One of the schools i’m applying to is MIT. Last year (junior year), I asked my AP Chem and AP Bio teachers for my recommendation letters, but MIT requires letters from one Science teacher and one humanities teacher. The only humanities class I took last year was HONORS english, and since i’m not really a humanities person, my teacher didn’t really know me well. I wrote really good essays, and I got the top grades in my class, but I didn’t participate a lot in his class. So I found out about the MIT situation the day before the last day of school, so on the last day of school, I filled out a form for my English teacher and asked him to write one and he said yes. Last week, one of my friends decided that he wanted the same teacher to write his letter, so we decide to go together after school. (I just wanted to check up on him and say that I would have the envelopes ready and stuff like that.) When my friend asked him, the teacher GROANED and said “Why didn’t you guys ask me earlier?” and i said “well I asked you last year.” and he said “Oh, well I forgot” and sorta rolled his eyes like he was really really annoyed. Then he asks if we need them immediately and I said no, we need them by the end of December, and he said to schedule an appointment to talk to him about what we want him to write in our letters.

I problem is… I’m in AP Literature now, and I DO participate a lot in the class, and I get decent grades (probably not top grades), so I would prefer my AP Lit teacher to write my letter for MIT. But is it too late to ask him now that it’s already the middle of September? Do students usually ask their 12th grade teachers for recommendations especially since they probably only know you for a month or so? And even if my AP Lit teacher is willing to write it, what should I do about my 11th grade teacher? Purposely forget?

Please help me. I’d really appreciate any advice!