Letters of recommendation from same subject area

[Anonymous]

Kid wants to study humanities and plans to ask 2 English teachers for letters of recommendation. These teachers both taught him junior year in different classes (AP and a niche area), and have the best relationship with him inside and outside class. Other teachers (STEM, history, lang) don’t know him as well and probably wouldn’t add anything other than generic to his application. What do you think?

[Anonymous]

I think schools like to see a little more variety. At the very least two different humanities (English, history, language, etc), and better would be English plus a math or science. The second English teacher’s LOR could be a supplemental.

[Anonymous]

Depends, if applying for top 50 schools, I’d have a humanities and a STEM letter of recommendation. Presumably DC got a decent grade in at least one STEM class if they are applying for competitive schools.

[Anonymous]

Is this a DS? If so, should be fine. Don’t agree that a male humanities student needs to appear well-rounded by showing a math or science. Nothing to be gained from that, except a suspicion that kid may be yet another male STEM or Econ major in disguise. Pointy is good.

[Anonymous]

I think it is more important that they have things to say about him. I would go ahead with that.

[Anonymous]

Some schools say specifically they care about one humanities and one STEM (or don't).

You should research the school and see if they have any specific requirements.

[Anonymous]

Our school specifies it has to be a teacher from Jr year and it has to be one from Science/Math and the other English/Hist./Humanities/religion

[Anonymous]

Jumping in - What about humanities and foreign language? The FL teacher teaches the same kids for multiple years and knows them well. The math and science teachers don’t really know my student even though they are doing well in those AP classes.

[Anonymous]

Would the English teachers be likely to say different things about him? Would one gush more about his skills in writing and analysis, and another about his resilience and perseverance?

In general, I’d agree it would be better to have one from another humanities teacher. Or maybe a supplemental from an advisor on the lit magazine or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jumping in - What about humanities and foreign language? The FL teacher teaches the same kids for multiple years and knows them well. The math and science teachers don’t really know my student even though they are doing well in those AP classes.

I think FL would count as humanities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kid wants to study humanities and plans to ask 2 English teachers for letters of recommendation. These teachers both taught him junior year in different classes (AP and a niche area), and have the best relationship with him inside and outside class. Other teachers (STEM, history, lang) don’t know him as well and probably wouldn’t add anything other than generic to his application. What do you think?

The problem is that there are plenty of humanities with a quantitative component. Political Science will need the ability to analyze polling and other statistical data. Economics...well of course that will be quantitative. Many history classes will involve looking at historical economic data or other data fields.

This is why having 1 STEM and 1 Humanities HS recommendation generally always make sense.

I suppose if your kid is going to be a Creative Writing major, that might be quite different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid wants to study humanities and plans to ask 2 English teachers for letters of recommendation. These teachers both taught him junior year in different classes (AP and a niche area), and have the best relationship with him inside and outside class. Other teachers (STEM, history, lang) don’t know him as well and probably wouldn’t add anything other than generic to his application. What do you think?

The problem is that there are plenty of humanities with a quantitative component. Political Science will need the ability to analyze polling and other statistical data. Economics...well of course that will be quantitative. Many history classes will involve looking at historical economic data or other data fields.

This is why having 1 STEM and 1 Humanities HS recommendation generally always make sense.

I suppose if your kid is going to be a Creative Writing major, that might be quite different.

The problem is you don’t know what the humanities are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jumping in - What about humanities and foreign language? The FL teacher teaches the same kids for multiple years and knows them well. The math and science teachers don’t really know my student even though they are doing well in those AP classes.

I think FL would count as humanities.

Intended major is key here. Do you really think colleges are like, “oh, great, a humanities kid! But can’t tell if they would actually succeed in the humanities without a math and science rec., so we’ll take the non-humanities kid instead…”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school specifies it has to be a teacher from Jr year and it has to be one from Science/Math and the other English/Hist./Humanities/religion

This is not up to your school. And your school might not get that times have changed, and what might have made sense 10-20 years ago no longer does. Beware any school that does not individualize this issue: even if a math/science reference may make sense for most, it certainly does not for all individual students. It depends. College admissions is not one size fits all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jumping in - What about humanities and foreign language? The FL teacher teaches the same kids for multiple years and knows them well. The math and science teachers don’t really know my student even though they are doing well in those AP classes.

I think FL would count as humanities.

Is kid applying as a humanities/FL major? Especially if you have a DS, forget about the math and science teachers.

Another caveat: if a school pushes a math/science rec, and certain of those teachers are, as a result, doing numerous recs, some colleges will be able to compare applicants from the same high school using the same recommender. The recommender is then basically ranking your school’s applicants. This is bad.