between you and the teacher is more important. The following 5 items are the considerations you can take into account when you ask a teacher to write a recommendation letter:

1. This teacher has known you for a while, such as a two-month intensive course (summer course, five days a week, 8 hours a day), or a full-year class teacher in the second year of high school.
2. This teacher has a close relationship with you and can talk about your personality, interests, academic performance, etc.
3. This teacher has good English writing skills and can write a persuasive recommendation letter.
4. You performed well in this teacher's class (or activities), which made the teacher have a positive impression of you or have a lot of things to say about you.
5. This teacher is someone you have frequently contacted and interacted with recently.

Many people think that recommendation letters are about racking your brains to find celebrities to help you. But before looking for these celebrities to write recommendation letters for you, please confirm whether they really meet the above 5 points?

If you ask some famous people to write a recommendation letter for you, and she knows you very well, likes you as much as your high school teacher, and can write English recommendation letters, and most importantly, you have kept in touch with this celebrity from the past to the present, then asking these celebrities to write a recommendation letter for you may really help. Otherwise, we would suggest that you find a high school teacher who likes you very much, which will be more effective than writing an ordinary recommendation letter from these celebrities.

Examples of good or bad recommendation letters

PART.01 Good recommendation letter examples

Teachers who get along well with you and interact with you in other ways outside of class (such as sports coaches, piano competition instructors, etc.).

The AP English teacher you often participate in, you often ask him questions after class, and he will also voluntarily help you.

PART.02 Bad recommendation letter examples

You like the teacher of a certain course very much and always get high scores in his class, but the teacher has no impression of you and has no other topics or intersections with you except homework and test scores.

You rely on your parents' connections or pay someone famous to write a recommendation letter for you (such as a politician, a company CEO, or a university professor), but this person has no connection with you at all. Without knowing you, he can only write some general opinions, such as: he is a hard-working and good student. Even if you ask the other party to "pretend" to know you well, the interviewer can still see it. This does not mean that you are a person with good connections and excellent grades, but it will leave a very bad impression on the interviewer.

6. How can you maintain a good relationship with the teacher?

The following 3 points are ways to maintain a good relationship with the teacher:

Be more involved and perform well in class

Class participation is the only way to maintain a good relationship with the teacher. Try to answer questions in class. Even if the content of the class is difficult, the teacher will ask some very simple questions. These are good opportunities for you to stand out.

If you really think the course content is too profound, you can also raise your hand to ask questions, ask the teacher to explain it again for the part you don't understand, or stay after class to ask the teacher questions. Showing effort in challenging classes is also considered a form of class participation, which will leave a good impression on your teacher.

Maintain a good relationship with teachers

Although teachers are elders we need to respect, this does not mean that you cannot get along with them like friends. Even if you say hello to the teacher when you meet him in the corridor, or if you are more outgoing, you can also use your spare time to chat with the teacher in the office. These will help you build a teacher-friend relationship with the teacher.

In addition, please try to think from the perspective of the teacher. Even though you will definitely have teachers you like and dislike, please remember that the teacher is the one who grades you, and some grades are more subjective (such as class participation). If you seem to be a good student with a simple personality and will not argue with the teacher about grades, the teacher may be willing to give you a higher grade.

Have a good performance in class

Every teacher likes good students who don't make trouble in class. If you perform well in the course, the teacher will definitely have a better impression of you than those who often make trouble.

To achieve excellent performance in class, in addition to not being late or leaving early, class participation, submitting homework on time, and quizzes and midterm exams are all things to pay attention to.

7. What to do if you are introverted or don’t have a good relationship with your teacher?

You can start to build a close relationship with your teacher now and find opportunities to ask your teacher to write a recommendation letter for you. Even if there may only be one semester left, the positive contact in this semester is always more meaningful than a recommendation letter written by a teacher who you don’t know very well for a whole year.

And if you feel uncomfortable with this teacher during this semester, it doesn’t matter. Even if you don’t have a good relationship with the teacher, you can still have a recommendation letter to help you get into your ideal university through the teacher’s recommendation.

8. How to ask a teacher to write a quality recommendation letter?

First, you need to write a short resume that includes EC, academic data, awards, and anything you are proud of and hope to put in the recommendation letter (even if some things cannot be measured by EC, such as reading, fitness, handcrafts, etc.).

You can also prepare a Q&A list. Through the following questions and answers, help the teacher who writes the recommendation letter know you better/know more about what else to write:

What more specific content do you want the teacher to write? (If you want the teacher to write something that you think is important, you can briefly describe it here)

Second, describe any important and relevant extracurricular activities and explain what you learned. (This part is important because the teacher who helps you write a recommendation letter may not know what activities you do outside of class. If you can share your experience in this area with the teacher, he can also use it in the recommendation letter)

Finally, describe your own performance in the teacher's class and the challenges you have faced, and how you overcame it? It doesn't matter if you think you have only performed well once. (Since the teacher has taught a lot of students, and you should no longer be his student when writing a recommendation letter. The purpose of doing this is to allow the teacher to refresh his memory and write a recommendation letter specifically for you)

9. How to ask the teacher to write a recommendation letter for online courses?

Generally, if it is a normal class, you can ask the teacher after class; but if it is an online course, or there are fewer opportunities to meet with the teacher, it is recommended to communicate with the teacher via email, or make an appointment with the teacher to meet and chat. When asking the teacher if you can help write a recommendation letter, please pay attention to the following two points:

Ask the teacher if he is willing to write a recommendation letter for you?

Give the teacher a few reasons to explain why you chose him to help write a recommendation letter? For example: I think the relationship between teachers and students is good, I think I performed well in his class, some interesting things in the past, etc.

If you want to ask the teacher by email, here is a sample for your reference:

Dear Mr. xxx,

I really enjoyed your Physics class this year. I appreciate that you always made our classes interesting and allowed us to see how amazing physics is through different experiments and projects. Your class was one of the reasons that I want to major in Physics in college. May I ask you to write a recommendation letter for my college application?

If the teacher does not reply within a week, you can send another inquiry; if the teacher replies that he can help you write a recommendation letter, you can reply with the following:

Here’s a resume for your reference. Just a heads up – I’m planning to apply to eight colleges and several scholarships as well, so I will probably be coming back to you for more copies in the next couple of months.

Let me know if you have any questions. I really appreciate you doing this – at selective schools like MIT, a detailed and specific recommendation letter can make a big difference. Thanks again!

10. Do you need a recommendation letter from a STEM teacher and a humanities teacher?

First, if the university you are applying to requires a recommendation letter from a STEM teacher and a humanities teacher, then you can only follow Prepare according to the school's regulations.

Generally speaking, the subjects taught by teachers are not closely related to the university majors to be applied for in the recommendation letter. However, if you want to study STEM in the future, it would be a bit strange to ask a teacher of humanities to recommend you. However, in a word, it is better to ask a teacher with whom you have a good relationship to assist in the recommendation letter.

11. What is Counselor's Evaluation?

In addition to the teacher's recommendation letter, you will also need the evaluation of the school counselor. In most cases, since the counselor does not know you as well as the teacher, their evaluation will not have much impact on your application to the university, unless there are too positive, special opinions or even negative comments.

Highly positive comments: For example, "XXX is the smartest student I have ever seen", "XXX is the most popular student in the school", etc., at this time the university will make special notes. After all, these comments will not be seen in the autobiography, and it is easy to make people feel self-promotion.

Special opinions: For example, "XXX's score was poor because a relative passed away during the exam." Through the explanation of the school counselor, some things that students cannot explain in person will be more convincing.

Negative comments: Basically, the probability of negative comments in recommendation letters or school counselors is very low, but if the counselor really writes negative opinions, your chances of being admitted to this school may be 0, after all, the interviewer will think that the recommendation letter or school counselor should defend the student wholeheartedly.

12. How to avoid getting a bad recommendation letter?

Recommendation letters are not 100% positive. Sometimes some teachers will write negative comments in recommendation letters, which not only do not add points to you, but may even deduct points.

If you want to avoid getting this type of recommendation letter, the best way to judge is the teacher's reaction when you ask the teacher if he is willing to help write a recommendation letter. If the teacher's reaction is hesitant, it means that the content he writes may not be very helpful to you; a teacher who is really willing to help you will directly reject you if he is worried that the content he writes will prevent you from entering the ideal university.

Therefore, it is recommended to choose a teacher who has a good relationship with you and has a lot to say to you, so as to avoid the probability of getting a bad recommendation letter!

13. What is FERPA?

FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) is a law used to protect the privacy of students' educational records. If it is used in a recommendation letter, it means that if you are admitted to a university, you can ask to see the content of the recommendation letter written by the teacher.

Although students have FERPA rights, most teachers or schools will ask you to waive it, in other words, to agree not to see the content of the recommendation letter. This usually means that you trust the teacher who wrote the recommendation letter for you, and it is also a sign of honesty to the interviewer. In fact, if you do not waive your FERPA rights, this move will attract the attention of the interviewer because it means that you actually do not trust the teacher.

Summary

Recommendation letters are a big deal, and there is a lot of preparation to do! Choose a teacher who has a good relationship with you, ask them if they can write a recommendation letter for you, and provide relevant information as soon as possible for the teacher to start evaluating.

Prepare the recommendation letter and you will be one step closer to your goal of studying at your ideal university!

Embark tutors have also compiled some other information about college applications, which you can see in the following articles:

1. Best Computer Science Engineering Schools in America 2024
2. Prompts and Advice for Cornell University Essays 2024-2025
3. A Comprehensive Guide to 2024-25 Fall College Applications
4. The 10 cheapest colleges in the US in 2024
5. Complete Guide and Examples for University of Chicago Essays 2024