Recommendation Letters

• My Recommendation Letters

• This is where I will talk about the recommendation letters for my application to universities in the United States.

• It is important to have someone complement what is not written in the essays and other materials.

  • I want to remember this perspective and not forget about it.
  • (I don’t even know who to ask, like basic mentors, so I want to be careful and handle it myself.)

• Recommendation letters from someone other than teachers are generally optional for most universities.

  • For example, Columbia even discourages them.
    • “We don’t need a sloppy +α recommendation letter. If it is from someone who has truly been involved and brings a new perspective, well, we’ll accept it.”
    • That’s the overall feeling I got.
  • Although CommonApp says it is optional, many universities do not mention it on their admissions page.
    • Universities that mention it: Harvey Mudd application, Stanford Application, MIT Application, UChicago application, Brown Application
    • Universities that accept it on CommonApp but don’t mention it on their page:
      • Swarthmore Application
    • Universities that require an extra step:
      • The problem is that all of these universities can upload it on CommonApp.
      • Yale application
      • Columbia Application
      • Applying to Harvard
    • Universities that consistently don’t accept it:
      • Amherst Application

• Inside the Yale Admissions Office

  • They read the recommendation letters after having some knowledge about the grades and academic interests.
  • They understand that counselors may not have a deep relationship with the students.
    • Nevertheless, they still advise to communicate with the counselor as much as possible.
    • They also consider the presence of the student in the school community.
  • Advisors for extracurricular activities, etc. usually don’t provide anything new.
    • That’s why it’s not required.
    • So, I should make sure that mine provides something new (blu3mo).
  • Advice for teachers:
    • Imagine that a new teacher is coming to your school and you have to pass on information about the students to that person.
    • They want the recommendation letter to be written from the teacher’s first-person perspective, not as a third-person description of the student’s experience.
      • It should be a recommendation letter that only a teacher can write.
      • It should include things like how the teacher interacts in class.
    • They read the recommendation letters while considering the student’s essay, extracurricular activities list, achievements, etc.
      • So, there’s no need to write about things that the Admission Officer already knows (e.g., listing extracurricular activities).
    • Each Element to be Submitted Should Support Each Other, they say that a recommendation letter that creates a synergistic effect is good.
      • They mention “constructive interference” and resonance.