A Letter of Recommendation (LOR), typically 400-500 words in length, is a document that speaks to your skills and attests to your ability to succeed at a given program. LORs are useful as they may (1) corroborate the claims you’ve made in your supplemental essays, (2) present aspects of your personality that aren’t illustrated elsewhere, and most importantly (3) provide a third-person perspective on your candidature.

But whose perspective do the admissions officers care about? Surely not your father’s. We need someone who can be a little less biased and a lot more objective. For undergraduate applicants, this role is fulfilled by their school counsellors, subject teachers, internship supervisors, art instructors, sports coaches, and in some cases peers. The key here is to curate the right mix.

You don’t want to bombard admissions officers with LORs. In most cases, you’re required to submit at least two LORs—one from the school counsellor and one from a subject teacher. Many universities may warrant a second teacher LOR and most allow applicants to attach an optional LOR in the Other Recommender section.

While selecting your subject teachers, you must first consider who is most likely to write an insightful and inspiring letter of recommendation. The next step is to strive for diversity. If you are an engineering applicant, don’t submit recommendations from your Math and Physics teachers. Instead, approach your English teacher. This is necessary as most American and European institutions emphasize interdisciplinarity. In fact, MIT requires applicants to submit one humanities recommendation.