LOR from teacher I got good grade from but don't know well?

[amond8805]

hi, I took o Chen last semester but it was a big class and I didn't participate much (probably asked like 3 questions the entire semester). Nonetheless I would sit on the front row and get Pretty good scores on exams. Plus, The professor knew me by my name so I thought it was nice.. but that was all as far as any interpersonal relationship between us....however on the final exam day, the spirit of guessing was upon me and I only missed only one out of 70 ACS final questions and was placed 100th percentile nationally ! When I visited his office to thank him, he said he was really impressed with my score and told me it was the highest score out of his 10 years of teaching.

In this case, would it be a good idea to ask him for LOR? He barely knows me as a person. In fact I'm not even sure if he likes me or no.. but he probably think I'm very good at o chem.

Any ideas?

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[joker16z]

I'd ask him regardless. He knows you by name and knows that you did exceptionally well in his class and on the ACS final. As a precursor to the LOR request, make sure you add in the modifier "strong" when asking for a letter of recommendation. If the professor doesn't believe they can write a strong letter of recommendation, then they may decline your request.