Recommendation letters
US college admissions are based on a ‘holistic’ review of the applicant, meaning evaluating applicants as individuals, not just by their test scores and GPAs. One important aspect of knowing a student as a person is understanding how others view them, and this is where recommendation letters come into play. Though admissions officers cannot meet each applicant personally, recommendation letters allow them to see the applicant through the lens of others.
What are admissions officers looking for in a recommendation letter?
- How you are as a person: As mentioned above, the primary purpose of recommendation letters is to let the admissions officer know how you are as a person beyond just the quantitative aspects of the application.
- Fit: One important aspect of application review is to see if the applicant and the college are a good fit for each other — how well the applicant will thrive in the college environment academically and otherwise. A good proxy for this is to see the applicant through the eyes of their counselor, teacher, employer, or even their peers in high school.
- Value to community/Diversity: This is a bit more subtle and often overwhelming when applicants think of recommendation letters or talk to teachers or counselors about recommendations. US colleges are diverse and are always looking to make their campus more diverse in terms of race, nationality, skills, and interests. So, while reviewing the application, admissions officers try to picture the applicants on the college campus to see what value they would add to the incoming class and the college community as a whole. This can sound intimidating at first — ‘I have not cured cancer or gone to the moon! What value might I add?’ you might ask (or at least it was something I asked myself while preparing my brag sheet). But the value can be as simple as the occasional humor you bring to your class, how helpful you are to your classmates, or even knowing how to play guitar. Often, there are things about yourself that you might not have noticed, but others might have. Recommendation letters provide space for that.
Diversity here doesn’t refer just to racial and cultural diversity. While race and nationality/culture are a big part of diversity in any community, professional or residential, it should be noted that all aspects of a student’s life during the four years at college are connected to the campus community in some way. So, colleges try their best to bring in people from diverse walks of life to this community in all ways possible — diverse skills, interests, backgrounds, and life experiences, to name a few.
How many recommendation letters do you need?
It depends on the colleges you are applying to. Almost all colleges require one from the guidance counselor. In addition, many colleges also ask for one or two letters from your high school subject teachers. While most colleges are flexible about which teacher you can ask for a recommendation, some might have some restrictions — like MIT requires one from a teacher in the STEM field and one from a humanities subject. So, you might want to check the policy of the particular colleges you’re applying to.
Many high schools in Nepal (and internationally) do not have designated guidance counselors. In that case, the school principal, faculty director, or anyone in the school who knows you beyond the classroom and can navigate the counselor’s part of the application can act as a guidance counselor. But first, try contacting your high school to see if there is already someone who fulfills the counselor’s role.
Besides the counselor and teacher recommendations, colleges also allow you to send additional (often optional) recommendation letters. These could be from employers, research advisors, or even peers, family, or community members. The main question to ask here is: should you ask for these optional recommendations? Again, it’s useful to remember the primary purpose of recommendation letters: to provide a third person’s perspective on you to highlight aspects of your personality that might not be reflected elsewhere in the application. So, it is helpful to ask yourself (or the recommender) if the additional recommendation provides a different angle. If the answer is no, it is generally not a good idea to add a recommendation to your application just for the sake of it.
This is generally true of almost every part of an application: if something doesn’t add value or additional insight, don’t add it just for the sake of it.
To give my own example, I took two gap years after high school during which I worked at a company. During this time, I believe I grew as a person — intellectually, professionally, and otherwise. So, having a recommendation from my employer would definitely provide additional insight into me besides those from high school teachers and counselors. I asked for an employer recommendation, and they were happy to write one.
Who should you ask for a recommendation?
The Nobel prize-winning professor in your high school who doesn’t even know your name? NO! While having a recommendation from them would be impressive, it is generally best to avoid it if it doesn’t add any insight or value a recommendation is supposed to provide. Approach a teacher who really knows you and is willing to write one for you. Maybe a professor who appreciates your enthusiasm in physics, or a teacher with whom you often have interesting conversations about economics inside as well as outside the class. You don’t need to have great chemistry with them or perfect grades in their class. In fact, if your grade in the class was lower than expected, the teacher could discuss your class performance and how the grades don’t actually represent you. The baseline here is that the person writing the letter knows you well enough to advocate on your behalf.
But how do you ask for a recommendation?
Just go to the teacher, ask them to write one for you, and wait for them to complete it? Well, that should work… but even though the recommender might know you well, they might not exactly remember off the top of their head that one essay you wrote that they really liked. So it is your responsibility to remind them of these details if you want a great recommendation. And this is where ‘brag sheets’ come into play.
As the name suggests, a brag sheet is a sheet of paper where you ‘brag’ about your achievements and mention things/interactions with the recommender that you might want to remind them about. This might include things like that one time they really liked the presentation you gave, the poetry competition you won, or similar accomplishments.
Along with giving the recommender the brag sheet, you might also want to ask for an appointment to go over it in person. The basic idea is to remind the recommender of your interactions and achievements without being demanding about how they should write the letter.
Finally, wrapping things up — though you don’t have much control over the actual words in the recommendation letter, it is totally up to you to decide whom to ask for one and make sure you give them enough information and time to write a good one for you.
