<p>My son gave his teachers the recommendation forms in September. Being a polite kid, he hasn't bugged them about it since. He's applying RD everywhere.</p>
<p>At last week's parent/teacher conferences, his Econ teacher casually mentioned, "Your son gave me his rec form a while back, does he have a deadline?" I nearly fell off my chair! It's the end of November, it's a college recommendation, you teach an AP class... DOES HE HAVE A DEADLINE?</p>
<p>Son met with GC today to go over his applications, turns out NEITHER teacher has submitted the rec yet. He spoke to the Econ teacher immediately after conferences, that rec should be done very soon. But the other teacher was from Junior year, he's having trouble catching up with him. He feels like the teachers are doing him a favor by writing the recs and feels rude reminding them about it, but I guess he has no choice.</p>
<p>Don't you think if a kid gave a teacher a form in early September they'd have filled it out by now???</p>
<p>That's a shame. This is a lesson for your S. It's not bugging someone to check in with them to see if they've followed through. </p>
<p>My D had to resubmit a rec form to her GC who insisted she'd never turned one in. Later GC admitted she found it under a stack of papers on her desk.
One thing my D did when passing the rec forms and stamped/addressed envelopes was put a post-it on each form stating the deadline. She actually wrote something like:</p>
<p>Ms. Teacher, the deadline for this school is Nov 30.</p>
<p>You'd think so, wouldn't you? That's inexcusable, if you ask me.</p>
<p>My son had a similar experience with the teacher he asked to write a rec for him. He gave her the forms on 9/7 and asked if she could have them done by late Oct. so he could meet an EA deadline for 2 colleges. She promised him that was no problem. Well, it was. :( . </p>
<p>She went out on sick leave in early October and hasn't been back to school since (it's unclear if she will be back after Christmas). S sent her a couple of e-mails around 10/15 asking if he should get another teacher to write his letter, not knowing at that time whether she was going to be out long-term or what. She never bothered to reply. He was very hesitant to e-mail her since she was ill, but she had sent word through the substitute teacher to his class that they could e-mail her with questions about the assignments. </p>
<p>He ended up having to ask another teacher at the last minute and missed an EA deadline because of it. This also put him in a bad spot with the 2nd teacher, because it made it look like S waited until the last minute to ask for a rec (he did explain the circumstances, but by this time, the 2nd teacher had lots of requests ahead of my son's).</p>
<p>I know this is no worse than some of the other horror stories I read here on CC about incompetent guidance counselors and mean teachers, but it put a damper on the whole experience for my son and he lost out on what would have been a fantastic letter of recommendation from a teacher who knows S very well.</p>
<p>The more I read here, the more I appreciate my d's school's set up. The guidance office has a form that has places for the kid's name, the schools, their addresses, and the application deadlines. The kid fills it out and tapes it onto the front of a 9x12 manila envelope. Into the envelope goes the stamped, addressed envelopes (into which we also put a self-addressed postcard), any forms, a copy of the "brag sheet" and anything else the kid wants the teacher to have. The teacher then just gets one big envelope per kid, and has all the deadlines clearly marked. Very few kids have any problems (of course, the occasional "lost envelope" does occur).</p>
<p>Even if your school's set up is different, there's no reason you can't do it this way.</p>
<p>^ DD also has a similar setup at her school; brag sheet is filled out and gets submitted to junior year teachers in spring of Junior Year. Junior year teachers have the WHOLE SUMMER to complete their recommendations. If the kid picks any senior year teachers, brag sheet gets submitted again fall of Senior year. Teacher recs are all turned in to GC's office where their filed in kid's folder. </p>
<p>When a recommendation request is received, kid gives forms to GC in a manila envelope with postage paid envelope addressed to the univ. inside (kids name and section have to be marked on it). The teacher recs are all photocopied (or if form is required by the univ., GC gives it to the teacher). GC is responsible for submitting transcripts, GC report and teacher recs to all universities and colleges and everything gets mailed at the same time.</p>
<p>When my son gave his teachers the recommendation paperwork (in early October I believe) he also gave them the deadlines for each application on a separate sheet. One of them went missing despite being mailed on time, but presumably did get there when she sent it again.</p>