Everything You Need to Know About Getting a College Recommendation Letter as a High Schooler

Many students applying to college underestimate the significance of Letters of Recommendation (LoRs). The process seems routine—after asking teachers for a letter, check the requirement off the list and move on to essays and resumes. However, there are two important things students often fail to consider. 

First, LoRs can have a huge impact on the admissions process. As the sole qualitative element of college applications that is not written by the applicant themselves, LoRs are an external viewpoint on a student’s character, personality, and identity as a student. You may have strong grades and write solid essays about your academic interests, but only LoRs can give a look at what you’re truly like in the classroom.

Students often fail to consider the active role they can play in obtaining strong Letters of Recommendation. While the final content is ultimately up to your teacher, there are strategic ways to ensure your letter will frame you as an ideal candidate for colleges. 

In this article, we’ll review six essential tips for requesting LoRs. From building an ideal timeline to selecting the right recommenders, you’ll be well prepared to play an active role in constructing this key application requirement!

1. Ask well in advance

Even though you technically have until the application deadline to have recommendations submitted, you shouldn’t wait! You should try to request LoRs at the end of the school year or over the summer to guarantee a strong letter from your preferred teachers.

Most teachers will be asked to recommend multiple students each application cycle. As strong recommendations take a long time to write, their workload can quickly become overwhelming. Eventually, teachers may not have the time to add another to the list. The longer you wait, the higher the odds that you may not be able to secure a letter. If they do agree to write one shortly before the deadline, your letter may be written in a rush, which will be significantly less effective. Not to mention that asking at the last minute may come off as irresponsible, which runs the risk of negatively impacting the LoR content! 

The last key reason to ask in advance is that teachers are not obligated to write a letter for all students who ask. Teachers may decline to recommend students whom they do not know well or for whom they have limited positive information to share. Make sure you have time to ask another teacher just in case!

2. Choose recommenders from different disciplines

No matter your intended major, it’s best practice to ask both a STEM and a humanities instructor. While it may seem tempting to choose two teachers from subjects you plan to study in college, this will actually put you at a disadvantage. Even though you’ll eventually be specializing in one primary field, colleges don’t want students who are only competent in one area. 

Diverse LoR choices will show that you’re a great student across the board and will excel in whatever field you ultimately pursue when you arrive on campus. If you’re not convinced, just look at MIT’s requirements — despite being one of the most STEM-focused schools, they request that students submit at least one letter from a humanities, foreign language, or social science instructor! 

3. Prioritize long-term or recent teachers

One of the most important features of a strong recommendation letter is detail. A vague LoR can be nearly as disadvantageous as a negative one, as it makes you seem like a talented but overall unmemorable student. The best way to ensure lots of relevant information is to ask teachers you’ve known for a long time or have taken courses with recently. 

If you’ve had the same Math teacher for three years, they’ll have a lot to say about your classroom performance and academic development over time. Asking a 12th-grade teacher you’ve never taken a class with before will have limited impact—they’ll have about one month of information to draw from, which won’t allow for an informative LoR. If you haven’t taken multiple classes with a teacher, your best bet is to choose between teachers from 11th grade. They’ll have the freshest memories of you and will thus be able to give clear details about your personal and academic qualities. 

4. Don’t let a low grade discourage you

Students are often hesitant to ask teachers for an LoR when they earned a lower grade in their class. While this is an understandable assumption, it can actually be a good decision. Positive recommendations from teachers of classes where you struggled can show growth, give context to an anomalous low grade in a course, and demonstrate academic persistence. 

Let’s say you ask a teacher from a course where you earned a perfect score with minimal effort. You may not have needed to attend office hours or be particularly engaged in the class if you were able to coast through assignments with ease. In these cases, the teacher may be able to speak to your academic strength in the field but add limited information on your learning style or classroom behavior. This first component will already be evident from your grade—the purpose of LoRs is to show what you’re like in the classroom. 

On the other hand, perhaps you earned a lower grade in a course, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Maybe you spoke with the teacher after each assignment to discuss areas of difficulty, asked for extra credit opportunities, or earned progressively higher scores throughout the year. This recommendation would likely support your application more substantially than the former. Admissions officers would see that this lower grade wasn’t because you didn’t care, but that you put significant effort into improving your skills. This can even help make up for the negative impact a low grade might have had on your application as a whole!

5. Discuss letter content with your recommender

While it might feel awkward, it’s actually a great strategy to speak with your recommender about the content that will appear in your LoR. While it’s prohibited to read your finished letter, that doesn’t mean you can’t provide suggestions on what you’d like them to include. Writing a brief letter of your own to propose material for your recommendation is a great way to advocate for yourself. 

Ideally, this should include specific details and anecdotes that represent both academic talent and strong personal character. Mentioning achievements such as successful and ambitious projects or thoughtful contributions to classroom discussions can show the extent of your academic talent that goes beyond a good grade on your transcript. On the side of character, bringing up times you helped out other students or proactively reached out to the teacher when you struggled with a certain topic can show you’re a supportive and dedicated student that colleges want to have on campus.

If you’re nervous that your teacher will find this request presumptuous or overbearing, think about it practically. If they agreed to recommend you, it means they want to help out your application. So, they will be invested in writing the best possible letter. If you provide them with the information you deem most helpful or relevant, this will be appreciated. Not to mention the question of workload—imagine if they assigned a paper where they provided a full outline for you to work from! At the end of the day, you’re making their life easier and assuring that they’ll write the strongest recommendation possible.   

7. Consider supplemental recommendations

Schools generally request only three recommendations—two from classroom teachers and one from your school counselor. However, most schools permit supplementary LoRs if an additional letter would add essential information that cannot be provided from your other choices.

It’s important to know that you shouldn’t take advantage of this opportunity unless it’s truly relevant to your application. A third teacher LoR won’t help you out; it’ll seem excessive or unnecessary. However, supplemental recommendations from non-classroom mentors or instructors can make a big impact. Long-term music instructors, athletic coaches, community leaders, or research mentors can all be great choices. 

If you're gunning for a letter of recommendation from a researcher, it might be a good idea to sign up for research mentorship programs such as Lumiere, Veritas AI, and Horizon's Academic Research Program!

In sum, it’s important not to dismiss the value that strong LoRs can have on your application. Don’t approach this element passively—be aware of how to maximize your odds of truly impressive recommendations and be proactive in your approach. Best of luck! 

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If you’d like to participate in a rigorous research program open to high schoolers, you may want to consider the Lumiere Research Scholar Program, a selective online high school program for students founded by researchers at Harvard and Oxford. Last year, we had over 4000 students apply for 500 spots in the program! You can find the application form here. 

Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!

Alexej is a graduate of Princeton University, where he studied Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Humanities & Sciences. Alexej works in college admissions consulting and is passionate about pursuing research at the intersection of humanities, linguistics, and psychology.