High school counselors and teachers might worry that they can\u2019t provide as good a recommendation as they have in the past, due to a year or more of limited contact with students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s OK,\u201d Uy says. \u201cAny <\/em>context or stories are helpful, and we understand if you haven\u2019t been able to connect with students as much as you might\u2019ve in prior years. And if you don\u2019t know a student that well, especially in the time of COVID, that is still helpful for us to know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now in its second season<\/a>, Ask the College Experts<\/em> helps prospective students receive information about the college-search process. Subscribe to the Bates YouTube channel<\/a> to receive new Season 2 episodes as they debut.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n On the flip side, remote learning means that some educators are being \u201cinvited\u201d into students\u2019 homes in unprecedented ways that might help them understand a student\u2019s life. \u201cThat can provide a new level of insight into a recommendation for a student,\u201d Uy says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recommenders might also feel that the \u201cbest\u201d recommendation has dazzling prose. \u201cHowever, a recommendation can be a series of bullet points. Given the volume of applications we review, we welcome recommendations that can summarize and highlight a student\u2019s strengths succinctly. \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are looking for recommendations that talk about the student, first and foremost, in the classroom,\u201d Uy says. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Words still matter, he says. \u201cWe value authenticity, genuineness, and honesty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bates requests that teacher recommenders be from a student\u2019s junior or senior year, in English, social sciences, mathematics, natural science, or a foreign language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are looking for recommendations that talk about the student, first and foremost, in the classroom,\u201d Uy says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf a recommender knows the student in ways that highlight their personality, that’s helpful too. Is the student the glue of the class? Someone to whom everybody turns for support? Are they an unsung hero? Are they a leader in their school, even if they\u2019re not in a specific leadership position? Do they go above and beyond to show compassion?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When writing a recommendation, a recommender should do more than confirm that a student has talent. For an admission office, talent is pretty easy to identify, and something that every student applying to college will have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recommenders should also avoid simply restating a student\u2019s activities since \u201cwe will get all that information from the student\u2019s application.\u201d Another recommender pitfall, for a teacher, is spending a tad too much time describing the goals of their class and their own teaching approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Above all, recommenders should understand that letters alone are rarely the deciding factor in an admission decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Try to avoid a cookie-cutter approach to recommendations. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe will always look at the transcript first,\u201d Uy says. In that sense, a recommendation can help explain a trend of low grades in a certain subject on the transcript. Or we may discover how a student who doesn\u2019t have a top grade adds to the classroom experience in a myriad of positive ways. Recommendations can inform us of other qualities a student can bring that we cannot glean from the transcript.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bates Admission team knows that though teachers and counselors are often overwhelmed with recommendation requests, they should try to avoid a cookie-cutter approach to recommendations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every year, the Admission Office receives applications from multiple students who attend the same high school. Considering that the Bates Admission staff may read these applications together as a group, they will quickly know when a teacher is using a template with the same phrases and same text for different students. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t help us nor does it help the students in the admission process,\u201d says Uy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Uy has some advice for students, too: You don\u2019t need to spend time gathering a stack of \u201cother\u201d recommendations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe once received 18 recommendations for one student,\u201d recalls Uy. \u201cBut we don\u2019t need to hear from your kindergarten teacher. We don\u2019t need to hear from celebrities or politicians or the alum down the street who you barely know. We do<\/em> want to know about you in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In offering tips to prospective recommenders, Bates Director of Admission Darryl Uy has one key message: Be easy on yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":138817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[11009],"tags":[10043,12238,11395],"class_list":["post-138816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-college","tag-admission","tag-ask-the-college-experts","tag-darryl-uy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138816"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138987,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138816\/revisions\/138987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ask and Receive<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
![\"Darryl](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/03\/160705_darryl-Uy_Portraits_0082-900x600.jpeg\")