bad recommendation?

<p>my physics teacher who i thought knew me really well wrote me a recommendation letter that was less than like half a page.. is that too short? will it hurt my chances at all? what she did write wasnt really that impressive</p>

<p>dude i kno exactly how you feel, i would like to kno as well</p>

<p>I had the same problem, just talk to your teacher and try to guide them through it. At first my recommendation was pretty generic, but then i told her to give examples and what not and it turned out to be a pretty good recommendation.</p>

<p>I am suprised you even saw the recommendations- most schools don't let you see them from teachers..they are sent in sealed envelopes, otherwise, they are meaningless</p>

<p>D gave her other teacher a brag sheet that she wrote for one teacher. She also gave them a copy of her transcript. They need a little bit of information to write better letter of recommendation.</p>

<p>i asked a teacher to do a rec for me where they would rate you from below average to excellent...she put everything as average except for sense of humor!!!</p>

<p>colleges don't give much weight to recs that the student has seen. i have been told to waive my right to view the recs because colleges trust them more.</p>

<p>Same problem here, a1y33a. My chem teacher wrote a two-paragraph recommendation that is too general to even make any sense. I'm disappointed, but I sought out another teacher who I felt would better represent my achievements. She wrote a much better reccommendation. I suggest you do that as well.</p>

<p>The only reason i saw my recommendation is because I go to a small school and not that many kids apply to schools that require recs. So they let me see and and I also did give them a "brag sheet" and told them to be specific. I still have not turned things in so I will waive my rights to see them but they let me see them.</p>

<p>
[quote]
colleges don't give much weight to recs that the student has seen. i have been told to waive my right to view the recs because colleges trust them more.

[/quote]

It would be good if "colleges don't give much weights to recs that the student has seen" if those recs aren't very good.</p>

<p>I'd imagine it would look even worse...</p>

<p>How would they even find out if a student has seen the recommendations?</p>

<p>At my school most of the teachers just give the student the letter to give to their guidance counselor.</p>

<p>thanks for everyone's thoughts.. she just like gave me a bunch of copies of the letter to turn in with my transcript forms.. i still havent decided whether or not im going to get a new one from another teacher or just send in the one she gave me. it might be kinda too late to get a new one.. im not too worried about getting like an amazing recommendation but the one i have seems like if i had a good shot anywhere they would see that and have like doubts about me</p>

<p>how much can a bad recommendation hurt?</p>

<p>The content, not the recommendation's length is what's important. Typically the recommendations with the most useful content were written by teachers who had been given a lot of information by the students involved: copies of excellent test papers and term papers, copies of the student's college essays, reminder notes about accomplishments the students made in activities the teachers advised, etc.</p>

<p>It's not reasonable to expect that a teacher can write a recommendation for you with plenty of specifics unless you provide that info to the teacher. Teachers may have a hundred students, and can't be expected to remember specifics on each student they teach no matter how remarkable a student is.</p>

<p>For the record - waiving your rights to see a rec means that you cannot ask the college to show it to you. It does not mean that you may or may not have seen the teacher rec. Colleges have no way of knowing if your saw your rec, unless it gets delivered in unsealed envelopes along with your application. </p>

<p>My son waived his rights, but he could have seen one of his recs if he had wanted. He didn't bother because the same person wrote a rec for a summer program last year, and saw what was written then.</p>

<p>


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<p>cgm, our teachers let us see their recommendations because they are pretty clueless about how to write them. hardly any students at our school use the common app, or apply to any school that requires recommendations. so our teachers arent really sure about how to write them. so they show us, and ask us if they are doing it correctly.</p>

<p>
[quote]
At my school most of the teachers just give the student the letter to give to their guidance counselor.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>same here. we waive our rights, i think, but we still see them anyway, i guess.</p>

<p>citygirlsmom : There are TONS of schools out there that allow students to see the recs. Nothing surprising there.</p>

<p>
[quote]
citygirlsmom : There are TONS of schools out there that allow students to see the recs. Nothing surprising there.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Disagree with that.</p>

<p>maybe not tons, but quite a few.</p>