Struggles of Finding the Perfect Letters of Recommendation

When college applications roll by, all seniors face multiple problems when it comes to asking teachers for letters of recommendation. All seniors struggle when it comes figuring out who knows them best and can describe them as a student in school and their personality out of school.

However, not all students have the best connections with their teachers. Teachers have to get to know all the students in their class but in some cases they don’t know all of them at the same depth.

According to the the U.S. News, the total minority enrollment at San Rafael High is about 71%, while the total economically disadvantaged is 56% and there’s about 57 full-time teachers.

With only 57 full time teachers, the students are divided up upon the level of classes. About 44% of the students are enrolled in AP classes making the 56% left non registered. Whether it’s because they are incoming freshmen not eligible to take AP classes, or because they feel like it’s too much, not all students enroll in AP classes.

This makes a big difference because the AP and honors classes have less students, making the student to teacher ratio less.

A anonymous student enrolled in the generall stats class said, “In my stats class there’s about 40 students! The teacher only knows my name. He pays more attention on the kids who need more help.”

Although having a smaller student to teacher ratio is extremely beneficial, it’s not so much for the 56% who aren’t enrolled. For them it is a completely different story. This affects the teacher’s teaching capacity because their lessons are dedicated to the general learning of all students rather than having more focus and support for the students individually. This later affects the relationship between the students and the teacher.

The more students in a class, the less of a connection students make with their teachers. This makes it harder for students to feel comfortable when asking a teacher for a letter of recommendation. When asking students how they felt with the connection they had with their teacher in the more populated class, they mentioned it as not so important. As long as they have good grades in the class the teacher only knows them because of their academics.

On the other side of things, students who are involved in AP/honors classes or academies as well as other non traditional classes, have the opportunity to build a better connection with their teacher. This is why to those students not involved in academies or non traditional classes, which tend to be about two years straight, it is important to know their teachers.

“My AVID teacher knows me the best because i’ve had her for three years. She knows me as a person and a student. She also knows my family. That’s why I want her to write my letter” says senior Kellyn Garcia.

In the past year, several well known teachers left San Rafael High School. This had an impact on those juniors becoming seniors that relied on their letter of recommendation. They would have to look elsewhere for the letter they were planning to have. Some of the teachers who left gave the students prior notice, and some didn’t.

When asking students who they wanted as a recommender for the college applications they mentioned their english teacher who recently moved. Ms. Evans was an english teacher and a Banion teacher at SR. Because of her Banion class she was able to get to know her students academically as well as what they did outside of school. She helped them manage their time based on their extracurriculars and had them doing other events to help the school teaching her a lot about her students.

“Colleges want you to ask your junior and senior year teachers. But I don’t want to ask my senior year teacher as much because they are new and don’t know me as well. And I can’t ask Ms. Evans because she’s gone. So it’s kind of a dilemma.” says student Ana Quach.

This is why students considered Ms. Evans as a primal recommender. As Ana quoted “I was thinking of asking my english teacher from last year, Ms. Evans. But she has since moved to Sacramento or Seattle, I can’t remember exactly where, and I can’t ask her anymore”.

When talking to the students who were looking forward to getting a letter from Ms. Evans, they mentioned that she did give her students two week notice, but it was the week right before the second semester finals. At first thought the students didn’t seem to pay much attention or take too much interest. Rather than worrying about the letter of rec from teachers, students were focused on studying for the second semester final.

It may seem hard for all the teachers to get to know the students in their class but it must be harder for the counselors. They have to be in charge of overseeing the wellbeing of all students and making sure they are on graduation track.

It must get hard when it comes to all 1,228 students enrolled in San Rafael High.

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