Every year, hundreds of seniors at Park send out their college applications to schools around the country. Letters of recommendation from teachers are a huge part of these applications and are heavily considered by many schools when reviewing applications.
According to science teacher Peter Dangerfield, when he writes his letters of recommendation for his students, he emphasizes the student’s most significant aspects instead of writing everything down in excessive amounts of pages. He said schools will not read all of their letters if they go over a page because they have a limited amount of time.
“I talk to the students to see what they want me to highlight,” Dangerfield said. “You can tailor a letter of recommendation for each student. I don’t want letters of recommendation to exceed a page because schools don’t have a lot of time to review a file that is multiple pages long. They are not going to read the whole thing, so I highlight what is important to the student.”
Senior Susannah Israel said to get a letter of recommendation, she first asked the teachers during her junior year, then requested the letter through Naviance. She said the process was easy to do.
“In junior year, I (went) up to those teachers and asked, ‘hey, in the future, will you write me a letter of (recommendation)?’” Israel said. “Then this year, I went on Naviance, and I hit request for a letter from this teacher for these colleges. It was fairly simple, honestly.”
Senior Campbell Jones said she asked a teacher for a letter of recommendation in May, which made her feel better, but the letter still ended up taking a long time. Jones said she talked to her teacher to check on the progress of the letter.
“I asked one of my teachers in May of last year, so I was on top of it, but he also had a lot of other letters to do, so it took a while,” Jones said. “I ended up having to follow up a couple of times to check in and see how the letter was going.”
Dangerfield said college is a big decision for students, especially since cost is becoming such a big factor. He said he feels pressure to write the letters of recommendation.
“Each student feels the decision (about college) is going to have a gigantic impact,” Dangerfield said. “With the cost of colleges, especially four-year schools, it feels like an important decision, so I feel some stress with my seniors and writing their letters.”
Israel said one of her letters of recommendation took a long time to get submitted, which caused her stress. She said applications did not cause much anxiety for her due to the low number of colleges she applied to, but she noticed anxiety in others.
“(Submission) took a hot minute for one of (the letters),” Israel said. “One of them was done really fast, and the other one took 10 days, and it was giving me a little bit of anxiety because I wanted to have the letters of (recommendation) in with the application. I only applied to five colleges, so it’s a little easier. For me, the deadlines aren’t super stressful because I already submitted before the early action deadline. However, for other people I’ve noticed, it’s very stressful.”
According to Jones, she is applying early to all of the universities she wants to go to in order to get better options for financial aid, scholarships and housing. She said this gives her a clearer vision of her future and helps her relax and reduce nervousness.
“I am applying early to all of my schools, and I’m doing that because I want priority, and I want the best financial aid and scholarship opportunities,” Jones said. “I also could possibly get early access to housing opportunities. I feel like I have a glimpse into where I’m going in the future, and I don’t feel as nervous with (getting) all my applications in at the early deadline. I feel like I can rest and relax and just enjoy my senior year without having to worry about college applications.”
