I am formatting our decisions for the stats thread but have a question - how do applicants know what teachers/coaches etc. write about them? Has anyone actually seen or been given a copy or are you guessing that it is good based on your relationship? Sorry if this is a “stupid” question, but I’ve always been curious how everyone seems to know…
I’d say it’s a mix, but probably more of the latter. FYI, a thread in a similar vein was posted this week.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1749924-are-most-teacher-recommendations-good.html
In both of my kids’ BS app cycles (and for the older one’s recent college app cycle), I can say that we have never seen or been given a copy of a recco letter — because, you know, you’re not supposed to see them?!?
But of course, when our kids asked teachers for reccos, they asked if the teacher feels they can write a positive recco for them…however, come to think about it, I think my older girl may have just chosen the teachers who she felt knew her best (at least for the college reccos).
I agree that people are just guessing that the reccos are good…
@skieurope Thanks, sorry! I actually did a search - don’t know how I missed that especilally as it was just a couple of days ago!
For me, and I think it is the same for other applicants too since we are not supposed to see recommendation letters, it is all based on our relationship with the recommender. We judge that the recommendation is good based on the recommender’s reactions before/after the recommendation process and if there are any comments the recommender mentioned afterwards. For example, one of my recommenders told me afterwards that he/she truly hoped for me to be accepted and that they hope that their recommendation letter would help in the application process.
We also base our good/bad feelings about our recs on how the recommender has always acted towards us–they gush over us in class, compliment us on our hard work, always smile at us, etc., Also, if the recommender often comments on a certain aspect of our personality, say hard work, we assume that it was mentioned in the letter of recommendation as well.
I hope this helped, if even for a little bit. I realize that my explanation may be confusing.
(Sorry for all of the word repetition–I don’t think there’s very many synonyms for “recommendation” and “recommender”).