Recommendation Letters

Recommendation letters are a time consuming process requiring a great deal of thought and effort. Class of 2021, as you finalize the list of schools where you will be applying next fall, it is important to determine if you are going to need a recommendation letter from a teacher (or two). Many of the Ohio schools - Ohio State University, OU, BGSU, Kent State, etc. do not require teacher recommendations.  Because rec letters are a time consuming process, if the colleges where you are applying do not require recommendations, then do not waste your teacher's time by requesting letters that won't be needed or used!  In addition to seeing IF your intended colleges even want recommendation letters, it is also important that you look at WHO the college would like to see the letters from - typically they will ask for a core teacher (ideally that you have had recently) and/ or they may ask for a letter from me as your school counselor.

If you are applying to schools that need recommendation letters, it is very helpful and beneficial to the teachers (and to me for that matter) if you can give them as much time as possible to write your recommendation letters. That means, if you know now that you are going to be applying to a school which needs a teacher rec letter, then I would suggest that you reach out to them now and ask if they would be willing to write a letter on your behalf.  That would allow them to have the option of using time this summer to write your recommendation letter.  And, even if they don't write it during the summer, you are at least at the top of their rec letter writing order.

After you ask your teacher(s), you will want to provide them with information that can help them as they write your letter and we have a form you can use for that purpose. There are also 2 forms that you would use if you need a Counselor Rec Letter (1 for you to fill out and 1 for your parents to complete.  We have all of these handouts on the WKHS Counselor website that you can use for this purpose. (The Recommendation Letter section can be found in the College Category of the website.)  Additionally, if you want to provide your teacher (or me) with a copy of your resume or activities, that is also great, but not necessary.  I will also tell you that one GREAT resource that teachers or I can use when writing recommendation letters is the Discussion Guide from YouScience.  So, if you have already completed your YouScience tests, consider sharing that guide with your recommenders and if you have continued to procrastinate on doing the YouScience assessment, there is no better time than now to get that done!  

I know that it was a really weird end to the school year and start of the summer, but I would also like to take this time to remind you that you need to be working on finalizing a list of where you plan on applying to college!

Here are some other resources/ articles related to recommendation letters.

How to ask for a recommendation letter


How to ask for a letter of recommendation for college


College Advice: Getting Great Recommendations  (This is actually from 2018, but ran again a few months ago as the tips are still applicable.)

I also want to take a moment and point out that with so many colleges going test-optional, all of the other components such as your strength of schedule, activities, leadership, recommendation letters and especially your essay are going to be even more critical than ever!  By the way - OSU has now changed their policy and will allow students to apply without considering test scores.  And ACT has announced that they are adding more testing dates in additional weekends in September and October to give more students the chance to test before college deadlines.  The testing uncertainty is just one more reminder of the craziness we are facing right now.