Common App Teacher Recommender - "Other" for Subject Taught?

[Shelly in VA]

I have spent a good bit of time on the phone today with admissions officers from various universities, and I am surprised by the number of schools who actually want the main teacher letter of recommendation to be from the homeschooled parent! A total shift from the situation 4-6 years ago when I was going through this process with my older kids. Anyway, my dd has to invite me to be a recommender on the common app, and she has to choose a subject - should she choose "other" since there are multiple subjects? Or should she choose one of the core subjects, since that is what the schools are looking for? I'm probably (definitely) overthinking this - I'm sure the admissions officers will look more at the content than the label. But I'd appreciate any input. Thank you!

Edited October 3, 2018 by Shelly

[RootAnn]

Are you putting together her transcript as her counselor? If so, you write the counselor letter. The teacher slots can still be for other teachers, if required

At least, that is how I did it.

Or, am I misunderstanding?

[Shelly in VA]

2 hours ago, RootAnn said:

Are you putting together her transcript as her counselor? If so, you write the counselor letter. The teacher slots can still be for other teachers, if required

At least, that is how I did it.

Or, am I misunderstanding?

Your confusion was mine as well! I am putting together her transcript and writing her counselor letter, but the admissions offices told me they also want me to write the teacher letter. I made sure that they understood that I was already submitting the counselor letter and the academic records, and these schools specifically asked me to also write the teacher letter. I was sure the first school was an exception, but then another school had the same response! They both want at least one other letter of recommendation from someone else, but they actually require a teacher letter from me in addition to the counselor letter from me. This is the complete opposite of what every school wanted when I did this 6 years ago and again 4 years ago. The two schools requesting this are even schools my other kids applied to in the past, and at that time these same schools did NOT want a teacher letter from me. 

If I'm remembering correctly, the difference a few years ago was that the Common App just had a section for letters of recommendation, generically, so once we had a letter or two loaded, that met everyone's requirements well enough to submit the application. Now, each recommender is assigned as either a teacher, counselor, or other. Then each school has their requirements - they may require 1 teacher and allow 2 optional others, for instance. So dd's current letters of rec are both in the "other" category, but the schools that require a teacher don't consider the application complete without the teacher rec. Many schools are set up to allow but not require letters in both the teacher and other category, so there we're fine with the letters she has. But the schools that require a teacher letter won't let us complete the application. That's what prompted us to call the admissions offices to ask what they wanted there. I thought they would want us to reassign a recommender we already had, but they were very clear that they wanted those letters submitted along with a teacher rec from me.

I'm really scratching my head over this! Perhaps it was this way before, but I didn't catch it because my older kids had letters of rec from community college teachers. This dd hasn't done any of her classwork that way, so this is new to me.

 

Edited October 3, 2018 by Shelly

[MerryAtHope]

That's pretty awesome, actually! I think "other" sounds like the most accurate label--you'd certainly think that schools that are homeschool savvy enough to want the teacher letter from the homeschool parent will understand that you teach multiple subjects (maybe that will come up briefly in your letter as well though.)

[RootAnn]

Well, it certainly sounds like they've become enlightened. I've not run into that specifically, but you certainly did your due diligence.

I've seen verbiage to the effect that it is ok that ("We understand.  . . ") the parent is the main teacher and will write one of the main letters (which I've interpreted to be the counselor letter), but they definitely also want someone else to write one as well. Your story doesn't contradict that impression.

Some places want the counselor letter to focus on the why and how of homeschooling so it has a different focus than one specifically on the student. Of course, a counselor letter can include both of those ideas (although I focused on the former more in my school profile).

[GoodGrief]

In the situation you are describing, I would probably pick a specific subject that I wanted to highlight for the student, perhaps dependent on what her primary interest/goals are for college. Ideally the other recs emphasize different aspects of her background/achievements/character. It would depend though on what the other recs were like. My daughters always sent in the max number of recs that a school would accept.

[RootAnn]

1 hour ago, GoodGrief1 said:

My daughters always sent in the max number of recs that a school would accept.

 This would be tough as one of DD's schools accepts up to 10 teacher recs & 10 "other" recs. (Others accept up to a 4 - usually 3 teacher, 1 other or 2 of each.) We're shooting for two teacher recs & one other, but each school is different.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I like the idea of marking a subject you want to emphasize. 

You could also mark one of the core subjects you taught.

Or something that isn't the subject your other recommender will be commenting on.

 

[catz]

Interesting.  I did write a counselor letter.  But definitely did not write a teacher letter.  Seems like overkill to get a letter from the same person twice and I'd wonder if whoever I spoke to in admissions really know what they're talking about.  I'm not even sure how I'd differentiate a homeschool counselor letter from a homeschool teacher letter.

My kid has up to 4 references on his apps.  Then he will have a theater and a music reference available too.  He is applying to music programs.

Edited October 4, 2018 by FuzzyCatz

[GoodGrief]

22 hours ago, RootAnn said:

 This would be tough as one of DD's schools accepts up to 10 teacher recs & 10 "other" recs. (Others accept up to a 4 - usually 3 teacher, 1 other or 2 of each.) We're shooting for two teacher recs & one other, but each school is different.

 Whoa, yes, that is sort of crazy. Can't imagine why they want to subject themselves to that many recs! ? Last daughter applied to about 20 schools, but none wanted that many. She did try to have something in every category, and if a school would look at it, it was sent. There was one school that even wanted a peer rec, but that was the weirdest one I recall. She probably had a total of about 10 recommenders.