Tips for Teacher Recommendations

The academic teacher recommendation is an important part of a student’s application. Here are my best tips for composing a letter that’s going to be most impactful for your student.

Tips for Teacher Letters of Recommendation

By Molly Cravens, Associate Director of Admissions
October 29, 2024

The fall is a busy time in education. College admissions staff are traveling around the country (and sometimes the world!) visiting high schools and meeting with prospective students. High school teachers, on the other hand, are busy balancing full course loads with writing letters of recommendation for their seniors. 

The academic teacher recommendation is an important part of a student’s application. Admissions staff truly value the perspective you can provide on your students, and we know that writing letters can be a challenging part of your job. I remember my favorite teacher in high school was asked to write about 50 for our senior class (with some students waiting until the very last minute to ask).

I have read about 10,000 letters of recommendation in my time at Oberlin. A good rec letter can strengthen a student’s application; a great one can send it over the top. Here are my best tips for composing a letter that’s going to be most impactful for your student.

My main piece of advice is to focus on your student’s academic preparedness and how they contribute as a member of your classroom community. We’ll learn a lot about your student’s extracurricular involvement from other pieces of their application. Teacher recommendation letters are meant to give us a different perspective, specifically addressing how the student is going to perform academically in a rigorous college setting. 

Some topics to consider include:

  • How do they contribute to the classroom environment? Do they participate in class discussions? Are they a valued member in group work? Do they support their classmates?
  • Are they engaging with the material?
  • Does this student complete their assignments on time?
  • Have they shown growth throughout the semester/year? Do they ask for help when needed?
  • What makes this student unique from others in their class, or in your career?

In your opening, it’s also helpful to include how you know the student. In which class(es) and grade year(s) were they your student? Have you also supervised a club they are a member of, or coached them on a sports team? 

In terms of formatting, please feel free to organize by area, use bolded headers, bold specific phrases or characteristics you want to draw the reader to, or even use bullet points. During reading season, I will read about 150 recommendation letters per day. Admissions readers appreciate letters that are well-organized and/or that draw their attention to the most relevant information you’re trying to convey.

Things to Avoid
As you’re writing, please know that longer is not always better. Take the space that you need to tell us what’s most important about your student, but please don’t feel that you must write 500 words if you can easily make your point in 300. We strongly recommend trying to stick to one page, if possible. That being said, please do not manipulate standard formatting to fit everything onto one page. Making the margins very narrow, or using a smaller font size, makes your letter harder to read and stresses out the reader. 
 
If your letter is on the longer side, please use a critical eye and make sure that everything you’ve included is speaking to the points listed above. Providing some context about the class you teach is fine, but we don’t need every detail for every assignment your student completed. Last year, I read a nine-page single spaced recommendation letter with ½ inch margins. It was basically the student’s entire life story. Rather than helping the student, as the writer intended, a letter like this overloads the reader with information; the forest gets lost for the trees. 

At the end of the day, the best letters have one or two main takeaways. If I was to read your letter and write a two-sentence summary, what would you want that summary to say?

Most importantly, please know how much we appreciate the time you take to sit down, reflect on your students, and write letters in support of their college aspirations. Recommendation letters are a critical part of the application that provide a perspective on our applicants that we don’t get anywhere else. Thank you for the work you’ve done in educating our applicants and helping them to prepare for college. I wouldn’t be able to do my job without you!