<p>Since this is the first impression people may have when they meet you, you will have to do everything possible to overcome it in every encounter you have. Right now you are only reinforcing the observations your teacher made at the beginning of his recommendation letter. You seem to have your mind made up against the advice you are receiving (=stubborn) and passively blaming your teacher for possibly keeping you out of “top schools” (=passive-aggressive). </p>
<p>If I were you I would make sure you have some good safeties on your list.</p>
<p>I had a mixed reaction to the letter. It is great that the teacher thinks OP showed positive personal growth, but the starting point sounded pretty bad to me. Stubborn, passive-agressive? Ugh. Wouldn’t it have been better for OP if the teacher had focussed only on what she currently has to offer the college and not her <em>sordid</em> past?</p>
<p>My teacher offered to try to rescind his letter, or write a new, more positive one…is this worth doing or will it just call more attention to it?</p>
<p>This LOR did not ‘screw’ your chances. On the other hand, the immaturity in posting the letter on an open internet forum and asking ‘if you were screwed’ does huge damage if schools find out. You’ve effectively proven that his initial feeling that you are passive aggressive was correct.</p>
<p>You need to ask nothing more from your teacher. And you owe him an apology. Remember that you first posted with both of your full names. Try googling them together and see what happens–my guess is they will both still come up, because your original post is still in the search engine’s cache. It may take months for it to go away.</p>
<p>That is a wonderful letter, and certainly will not hurt your chances - if anything it will help. Yes, the starting point seems rough, but read it again - he first wrote her behavior off as being passive agressive, but then discovered it was something else. He is NOT calling her passive agressive. He thought she has the intellect for the work early on, but she wasn’t meeting the challenge, and now she is - it shows growth.</p>
<p>Posting the letter here is a whole other issue - did you ask the teacher if he minded if you posted it in a public forum? Did you think about the fact that this is an open public forum, and if it is in fact sent to schools, your admissions officer could end up seeing your reaction here?</p>
<p>I am an advocate of teachers having the ability to write the LOR without the student having veto power. If you don’t trust the teacher to write something worthwhile, don’t ask. If you’re looking for someone to back you up, and justify asking the teacher to write another letter, I doubt you’ll find it here.</p>