The short answer is yes, you need to do this to get great letters. Strong and frequent participation, interaction and enthusiasm for the subject in class shoul

The short answer is yes, you need to do this to get great letters. Strong and frequent participation, interaction and enthusiasm for the subject in class should get you a "good" letter--or at least more than the "She got an A in my compilers class" letter. You need to do this because you are competing with other students that do this. What I find upsetting is that so many students have no idea what their competition is up to. And, by the time they find out, it's way too late. When I read grad school admissions packets, I'm blown away by what some undergraduates have done. That's one of the reasons I wrote this blog post -- to take the blinders off. Hopefully it reaches some freshman, sophomores and juniors in college and a few high school students too.