<p>Hey people,</p>
<p>Just a quick question to admitted students, just so that I can get a general idea of recommendations. What boxes did your teachers tick off in the "top 1%, outstanding, excellent, very good etc." section of your recommendations? Was it generally top 1%, outstanding, excellent? I'm just curious as to how good one's recommendation needs to be...</p>
<p>Do universities take into account the context of your school?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I have no idea, as I never saw what my teacher wrote or filled out; you aren’t supposed to see the recs, right?</p>
<p>I think it depends on whether or not you “waive your right” to see the recs or not. I haven’t actually seen mine, but I think that some people have.</p>
<p>I didnt waive my right, but I havent gotten to see them. How can I look it up?</p>
<p>I haven’t seen mine either. I go to a distance learning school and my teachers barely know me at all.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure how not waiving your right would help. I mean, if you saw what they wrote, you couldn’t really change it, could you?</p>
<p>i didn’t mean it as an admissions strategy or anything, I just wanted to one day be able to see them.</p>
<p>Yeah, not waving your right doesn’t mean that you want to have control over what your teachers write, just that you’re curious as to what they have to say…</p>
<p>It only applies if the university keeps the materials after you matriculate. If I remember correctly, Stanford does not keep them. I’m not positive, but I felt like I read that somewhere.</p>
<p>yea stanford doesnt keep them. u can ask ur teacher if u want.
not waiving your write indicates to the college that you are worried that the teacher might say something bad and that you dont necessarily want the teacher to be entirely honest
its never a good thing not to waive that right. many admissions officers say plainly that the recommendation is useless unless you waive your right</p>
<p>But personally, i never saw them but i know that i had all of the top column checked off (whatever the best one is) bc they told me.</p>
<p>which box they check off is far, far, far less important than what they write. don’t worry about the box.</p>
<p>haha thats stupid if they say its useless they check it. I just thought it might be cool to eventually read what people wrote about me. They cant be so cynical to expect everyone to use it as a strategy</p>
<p>Depending upon the relationship that you hold with the teacher, I’m sure that it would be possible to ask them after the fact if they can give/send you a copy.</p>
<p>yea def shadow
one of my teachers gave me a copy anyway even though i waived my right</p>