Recommendation from history teacher for engineering?

[Anonymous]

My dc wants to apply to engineering programs but says his favorite teacher is a history teacher and feels he has the best connection with this teacher. Is this a bad idea? He has only checked on a few school websites, but the ones he checked so far are not requiring a rec from a science/math teacher.

[Anonymous]

My kid heading off to engineering school had refs from a physics teacher and an art teacher. I think one should be science or Matheson, but I'm not an expert.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dc wants to apply to engineering programs but says his favorite teacher is a history teacher and feels he has the best connection with this teacher. Is this a bad idea? He has only checked on a few school websites, but the ones he checked so far are not requiring a rec from a science/math teacher.

even if not required it's a good idea to have, at least, one LOR from math/science teacher.

[Anonymous]

Usually, you submit two letters. History teacher can be one — other should be math or science.

[Anonymous]

When our DC applied to engineering, they had an amazing letter from a science teacher. Deciding on who to get the second one from was hard.

Any other science teacher's letter was going to sound inferior. While DC got mostly As in math, DC did not take AP Calc BC until junior year and was going to get lumped in as solid but not amazing.

DC could also have gotten a solid but not amazing letter from several history teachers.

On the other hand DC is pretty poor in English. DC had worked pretty hard in on level English just to manage an A here and there.

The difference was that DC really took writing their college essay seriously. DC had worked with a former English teacher developing, drafting and polishing.

The teacher told us that she believed DC's essay was most likely the best essay from the school that year, better than all the IB student's essays.

While we were skeptical, DC was very proud of that essay and the teacher was very enthusiastic about writing DC's second letter.

We are pretty sure that both the essay and the English teacher's recommendation made a big impact and helped DC get into all of their reach engineering schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When our DC applied to engineering, they had an amazing letter from a science teacher. Deciding on who to get the second one from was hard.

Any other science teacher's letter was going to sound inferior. While DC got mostly As in math, DC did not take AP Calc BC until junior year and was going to get lumped in as solid but not amazing.

DC could also have gotten a solid but not amazing letter from several history teachers.

On the other hand DC is pretty poor in English. DC had worked pretty hard in on level English just to manage an A here and there.

The difference was that DC really took writing their college essay seriously. DC had worked with a former English teacher developing, drafting and polishing.

The teacher told us that she believed DC's essay was most likely the best essay from the school that year, better than all the IB student's essays.

While we were skeptical, DC was very proud of that essay and the teacher was very enthusiastic about writing DC's second letter.

We are pretty sure that both the essay and the English teacher's recommendation made a big impact and helped DC get into all of their reach engineering schools.

You must be in private? Kids don't get to see the letters.

[Anonymous]

"You must be in private? Kids don't get to see the letters."

You don't have to see the letter to know what it says. DC had this teacher for two different subjects and then was the teacher's teaching assistant for a freshman class as a senior.

DC was told they were the best student that the teacher had had in a long time. As teaching assistant, DC actually taught about one lesson a week all year.

I have had people on here argue with me that HS seniors never get to teach classes in public HSs. Believe what you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When our DC applied to engineering, they had an amazing letter from a science teacher. Deciding on who to get the second one from was hard.

Any other science teacher's letter was going to sound inferior. While DC got mostly As in math, DC did not take AP Calc BC until junior year and was going to get lumped in as solid but not amazing.

DC could also have gotten a solid but not amazing letter from several history teachers.

On the other hand DC is pretty poor in English. DC had worked pretty hard in on level English just to manage an A here and there.

The difference was that DC really took writing their college essay seriously. DC had worked with a former English teacher developing, drafting and polishing.

The teacher told us that she believed DC's essay was most likely the best essay from the school that year, better than all the IB student's essays.

While we were skeptical, DC was very proud of that essay and the teacher was very enthusiastic about writing DC's second letter.

We are pretty sure that both the essay and the English teacher's recommendation made a big impact and helped DC get into all of their reach engineering schools.

You must be in private? Kids don't get to see the letters.

My kids are in public and their teachers all showed them the letters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When our DC applied to engineering, they had an amazing letter from a science teacher. Deciding on who to get the second one from was hard.

Any other science teacher's letter was going to sound inferior. While DC got mostly As in math, DC did not take AP Calc BC until junior year and was going to get lumped in as solid but not amazing.

DC could also have gotten a solid but not amazing letter from several history teachers.

On the other hand DC is pretty poor in English. DC had worked pretty hard in on level English just to manage an A here and there.

The difference was that DC really took writing their college essay seriously. DC had worked with a former English teacher developing, drafting and polishing.

The teacher told us that she believed DC's essay was most likely the best essay from the school that year, better than all the IB student's essays.

While we were skeptical, DC was very proud of that essay and the teacher was very enthusiastic about writing DC's second letter.

We are pretty sure that both the essay and the English teacher's recommendation made a big impact and helped DC get into all of their reach engineering schools.

You must be in private? Kids don't get to see the letters.

My kids are in public and their teachers all showed them the letters.

Interesting... I've never heard that before.

[Anonymous]

Oh, one more thing. While my DC got into his reach engineering schools with rec letters from a science and an English teacher from a MCPS school, don't imagine that my DC's reach schools were the typical reach schools of DCUM.

DC's reach schools were schools where his GPA and SAT scores put him behind (off) the curve but where extensive research (and networking) suggested he would be able to make the types of connections in college that he had with his HS science and English teachers.

I don't want to list the schools we found that make this type of connection possible. It would out my DC and I don't think the list would be the same for many others.

I will suggest that we suspected DC was going to have trouble with their college transition so we started early. DC was really good at determining what they did and didn't want in a college.

When we visited a college, we didn't go on whirlwind tours where all the schools blended together. DC spoke with several professors at each school.

We sent DC to summer study at two different colleges after sophomore and junior year to help narrow things down even more.

Despite all that, it wasn't our approach that made the difference. It really comes down to our DC's skill is being able to connect with a certain group of people and being able to find them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When our DC applied to engineering, they had an amazing letter from a science teacher. Deciding on who to get the second one from was hard.

Any other science teacher's letter was going to sound inferior. While DC got mostly As in math, DC did not take AP Calc BC until junior year and was going to get lumped in as solid but not amazing.

DC could also have gotten a solid but not amazing letter from several history teachers.

On the other hand DC is pretty poor in English. DC had worked pretty hard in on level English just to manage an A here and there.

The difference was that DC really took writing their college essay seriously. DC had worked with a former English teacher developing, drafting and polishing.

The teacher told us that she believed DC's essay was most likely the best essay from the school that year, better than all the IB student's essays.

While we were skeptical, DC was very proud of that essay and the teacher was very enthusiastic about writing DC's second letter.

We are pretty sure that both the essay and the English teacher's recommendation made a big impact and helped DC get into all of their reach engineering schools.

You must be in private? Kids don't get to see the letters.

My kids are in public and their teachers all showed them the letters.

Interesting... I've never heard that before.

Sometimes the teachers offer to send the kids a copy of what they wrote. It's a casual thing.

[Anonymous]

Just passing along what we were told by the UVA admissions dean at an information session there last week: With recommendations, they want to hear from a teacher who knows how the student acts and interacts in a classroom and who really knows what the student can bring to a class and a department. That is not limited to only having a science teacher give the recommendation for a student who wants a science program in college. If the history teacher knows your son better personally and can write anecdotes about times your child made a difference in class, or did something unusual and "outside the box" for a project, or showed an especially mature ability to work with others -- then that's the person to do the teacher recommendation. The teacher letter is there to talk about the student AS a student and a person working within a classroom and working with others. If your son has strong math and science grades and test scores, and has said in his essay why he wants to go into engineering, then I would not worry about how it would look to have a teacher of another subject doing the recommendation letter. By the way, this dean said it's perfectly fine for your student to help jog the teacher's memory, if he wants particular projects or interactions mentioned in the letter.

I would think this advice would apply beyond UVA to most any program, but if your kid is scared that a non-science or non-math teacher recommendation will hurt him with a particular program, he should contact that college's admissions office and ASK.

Someone mentioned sending more than one teacher recommendation. Have your son ask about that as well. The UVA dean was very, very emphatic that they do not want any more than ONE counselor recommendation and ONE teacher recommendation and are not likely to read additional recommendations from teachers, coaches, extracurricular adult leaders, whatever. They do not have time, at such a large school. They do require a counselor recommendation because the counselor tells them about the high school and its academics. Some parents noted that in large high schools the counselors don't know the kids individually and the dean said that colleges are well aware of that -- the purpose of the counselor recommendation is not to talk about the individual kid (unless the counselor does indeed know the kid) but to let the college know about the HS and its programs and grade structure etc.

Hope all that helps. It was a huge help for us, if our DC does apply to UVA. I absolutely will have my DC contact the admissions offices at other schools when applying to check those same things. Have your son do the same, OP. Just asking the questions will NOT bias the admissions offices against your son when he applies later -- we heard that over and over on several college tours: Asking things won't flag you in any way. Better to ask than to waste additional recommendations that won't get read, etc., or conversely, to miss out on sending supplemental materials or recommendations that might help, at some schools. I'm sure some schools out there would be glad to read more than one teacher recommendation but you won't know unless he asks. Good luck (to us all....).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When our DC applied to engineering, they had an amazing letter from a science teacher. Deciding on who to get the second one from was hard.

Any other science teacher's letter was going to sound inferior. While DC got mostly As in math, DC did not take AP Calc BC until junior year and was going to get lumped in as solid but not amazing.

DC could also have gotten a solid but not amazing letter from several history teachers.

On the other hand DC is pretty poor in English. DC had worked pretty hard in on level English just to manage an A here and there.

The difference was that DC really took writing their college essay seriously. DC had worked with a former English teacher developing, drafting and polishing.

The teacher told us that she believed DC's essay was most likely the best essay from the school that year, better than all the IB student's essays.

While we were skeptical, DC was very proud of that essay and the teacher was very enthusiastic about writing DC's second letter.

We are pretty sure that both the essay and the English teacher's recommendation made a big impact and helped DC get into all of their reach engineering schools.

You must be in private? Kids don't get to see the letters.

My kids are in public and their teachers all showed them the letters.

Interesting... I've never heard that before.

Sometimes the teachers offer to send the kids a copy of what they wrote. It's a casual thing.

My kids' teachers all had them look the letters over in a "how does this look? Everything you want mentioned?" kind of way before pressing submit.

[Anonymous]

New PP I just want to say this thread is really informative and helpful. Stuff I did NOT know from what appears to be two separate posters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just passing along what we were told by the UVA admissions dean at an information session there last week: With recommendations, they want to hear from a teacher who knows how the student acts and interacts in a classroom and who really knows what the student can bring to a class and a department. That is not limited to only having a science teacher give the recommendation for a student who wants a science program in college. If the history teacher knows your son better personally and can write anecdotes about times your child made a difference in class, or did something unusual and "outside the box" for a project, or showed an especially mature ability to work with others -- then that's the person to do the teacher recommendation. The teacher letter is there to talk about the student AS a student and a person working within a classroom and working with others. If your son has strong math and science grades and test scores, and has said in his essay why he wants to go into engineering, then I would not worry about how it would look to have a teacher of another subject doing the recommendation letter. By the way, this dean said it's perfectly fine for your student to help jog the teacher's memory, if he wants particular projects or interactions mentioned in the letter.

I would think this advice would apply beyond UVA to most any program, but if your kid is scared that a non-science or non-math teacher recommendation will hurt him with a particular program, he should contact that college's admissions office and ASK.

Someone mentioned sending more than one teacher recommendation. Have your son ask about that as well. The UVA dean was very, very emphatic that they do not want any more than ONE counselor recommendation and ONE teacher recommendation and are not likely to read additional recommendations from teachers, coaches, extracurricular adult leaders, whatever. They do not have time, at such a large school. They do require a counselor recommendation because the counselor tells them about the high school and its academics. Some parents noted that in large high schools the counselors don't know the kids individually and the dean said that colleges are well aware of that -- the purpose of the counselor recommendation is not to talk about the individual kid (unless the counselor does indeed know the kid) but to let the college know about the HS and its programs and grade structure etc.

Hope all that helps. It was a huge help for us, if our DC does apply to UVA. I absolutely will have my DC contact the admissions offices at other schools when applying to check those same things. Have your son do the same, OP. Just asking the questions will NOT bias the admissions offices against your son when he applies later -- we heard that over and over on several college tours: Asking things won't flag you in any way. Better to ask than to waste additional recommendations that won't get read, etc., or conversely, to miss out on sending supplemental materials or recommendations that might help, at some schools. I'm sure some schools out there would be glad to read more than one teacher recommendation but you won't know unless he asks. Good luck (to us all....).

Very well said - you took the words right out of my mouth.