Teacher Recs

usnahopeful19

5-Year Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
124
I know that they really want 11th grade English and math teachers and I'm going to use them when the time comes but I was just wondering about electives. I'm going to have my 10th grade English teacher again next year for an English elective. Would it be possible to get a rec from her or do they want your main English class?
Also, I want to give them a heads up that I'm going to ask them. I've seen others on here have given them a resume and why they want to go. What should I tell them?
 
I strongly recommend you get a copy of the book: The Naval Academy Candidate Book the new version by LTC Ross. You can order it from the Visitors Store via <www.navyonline.com>, or from Amazon Books. It can save you lots of time and angst, and minimize irritating the folks in the Admissions Office. Generally, unless there is some very unusual and/or significant circumstances Admissions prefers to not to get too far away from the standard application form.
 
I know that they really want 11th grade English and math teachers and I'm going to use them when the time comes but I was just wondering about electives. I'm going to have my 10th grade English teacher again next year for an English elective. Would it be possible to get a rec from her or do they want your main English class?
Also, I want to give them a heads up that I'm going to ask them. I've seen others on here have given them a resume and why they want to go. What should I tell them?

Dear Hopeful,

I don't know the answer to your "main class" vs. elective question but I am a teacher so I'll chime in on the issue of communicating to your teacher in advance of the recommendation request that comes from the academy. Yes! Absolutely a great idea to let them know ahead of time. Probably best case scenario if the person is someone who is easy to talk to and has a little time is to ask for 5 minutes of their time and sit down with them. Otherwise, a polite email, correctly formatted (for example, use a correct salutation -- "Dear Ms. [ ]" -- and sign it in formal fashion "Sincerely, John Doe").

Things to tell them:
1. Explain what a service academy is -- a surprising amount of otherwise educated adults are ignorant about this. Depending where you are, maybe people are generally familiar with USNA. Otherwise, you can explain that it is the U.S. Naval Academy, sometimes called Annapolis, and that it's the Navy's equivalent of West Point (more people have heard of West Point :wink:).

2. Explain that four years there are tuition free, in return for the service requirement. If a teacher has it in his/her brain as "not just a normal college application but like a big scholarship" that may help bump it to the top of the teacher's to-do list.

3. Explain the logistics of the recommendation -- that they will get an email from the Academy to start the process (as opposed to the teacher sending in a hard copy letter or uploading a letter onto a service like Naviance).

4. Explain that the earlier the teacher might be able to do it, even if over the summer if at all possible if that's when the request comes in, the better your chances are of admission. It's helpful for a teacher to know where something is rolling admissions or quasi-rolling admissions -- that to-do list thing again.

5. Yes, explain your dream of service!

6. After they've done the recommendation, take a minute to thank them in person or by email or by note.

7. If you get in and decide to attend, tell the teacher! (Lots of students forget to ever tell their teacher what happened.) A nice note or email is great for this. It can be harder to want to do this if you don't get in, but it's still a nice thing to let them know what happened and thank them.

Good luck.
 
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