Your scholarship application is born in ten days. It must have three recommendation letters attached, and, so far, you have not gotten any back from your teachers. A note to each of them last week hasn't gotten improvements. Talk about strained nerves. All the work to get the application ready, now letters are halting the procedure.
The Role of Recommendation Letters in Winning Athletic Scholarships
This is a scenario that repeats itself hundreds and maybe thousands of times every year. You can avoid this problem through important appropriate actions. Begin by asking for your recommendation letters at least six weeks in advance. This allows busy teachers to adopt their time in writing great responses. After a couple weeks remind them a note within their mailboxes. A week after that make a visit to their classroom. Remind them face-to-face that your application could be late and disqualified and you will come by a few weeks to pick up. Thank them again and then stop by yet again.
One way to avoid total mayhem is to ask for more letters than is actually needed (awards can vary in the variety of letters neededIf the requirement is two with an award, ask four people.
In case you are applying for more than a couple of scholarship awards (and also you really should be), find out if the teacher or whoever would be willing to put their comments on the CD. Remind them you will be sending out lots of applications. It will save them time. Then, you'll bring the letters by for their signatures. They can inspect the documents before you send them in. A hand-written signature is usually best.
Who in case you ask? Can it make a difference? Yes, it can matter. Know this: English and spanish teachers generally write the very best letters. They personalize them and may write from your half to some whole page. Additionally they produce results that have no spelling or grammatical errors. Again, and that is a general statement, coaches and phys . ed . teachers write the shortest remarks and may even have many mistakes in spelling and grammar. But, go with your best options regardless of teaching position.
Make use of your high school letterhead, whenever possible.
Remember to ask your teacher if they'd like to write a good response. Or even, move on. A probable scholarship winner fulfilled all requirements with a big plus and was in line to get an $8,000 award. Everything was super except for one recommendation letter. She assumed her coach would write a glowing response. He didn't. Don't allow that to happen to you. She didn't win.
Keep to the same time-line for all requests, and remember this: my way through life is a choice, make the right ones today for your college scholarship success.