MathPath Online Academic Recommendation

Thank you for helping this student apply to MathPath. This form should take you only 10-15 minutes. If you want to write a letter instead of completing this form, you may do so, but it will take longer and it should still cover the sorts of things this form shows we are interested in. If you write a letter, email it as an attachment to smaurer1@swarthmore.edu. Be sure to include the 4-digit code the student gave you.

MathPath is technically not a school, and thus the US FERPA laws do not apply. This means that we are allowed to keep your recommendation confidential, and fully intend to, even though the student has signed no waiver.

After you fill in any box, don't hit Return to go to the next box. On some browsers this submits your survey.  Rather, use Tab or Point-and-Click.  When you are done, hit Submit at the bottom. 

If your recommendation does get submitted prematurely just start over and resubmit, putting a note in the last comment box that this is a resubmission. There is no way to save this form halfway through and return to it, so you might want to look over the whole thing before starting to answer.

For the longer optional comment boxes at the end, you may want to cut and paste your answer from another program. Do NOT cut and paste from a full-featured word processor like Word, that uses nonprinting characters; this may cause submission to fail. If you want to cut and paste, do so from a pure text program like NotePad or TextEdit.

Applicant Name and Information (not yours)

Surname (family name)

First Name

     4-digit code the applicant gave you to use: (this helps us verify and link your recommendation to the applicant)

Information about you

Your Name (first then last)

Email address

Phone

Name of School

Street Address

Line 1

Line 2

City or Town

State or Province abbreviation (if in US or Canada)

Zip or Postal Code

Country if not US

Grades you teach (select all that apply)

5 6 7 8 9 Other (list)

How long have you taught school?

The applicant

What course are you teaching this student? Or if you are his/her math coach, explain briefly the coaching relationship.

Among all students you have taught in your entire teaching career, this student is

1^st 2^nd top 5 top 10 top 20 none of these

Among all students you are teaching this year, this student is

1^st 2^nd top 5 top 10 top 20 none of these

If you know that this student has scored very well on some national contests in math or other subjects, tell us briefly.

Rate this student from 1 to 10 on the following, where 8 and higher are very high.

Mathematical ability

Mathematical creativity

Perseverance

Independence

Maturity for his/her age

How well s/he works with others

Ability to explain his/her ideas

Friendliness

Overall rating

If other students of yours have come to MathPath, how would you compare this student to the others? The more specific the comparison, the more helpful. E.g., "Jane is not as quick as John Doe who attended last year, but her understanding is deeper. Neither is anywhere as strong as Alice Jones, who attended in 2006."

In this final optional box (which can expand to any length) put anything else you want to tell us, either praise or concerns. If you want to write a letter, best to send it as email as described at the top, because messages in this box lose their formatting.

Thank you again for recommending this student. We acknowledge receipt of recommendations every few days. If you don’t hear from us, email Prof Maurer. Also, if upon hitting submit you get an error page instead of a thank you page, don't immediately resubmit, but instead contact Prof Maurer. Our experience is that your recommendation was still submitted, but it was truncated where the error occurred &ndash probably a non-ascii character you inserted, perhaps by cut and paste.