<p>So my Spanish teacher showed me her recommendation today. She told me privately last year that I was the best she had had in the past few years. I got the first 5 in AP Spanish in the history of my school last year because I absolutely love learning languages (it's funny because in most departments we are actually seen as being quite strong), and I took the initiative to sign up for a Spanish competition and did very, very well.</p>
<p>This teacher has not written a recommendation in the past few years (no one asks her since most people don't like her). She marked the Common App boxes accordingly (one of the top few I have seen in my career), but the written description was extremely general (e.g. good student, demonstrates concern for others) and had ZERO examples. Absolutely none. She is like 65 and as I have said, has not written a recommendation in a long, long time. Of course, I profusely thanked her after leaving. However, she told me that she simply didn't want to belittle the accomplishments of the two other students she wrote for, so she didn't include any language like "one of the best I've ever taught" in the rec. She also doesn't "get" that she was supposed to include examples of what I've done in class.</p>
<p>I understand that there were other recs submitted, and that one rec is one rec. But I was really counting on this rec to be good, and I understand that the importance of recommendations is usually underestimated.</p>
<p>What do you think an ad officer will make of very strong ratings but a generic (read: crappy when compared to all other applicants' recs) description?</p>