Transcription

How does one obtain the best teacher recommendations? Well obviously, if you like a teacher, they’re more likely to like you. However, that’s not the only component to a teacher recommendation. 

A teacher needs to have a distinct impression of you as a good student and this is done not only by getting good grades but also by showing that you are a person who likes to learn. And that’s done by having a good classroom presence, which involves asking questions in class, being curious about subject matter, and in general that’s more likely to happen if you like the subject, so get recommendations from teachers of subjects that you really like. 

Actually, even though you think that it might hurt your chances of getting a good recommendation, if you’re struggling in a class, if you ask for help from that teacher and you’re sincere about it and you work hard to overcome an issues that you might be having, that’s actually likely to result in a good recommendation because it shows that you have initiative, and it will help you become a more concrete figure as a person in the eyes of that teacher, and the teacher will have a better ability to write a recommendation of you than they would if you just sat in their class and got good grades and didn’t say anything or work with them or write with them very much. 

So definitely interact with the teacher, so if you have any teachers that you ask questions in their class, then they’ll appreciate that. That would be a good place to start, start with the classes that you like or the classes that you don’t like but you’re willing to work hard and improve in them.