<p>When I asked for my letters of recommendation, I ended up getting one from my former AP US History teacher, who said she would write me an "extremely favorable" letter and who always boasted about her writing skills. She never sent it to me and I thought nothing of it because I know many teachers don't want students to read the letters. I recently asked her to revise the letter so I could use it for scholarships and she just sent it to me to review. It was awful. Not only was it just a rehash of my resume, there were so many errors. My last name was spelled wrong and she credited me for being a National Merit winner, which I am not (I am a Commended Student). I feel sick to my stomach knowing that admissions officers are seeing this; how much do you think it will affect my chances at admission?</p>
<p>No one knows. It isn’t normal to be able to read the letters so it is unfortunate you have to read it and it gives you something to worry about when you are in a position that there is nothing to do. Just mark the errors and ask her to correct them for the scholarship letter.</p>
<p>You will likely be fine, competing on your own merits, according to what the U needs. While letters can be important, if you pulled together a solid app, you’ll stay in contention. k? </p>
<p>It is frightening how terrible a lot of recs are. When my son was in middle school, we did happen to read his math teacher’s rec and it looked like a kid wrote it, certainly no college grad. Some years later, that teacher moved to a high school job and coaching, and got called on his rec writing disabilities. </p>