<p>She let me see it, thinking she was being nice, after she had already sent it out to the schools I applied to early.</p>
<p>It's well-written, however I don't think it painted me in a good light. I've had her all four years of high school, and half of the letter is explaining how bad of a student I was as a freshman, and a quarter talks about how I'm not bad anymore, and then the last quarter talks about my actual qualities. My qualities weren't even described that well; she basically said I have a good work ethic and set high expectations for myself, however she simply didn't make me sound smart.</p>
<p>Now, I'm getting deferred and rejected from the schools I applied to early, some of which I'm quite above average in SATs and that aren't even that competitive.</p>
<p>I really think this recommendation has played a large part in my less than fortunate admissions notifications thus far. I think it was written with good intentions, however it doesn't show me in my best light what-so-ever. </p>
<p>How do I ask her about tweaking it a bit for the schools I'm applying to in January? I understand that the process to write a recommendation is time consuming, and I don't want to make it seem as though I'm not appreciative. However, if I don't fix it then I foresee more disappointing results in my future. It's too late to ask other teachers for recs.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any way that you can ask the teacher to change her recc. It probably accurately reflects how she views you. You could, though, ask another teacher to write a recommendation for you, and you could ask colleges to use that recommendation.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t ask her to change how she views me, but she put a LOT of emphasis on my failures with little emphasis on my accomplishments. I’m not be any means a failure of a student, and this teacher has always liked me. I don’t think she’s aware of the message that comes out of reading this recommendation.</p>
<p>Let me also mention that she’s a newer teacher, and this is her first year writing recommendations. She’s not completely familiar with the process.</p>
<p>Then, in that case you could thank her (again, I hope) for what she has done, and you could update her on your rejections, and then politely ask her if she’d mind tweaking her recc to highlight more of your strengths particularly since you’ve gotten some rejections.</p>
<p>I hope that you’ve already sent her a thank-you note for her recc because if she has gotten some written appreciation from you for the effort she already has put into helping you, she’s likely to be more amenable to taking time to revise the letter.</p>
<p>What a destructive, sabotaging *****–why did she not be frank with you and offer that maybe she wasn’t the best person to write your recommendation. I’m not sure of good intentions, here.</p>
<p>When my daughter (admitted ED1, a few days ago) asked her teachers to write her recs, they responded with an idea of how they felt about such a request–e.g. “it would be my pleasure,” “I would be honored,” and one teacher said, “I look forward to bragging about a kid I would be lucky to call my own.” </p>
<p>What the !@#$! This is awful, and I would have a long talk with my principal–she is simply destructive. She should have given feedback about what awaited you if she wrote the rec., and, thus, you could have asked someone else.</p>
<p>This is terrible. I hope that your other recs counteracted her nasty input!! And I am sorry!</p>
<p>How 'bout asking another teacher/cleargy/whatever to write a letter for you so as to diminish her perspective, confirming, of course, that the recommender will be only positive.</p>
<p>^ I think the above poster is a bit harsh it’s not like the teacher slammed the student. It seems that they attempted to show the students growth by contrasting their freshman year with later years. It is possible, however, that it didn’t work out as well as the teacher has planned and came across badly. I doubt she was trying to sabotage the OP. That’s just ridiculous. Also, she is by no means REQUIRED to submit a glowing rec. Teachers only have to write what they think and observe of the student.</p>
<p>@ OP - I agree with some of the other posters that you should ask another teacher to write you a rec, and then call the colleges and tell them to not look at the first rec. It is getting kind of too late though. Honestly, I doubt this rec is sabotaging you. Maybe the schools you are applying to are suffering from Tufts Syndrome?</p>
<p>You should go to your guidance counselor with your concerns. Show him/her the letter and explain your concerns about your admissions record thus far. Your guidance counselor is in a position to talk privately with the teacher and discuss the recommendation. The teacher may be surprised to realize that the letter has a bad tone and offer to tweak it. Or she may tell the guidance counselor that she meant what she said and wants to stand by it. If the guidance counselor is discreet the teacher need never know that you asked him/her for intervention.</p>
<p>It might be kind of hard to explain how she heard about it if the teacher only showed it to you and no one else. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but I personally would be uncomfortable with that kind of high-handed and vaguely unappreciative meddling. If there is a problem, you can include the counselor but at least be open about it. Don’t start the whole: “I was walking by your desk this morning, Teacher, when I saw this rec letter for the first time without any prompting from anyone…” thing.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t bring this up with your counselor before talking to your teacher. Just tell her what you told us here. It seems like a simple misunderstanding of what a rec letter should read like.</p>
<p>this is not her fault…but ALL YOUR FAULT…if this is her first year writing recommendations, then why the hell would you ask her? you kept saying how she is inexperienced with the process, then i think you used poor judgment to ask her. besides, i doubt she would lie in the letter about you, so im sure everything she said about you were true, so its not her fault for your poor actions in high school</p>
<p>If you have a good relationship with your guidance counselor, I would seek his/her advice. Many GC’s have seen it all and know when to intervene and when not to.</p>
<p>I agree to maybe ask the guidance counselor. Could you get another/2nd and just send that in too? At my D’s school…if a teacher isn’t willing to write a stellar letter, they find ways to suggest that perhaps the student ask someone who “knows them better”. Unfortunately, this happened to my D. She really liked one teacher, but this is what the teacher told her. So I assume she either doesn’t want to spend her time on recs, or didn’t care to write one for my D. Of course that hurt my/our feelings, but it’s all good. I’d RATHER she said that, and KNOW to look further. None of the kids get to SEE the letters either. </p>
<p>PatM is wrong: Its impossible to know how effective a rec writer a teacher is, and this isn’t your fault. I doubt she would have shown it to you if she thought she was sabotaging you. She just doesn’t know how to do this well.</p>
<p>By all means, let the teacher know that you were rejected and ask if she could tweak it a bit so the focus is on your strengths right at the start of the letter, rather than at the end. You can even mention what things you’d like her to highlight. Many teachers are grateful for guidence. </p>
<p>At our school, students give teachers a write up that includes their professional and educational goals, what they feel their strengths are, how they have contributed to the school, what challenges they have overcome if any, and why they are choosing the schools that they have chosen. It helps the teachers write the best possible letters with the least amount of effort. It’s probably too late to do that with this teacher, but you could certainly ask another teacher for a rec and provide this information.</p>
<p>“What a destructive, sabotaging *****–why did she not be frank with you and offer that maybe she wasn’t the best person to write your recommendation. I’m not sure of good intentions, here.”</p>
<p>There is absolutely no indication the above is true. If the teacher had wanted to sabatoge, she wouldn’t have shown the OP the recc letter. I know this by personal experience. After I got accepted to Harvard, one of my recc writers told me that she had had told Harvard that in her opinion, I couldn’t handle the work there! (I graduated Harvard with honors in a major related to that teacher’s course!).</p>
<p>We also don’t know if the teacher’s recc was flawed. We have only the word of an experienced student who is understandably disappointed after getting rejections and deferrals. Sounds to me like the teacher knows the student well, and documented how the student had improved over the years. I doubt that the recc is why the student was rejected. Maybe the schools preferred students with consistently strong records, which would be understandable.</p>
<p>While I was exaggerating when I said it was “all your fault”, I still stand by what I said when I said it was extremely poor judgment to ask an “inexperienced recommendation letter writer” to write you a recommendation, especially when you are applying to such good schools.</p>
<p>The teacher taught the student for 4 years and could document how the student’s grades had improved. That in itself would be an excellent reason to choose that particular teacher whether or not the teacher had written reccs before.</p>
<p>Hard, too, for me to imagine that a teacher who has taught for at least 4 years is inexperienced in writing recommendations.</p>
<p>I suspect that the student’s inexperience in reading and analyzing reccs has caused the student to take a harsher view of the teacher’s recc than it deserves. I think that the student’s mediocre grades early in their high school career likely are what caused the deferrals and rejections, not the teacher’s recc.</p>
<p>OP’s experience exemplifies why I predict that recommendation letters will eventually be eliminated as an admission tool. One of these times, a student is going to end up suing his/her teacher for libel, and that will be the end of teachers writing recs. What teacher would want to assume that liability?. Similar to how employers will refuse to say anything about a previous employee other than that s/he was employed there, or risk becoming subject to a defamation suit.</p>
<p>If I were a teacher, I would always say only good things about a student for this reason, and therefore what is the point of rec letters if they are always positive for every applicant. They are a waste of time and resources.</p>
<p>“One of these times, a student is going to end up suing his/her teacher for libel”</p>
<p>Most recommendation letters aren’t seen by students and will never be seen by students.</p>
<p>To win a libel suit, one has to prove that what was written either exposed someone to “shame, hatred or ridicule” or was not provably true. Unlikely that many recommendation letters fall into either category.</p>