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recommendation letters are one of the most important factors and getting accepted into your dream college welcome to Concord college admissions if you are new to my channel my name is Julie Kim and I'm a graduate of USC and Harvard and I mentor and guide high school students to get accepted into their dream colleges I helped more than 500 students to do so so today we're going to talk all about recommendation letters so welcome and be sure to hit the subscribe button so that you will be notified when I release new videos every week so I get a lot of questions regarding recommendation letters I don't have control over my recommendation letters or do I who should I ask when do I ask do I need to give my teachers like some sort of like a letter or list or should I just ask when is the best time to ask my teachers for recommendation letters and do we need a rep letter from counselors to do we need additional rec letters from our extracurriculars so today I'm going to use this video to answer a few popular questions so that it will give you a lot more clarity as to when you should start what you should be preparing for and much more what I want you to really understand here is that recommendation letters are really important which means you don't want to take this process lightly so please pay attention and make sure that you put in a lot of energy and high quality work so that you do get the best recommendation letter so keep that in mind it's important you guys and don't worry you're in good hands using my strategies my students got accepted into Ivy League's UIUC where else you miss USC and why you much more so this is a proven system so let's go ahead and get started number one our rep letters even important yes recommendation letters are very important when the college admissions officers are reviewing the letter that your recommenders submitted they are going to take that letter very very seriously but what you want to keep in mind is that they're not only looking for your intellectual abilities but what they want to see is your character your personality your persistence your grit your quality your values so keep that in mind because it's not just about okay this student is good at chemistry or the student is good at writing essays what they're looking for is the deeper qualities and elements that cannot easily be identified in other parts of the application or to who is going to be my recommenders you will most likely have to recommenders and it really depends on the school there every school has different requirements and so let's just say that you are going to work with about two recommenders these two recommenders will need to be your core subject teachers so that means your English teacher history science foreign language and mathematics your recommender should not just be someone that you know inside a classroom so it's not someone who you just say hello and bye to every single day before you start your class you want to select a teacher who is your core subject teacher but someone who you know outside of the classroom as well because like I said they want to see more of your characteristics and personality inside and outside of the classroom but here's a warning don't select a teacher to be a recommender just because you have the highest grade in that class go for a teacher who recognizes your personality your efforts how hard you try how dedicated you are in class how cooperative you are in class so that your teacher is able to share how you are in class how you instilled a growth pattern in his class or her class so basically it's not just that you have a good grade but that you also have this quality of yours where you will never get and you know you just really want to show that passionate side of you and your recommender will be able to do that for you if you do choose the right recommender even if you have a B in that class but you know that you went from a D to a B or maybe you were very lacking in confidence the first semester but you ended up doing really well second semester that's a very good reason why you want to ask that teacher to be your recommender number three is how should I ask my teachers to write me a recommendation letter you want to do is to set a time with your teacher not when you are just about to leave her class and say oh Miss Smith I need a letter from you not like that you need to go to your teacher and ask politely I would like to set up ten to fifteen minutes or fifteen to twenty minutes to talk about my application and my recommendation letters what time is gift for you and this really shows that you are navigating this process in a very serious in a responsible way so set up a time first and during that time is when you want to share the couple of key points such as what your strengths is what your interest is what your career plans are what you want to study why you decided to go for this college or why you decided to go for this major just a little bit more of that human-like interaction is really going to help your recommender write the best letter for you for if your recommender is someone who you can't meet in person or it may be a supervisor from you know maybe you're studying abroad program or something like that then you still want to meet with them online right even though you can't meet them in person you can still meet them the risk I'd call or zoom call or Google hangout there's so many different platforms so even though you can't meet them in person I still want you to set up a meeting to talk about your goals and why you are asking this person to be a recommender this request should be done as early as possible so sometimes students right before their summer break for us and sometimes they do it right after they come back from their summer break typically I tell my students inside my program to ask the recommenders around May or June just to have that conversation going so that your teacher knows that you will be requesting for a letter but sometimes I've had cases where teachers will say no don't talk to me about college applications before summer break and so in that case we'll have to postpone it for a little bit but you want to ask your teacher and/or your recommender and set up that meeting as soon as possible but I would say March and February will be too early number 4 do I need to share something with my recommenders yes you do you have to share two different items and this is something that you can share with them during the meeting right when you enter the meeting room or the conference room or the Skype call you want to share this with them you can share this with them in the beginning before you start talking or after so that you guys could just really focus on the content of the conversation resume is something that you want to prepare and have the copy ready to go the Brat the resume should really focus on basically what you did and if you are a junior watching this you should have your resume ready to go I have my students start working on their resume as soon as they have a couple of volunteering and summer program and extracurriculars on their activities list so recommendation letters should be written in a very specific way and I might do another tutorial on how to write a resume for high school students so for today's training though yes you do need a copy of your resume so please have that ready and you also want to share with them a brag sheet so what is a brac sheet you're basically listing out a couple of key points that you want them to know so there are a couple of questions that I can share with you in this video and they are maybe you're explaining an inconsistency in your academic career maybe you dropped out or maybe you or whatever happened I could also share your abilities and what you've done in your school or in your community that reflects your character you can also talk about the fit for the schools you're applying to so that you're giving them a list of colleges and why each college is a good fit and what is it that really appeals you to that school you could also talk about your strengths as a person inside the classroom and outside the classroom your interest and how you fostered your interests into a passion why you're unique and what your career goals are and what you want to get out of your studies in college or as a professional so you want to make sure that you're as specific as possible when you write this if you say that your unique ability is that you are open minded it's like okay well can you give me an example so you always want to support your claim with an example so that your teacher has a better idea your recommender has a better idea as to what you mean by truly open-minded question number five when is the best time to work on recommendation letter black sheets and the materials that I need to submit to my teachers I answer this question somewhere in three or four but I wanted to categorize this into the last question because timing is very important right so typically I have my students start working on their resume right now January and February and then start working on the brag sheets around at March and April because around May and June you'll be really busy with finals end of the year commitment and SAT Subject Tests and any other test that you have to take so we sort of try to get the brac sheets out of the way by March or April but if you are watching this video around summer time there is a way to speed up that process so don't worry about it but that is the ideal timeline you want to continue to communicate with your recommenders to let them know if there are any updates so that this process is not like okay write me a wreckless but it's more of you know I sincerely thank you for writing this letter for me and here are some updates that I like to share with you and when they come back from school you want to also write a quick email or yeah an email saying you know welcome back I just wanted to let you know that my brackets are ready to go how would you like to receive them by PDF Google Doc in person so that you're really making sure that you're connecting with this recommender as much as possible instead of just saying okay you know write me a record because if you think about it so many students are requesting rec letters to one teacher and that teacher has to write a lot so if you could imagine you know the teacher will give the most specific details and more energy to a student who really was responsible and timely and someone who is fun authentic and just honest and clear about the entire process right so you want to maximize your chances of getting the best recommendation letter possible so you do need to put in consistent energy so that you will get the best recommendation letter possible all right so that's it those are the top five questions that I get when it comes to recommendation letters it requires you to work through each task on time that's the most important thing because you don't want to be working on recommendation letter Bradstreet's and resume and reaching out when you have to focus on your passion project or your essays and filling out the application and preparing for the interview so this is something that you could do in advance so that's the good news for those of you who are interested I am offering a free 45 minute strategy session the link is down below and during the call I'll be able to assess what you are currently struggling with what you would need to work on so that you can get accepted into your dream Ivy League's or tops your colleges it's completely free and it's really to assess whether you would be a good fit for our program or not I also want to share with you our Facebook group conquer college remissions where I host daily lives and post blogs and share deadlines and information and much more there are around almost 100 members in there so check it out and join the community so that you will feel supported with everyone else who's going through the college admissions journey and we also have a podcast to mystify college admissions and there I invite guests from all industries test prep pre-med law Ivy League and much more I also do a couple of so episodes when I do have a big takeaway and there you will really be able to gain motivation about how to navigate the college admissions journey the right way and how to stay healthy and mindful throughout this entire process and lastly I am also hosting a live workshop this coming Thursday the link will also be down below so the live workshop is where I share case studies with you high level college admission strategies with you so check it out register and take advantage of it because it's completely free all right you guys that's it for today's video I hope that this video about recommendation letter was helpful to you all if you have any questions leave them in the comment below and if you want more college applications and essay videos make sure to give it a thumbs up so that I know that you want more of music content alright have a great rest of your day and I'll talk to you guys soon bye everyone [Music]