Hi I am confused about this thing being said in almost 100’s of posts!!
DO people actually read the recommendations thought you are not supposed to ? Or do the teachers just tell you they wrote you “excellent recommendations”?
Comments ??
<p>"Though you are not supposed to"</p>
<p>You're not not supposed to. You can read them if you want and if the recommender lets you. Personally, one of my recommenders let me proof her recommendation and the other sent it in without me reading it.</p>
<p>well first, alot of people on here try to make themselves look better than they actually are (i have no idea why). second, if you get someone to write u a rec, i would HOPE that they are getting their best teacher or close teacher to write them one, not someone who hates them. and third, if the recommendations come from ....say a research scientist mentor they have, that surely will be really good. also, like birdofprey said, one of my teachers gave me her rec and asked me if theres anythign i want her to change, and anything i wanna add...so it all depends. but i guess most people who write that are HOPING that the recommender doesnt say anything bad about him/her.</p>
<p>u can read it, depending on how much the teachers follow the rules. for example, 1 of my friends was going 2 give the letters to mail it out in, and stuff to the teacher, and the teacher said i'll just give u the letter, and u stuff it into the mail. so she was obviously allowed eto read it. others will do it by the book, and just send it off. it really varies between teachers.</p>
<p>I actually gave the teachers I asked the envelopes stamped and addressed and they still gave them back to me to mail myself. I haven't heard of any teacher not giving the rec back to the student at my school so i guess it just depends on how teachers do it at your school whether you see it or not.</p>
<p>One of my teachers handed me a 6-page handwritten letter and said, "Type this up and give it back to me to sign, then send it in yourself." </p>
<p>And, yeah, it's absolutely not against the rules to read your recommendations if they show them to you.</p>
<p>This is kind of offtopic but on the lines. One of my friends got our calculus teacher to write his recomendation. She gave it to him when she was done, out of courtesy. However, you'd think since she let him see it, it was complimentary. On the contrary, it was quite harsh....quite true actually. But yes, i think officially you are not supposed to see them but often teachers do out of courtesy to the student.</p>
<p>I didn't get to see either of my two letters of recommendation: however, they did tell me some of the stuff they put it them. I also made sure to pick teachers that know me really well and I get along with outside of school.</p>
<p>You know this system allows people to write their own recommendation and get the thing signed right ? Or even forge it</p>
<p>I have not seen either of my reccomendations and never will. I remember a few weeks ago some guy posted about how he had to (oh please) write his own reccomendations and gave some sob story about how his teachers were too stupid to write them and everyone else went to schools that didnt need reccomendations... Now THAT is illegal and immoral. Reading them while not technically allowed is not that bad.</p>
<p>Nguyent, (hope I didn't spell that wrong),
I also believe that there are either a lot of exaggerations among the lists of stats, or generalities such as "great recs" that are not very helpful. It's odd to me that these fabulous-scoring, upper-level GPA students with "great recs" & "awesome essays" & "tons of extracurriculars" (all self-proclaimed) are surprisingly rejected or deferred from top schools. I'm not trying to be sarcastic or put-down. I just think that (1) there may be a lot of unrealistic self-assessment going on that does not jive with the way the adcoms see this same student, or (2) (just as possible) the teachers & counselors recommending these students did use a number of superlatives, but in some cases did not get particular as to the student's abilities in context. That could happen, of course, in larger classes, larger schools</p>
<p>Nguyent, this may be off topic, but are you from Vietnam?</p>
<p>I think taking a quick glancing at the common app check boxes is more than enough to see how good your recs are. If you see lots of checks in the excellent, outstanding, or 'top few in my career' boxes, than the recs are good to excellent. Otherwise, I guess it's just subjective or posters just want to seem better for some reason. I didn't get to read my letters, because my school is huge and we do everything through guidance counselors. I would assume they are good though.</p>
<p>umm, is that not a disadvantage to those whose teacehrs insist on doign it the old fashioned way ?</p>
<p>Hm, well, i know one of my recs is very good because the teacher insisted on writing one for me, and told me some of what she wrote. The other, I have no idea. I havent actually seen either.</p>