<p>I've been lurking here for a year now, and finally have a question to post. Can anyone reccomend a book or other resource that would give examples of teacher reccomendations that are specific, and not just general or a re-hash of the students resume? I think our teachers don't know how to write a good reccomendation! I would like to reccomend something to our guidance counselor, or at least have something to refer to when my next kid goes for reccomendations.</p>
<p>I’m surprised you’re got to see the recommendation. In our district students supply teachers with addressed, stamped envelopes and teachers write and send the recommendation. I’ve never heard of a teacher handing a recommendation back to a student (or parent for that matter).</p>
<p>When I spok to her GC about it, he felt is was appropriate for the student to see it. For her other (stellar) reccomendation, the teacher showed it to her, then put it into the envelope to send. The english teacher wrote a good one; she knows how to write. The science teacher wrote a very bland one, my daughter said she’d mail it, then didn’t. We scrambled and got her current math teacher to write one, but it re-hashed her resume, and she said the GC helped her! She gave top “ratings” and some specifics, but it frankly makes me wonder if they know what is expected. We don’t get many kids going for Ivy League and the like, so maybe for some kids it dosen’t matter as much. D is applying to Yale (a reach) but most kids go in-state here. We live in Michigan, so top kids go to UM.</p>
<p>sureofsomething…where I am, the teachers sometimes GIVE copies of the recommendations (I believe that is how it is spelled) to the students as a courtesy. BUT the official recommendation is NOT sent by the student. It is either sent directly from the person writing it, or it is sent by the school guidance office. Colleges typically expect this to happen.</p>
<p>I realize you feel the recommendations written by some of your chlld’s teachers were not terrific. I hate to say this…but I don’t believe this is your hunt…especially since truthfully, those should have been given to you only as a courtesy. I know you are trying to be helpful…but really…you can express your opinion if you’d like to the administration of the school. Beyond that, I personally would let this one go. </p>
<p>Some teachers are asked to write TONS of recommendations. They hope that the kids will give them resumes from which to cull information. I’m not sure what else you would expect a teacher to do.</p>
<p>MIT’s site has good examples of how to write evaluations - not just for techies by any means. It has examples and critiques of both good and bad. [MIT</a> Admissions | Info For Schools & Counselors: Writing Evaluations](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/schools/writing_evaluations/index.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/schools/writing_evaluations/index.shtml)</p>
<p>What you might do is say you stumbled across this in your research and thought it might be helpful and give it to the GC and hope they pass it on. It might not help your child, but it might help future ones.</p>
<p>Our oldest son’s GC showed him her recommendation (he said it was nice, but I didn’t see it). He didn’t see either teacher recommendation. He saw one of his outside recommendations. My kids sign the waivers and give teachers stamped envelopes so it’s not standard for students to see recommendations.</p>
<p>I thought it was interesting that they (MIT) felt this was fine:
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<p>This is slightly off-topic and probably too late for this year. However, one of the things I really liked about my daughter’s high school (and it was a small prep school–about 75 in a class) was that teachers wrote about three sentences on the students’ first-quarter grade reports. The GC then used those when it came time to write her recommendations. These were not just senior year grades, but all four years.</p>
<p>The comments could be reviewed by the teachers as well if they needed a reminder for a letter they were writing. This would be a pain for teachers with huge student loads, but I thought it was a great idea.</p>
<p>Getting an idea about which teachers in high school can write a good recommendation is very useful. At our high school, any AP English or history teacher will do a good job for a kid. The high school AP biology teacher is known to do a good job. So most kids who apply to a tip top college that requires recommendations will choose from that group of people to write the recommendations.</p>
<p>Then again, there are some teachers that you love in the classroom but are so flaky that you don’t feel comfortable rolling the dice with them when it comes to writing a recommendation for college.</p>
<p>Same thing at the GC level. In the past, one counselor handled all of the Honors kids and she wrote all the recommendations. It was quite a job every fall and she was fabulous. Now all kids are parceled out to the GCs based on the alphabet. There is at least one GC that I would be leery of if he had to write my kid’s recommendation. I remember that he told my neighbor’s kid that she could pick up the recommendation she needed that afternoon. These things only took 15 minutes to write. :eek:</p>
<p>At our school, it is entirely within the discretion of the teacher whether or not to show the student the recommendation.</p>