Teacher Recommendation Requirements

As the academic year comes to a tortured end, juniors (along with some overachieving, incoming freshmen) are frantically asking their teachers for letters of recommendation. According to Principal Eric Contreras, each department has established new requirements for recommendation letters. Below are the new standards:

English Department: You must have a six on the AP.

“Students have stormed in angrily saying that it’s impossible to get a six on the AP. Nonsense! Nothing is impossible,” Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman explained as he proceeded to book a month-long getaway for the entire English department during college recommendation writing season.

“I’ve had one student get a six because of a misprint, but that really doesn’t mean the AP graders can’t be so wowed by your essays that they won’t give you a six,” Grossman elaborated. “If anything, money always talks.”

Math Department: You must have created your own new theorem, applicable to the Advanced Honors AP Multivariable Calculus Class.

Although most students typically take regular Multivariable Calculus their senior year, if at all, students looking for a letter of recommendation will be required to write a theorem for this newly-created course. This course requires the prerequisites of Multivariable Calculus, Honors Multivariable Calculus, and AP Multivariable Calculus.

“If you want to write a theorem, just start reading,” Assistant Principal of Mathematics Jim Johnson encouraged. “Start out with Euclid’s “Elements,” and then progress onto every other math textbook.”

Many students were undaunted by this new requirement. “I started doing research, and then I found pure ingenuity within a basic geometry primer. I felt utterly enlightened,” junior Jason Wong reported. “In fact, Johnson said that I may have broken math with my new theorem.”

Wong’s new theorem states, “A square has four right angles.” He has received recognition from math communities around the world and will be presented the Presidential Medal of Mathematical Ingenuity in May.

Foreign Language Department: You must not have been a member of your language class’s Facebook group.

In light of recent scandals, the foreign language department has decided that in order to protect their dignity—not only will they restrict the number of tries on homework or simply fail their students—but they will only offer letters of recommendation to the three students who were not in the foreign language class’s Facebook group.

“The administration will know if anyone deactivates,” Assistant Principal of Foreign Language Ernest Oliveri said. “Don’t even try to unlike that post from five months ago. This is gravely serious.”

Computer Science Department: You must be able to recite the four steps of incremental development if awakened at any point in the night.

One of the first things students learn in their Intro CS classes is recursion and the steps of incremental development in order to break up complex problems and to think mathematically. The best computer science students are the ones that immerse themselves in this way of thinking and begin to apply it to their everyday lives.

“I used to wake up sleeping students I found in the Hudson staircase and ask them what the steps to incremental development were,” Computer Science Coordinator Dyrland-Weaver recalls. “That’s how you can tell if students are truly committed to computer science, of course—if they dream about it.”

Dyrland-Weaver believes that if students takes more than three seconds to answer, they do not deserve a letter of recommendation. “I understand that most students are drowsy when they first wake up, which is why I give them a few seconds,” Dryland-Weaver explained. “But if they can’t answer even after a few seconds, it’s obvious they don’t know.”

Science Department: You must cut all of your humanities classes to sit in on multiple oversubscribed science electives.

The science departments will be applying the Darwinian principle of “survival of the fittest” in determining which students will receive recommendations. Students are encouraged to exhibit evolutionary prowess by thinking of creative ways to take as many science classes as one can fit into his or her schedule.

Rather than having to wait long hours (days, really) after school for schedule changes or to engage in arguments so long and complex with your guidance counselor that you could win debate tournaments, a simple way to take as many science classes as you can is to cut all your other classes.

“There was once a student who cut all of his periods to attend science classes,” Assistant Prinicipal of Chemistry and Physics Scott Thomas explained. “Although he got 60s in all of his other classes, he did manage to get a 100 in Forensics.”