<p>xiggi,</p>
<p>Among the teachers I know, "diligent" is referred to as the D-word. Everyone knows it's faint praise in a rec.</p>
<p>I remember this same situation coming up last year. I would assume that someone in administration would write an explanatory letter explaining to colleges why the student was not submitting teacher recs, in which case colleges couldn't really hold it against students.</p>
<p>Texas:</p>
<p>Of course, colleges won't hold it AGAINST students. But they won't have something positive to use FOR them, either. They won't be able to distinguish between applicants with similar profiles--and there are bound to be many.
We know that each college could throw out one or even two pools of applicants and go to a third one which would be equally capable of doing the work. So how do colleges distinguish between the different pools? Often it is through the more subjective parts of the application: the essays, the list of ecs, and the recs.<br>
The case of Jeepmom's S is instructive. The college was well-disposed and wanted to have a positive reason to admit him. And the GC provided it. Had the GC gone on strike, the college might have decided very differently.</p>
<p>One other thought: recs may be subjective (although that strikes me as an easy and abstract notion), but they can really help if they complement and reinforce other parts of the application, confirming the adcom's sense not just of what the student does, but who he or she is. They must be seen in context.</p>
<p>As far as the UCs go, they were the only school that son applied to that gave him a conditional acceptance like the British schools do based on his final IB marks. I found that interesting. They are stats based but are interested in students who take the harder academic path and hold them to it. Final marks on exams like that where they are scored far from home and there is no face to the essay say a whole lot more than teacher recs or grades both of which are more subjective. The UC process went way up in my estimation with that bit of information.</p>
<p>IMO, the element of recs that y'all are missing is character. LOR, in their proper (limited) sphere, can be quite valuable to a college. There are plenty of intelligent, hard working students who are bad people, or who are clearly grubbing for grades, or who are only there because Dad said so. Conversely, there are passionate, talented kids who would contribute to any classroom.</p>
<p>Big problem is that, IMO, colleges are looking for subtle hints in what is most likely (as mentioned earlier) something entirely dependent upon the time or skill of the teacher. If you are worried about confidentiality, a college can require that the recs remain confidential. Problem solved. No need to find an extra-double-secret meaning to the words on the page. Is the kid a jerk? Is the kid a grade-grubber? Were there allegations of cheating? Is this kid special enough to warrant some additional praise? If it's not in any of hte above categories, then it should'nt be important for admissions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, for every "educated" parent or student, there must be 10 or 20 other families that won't be that lucky. The poor kids will simply pick a teacher at random and probably receive the run-of-the-mill letter full of the usual and meaningless "hard working" and "dedicated" adjectives.
[/quote]
I don't think this is necessarily true. I would think strong candidates would typically have at least one obvious choice ... someone who is involced in the student's academic or EC passion. And I believe this recommendations can be VERY helpful.</p>
<p>I certainly think they helped me. I applied a zillion years ago and had a fairly standard EC story ... captain of varsity sports teams. My coach wrote of my recs, and while I did not see the recs I know what he thought of me and the job I did as captain, and I'm sure the recs he wrote showed that appreciation and also reflected who I was fairly well. I did much better than expected on my applications and I think my coach, and his recommendations, had a lot to do with that.</p>
<p>I realize that teachers and GC are underpaided and overworked (at least in my state) but I don't think it is right for them to take an action which may potentially affect students negatively. </p>
<p>I do worry about letters of recommendation. My daughter--a junior--had a disagreement with a teacher last year. She went to the GC and asked her help to understand. The GC--who also has 700 other juniors she is responsible for--backed the teacher. We went in for a conference etc. It seemed liked nobody wanted to listen. This year she has had two teachers ask her privately what happened. Her morale/spirit is broken. She has always been a straight A student and is at the top of her class. She's won various awards. Now she worries constantly because of the disagreement and how there keeps being fallout. (I won't go into details.) I've started taking her to outside counseling. So I am not sure if this incident will affect her LOR.</p>
<p>Write -
welcome to cc - sorry that your post is such a disturbing one. On the positive side, your D's academics are going to be the main point of evaluation - and you say these are stellar. I am sure others will have useful suggestions - they did for my son (great rec's, so-so GPA).</p>
<p>I agree with marite on several fronts, the first being the mingling of at least 3 or 4 different topics here.</p>
<p>(1) The value of recs
Several repliers have addressed many diff. aspects of recs that go far beyond a mere reinforcement of a transcript. One student's "A" is not another student's "A." Most teachers can distinguish the mere "grind" from the genuine, curious inquirer, and -- as mentioned -- those who are merely "diligent" [the compensation factor] from those who have true promise. Class size & teacher load has an obvious bearing on that ability to distinguish. However, while that would seem to favor students of smaller schools, it only favors the more capable students of smaller schools. A merely "diligent" student may be better off in a larger school where the effort will be less obvious than the product.</p>
<p>There are other cues & clues beyond the "d" word that a teacher can imbed in a rec. A teacher that suspects, but cannot prove, frequent plagiarism or at least lack of orginality, can make veiled references to that. ("Area of improvement: Student X could develop more confidence in his/her own ideas.") The same goes for laziness. There are actual academic descriptors in these recs that can serve as tipping points in admissions.</p>
<p>ariesathena, I agree with you about the character factor. And in case anyone thinks that character is not an issue in upper-level admissions, I know intimately of two cases -- one from a private h.s. to a high-profile public U -- and another from a diff. private h.s. to upper-level Ivies -- where character became a major issue this recent cycle & directly affected acceptance offers.</p>
<p>(2) The "necessity" of recs
If a teacher can and/or wants to put effort into it, a rec can be a valuable winnowing tool for a Committee. A teacher may recognize a particular B+ student in one class to be a superior student than some of the A students in the same class. This can be more than a "diligence" issue, but include independence, resourcefulness, inquisitiveness, & creativity. That teacher may indeed write a more positive rec for that student than for some A students.</p>
<p>Anyone who wants to rely on a transcript to provide the "objective" information on a student, should visit the private middle school of my 2 D's. During any given year, a minimum of 3 and a maximum of <em>15</em> parents (out of a class of 33) actually completed the assigned projects for their children -- completed them in whole or in part. The only reason that many of these aided students did not graduate with straight A's is that the parents were unable to do the graded classroom work, as well. These students graduated with B+ and A- avarages, but their <em>independent</em> work product was widely known to be a C.</p>
<p>I don't know if or how much any parent contributes inappropriately to h.s. work, but I just question the value of a transcript as a stand-alone objective record of achievement or ability. </p>
<p>(3) The unfairness of life.
For years our family has been close with students from 6 categories of high schools: (a) Rich, large, public; (b) Poor, large, public; (c) Rich, large, private; (d) Middle income, large, private; (e) Rich, small, private; (f) middle income, small, private.</p>
<p>The college admissions results of these above categories -- only in our experience; this is purely anecdotal -- has correlated to size of school, not to income level. The larger the school, the more difficult it has been for fine students to be recognized, noticed, & be advocated for. Category (b) had the same kinds of results as category (a); category (f) the same as category (e).</p>
<p>We have not noticed a dramatic difference in the helpfulness of a GC as to the college admissions process itself. In the tiniest of these schools (my D's), the GC was only slightly more helpful than in the hugest of these schools. But where we have seen the difference is in the time/ability/opportunity of the TEACHERS in the smaller schools to view, evaluate, articulate the differences between one student & the next, AND, to get involved themselves in the admissions process -- via suggestions to the family as to the list, etc.</p>
<p>So, the students of large, rich, public-schools were as disadvantaged when it came to recs & teacher involvement as were the students of large, poor, public-schools.</p>
<p>And here's another qualifier to the Unfairness Issue:
Wealthy students from high-performing schools, both public & private, that we have known personally, have been disadvantaged by the difficulty of standing out from a crowd of similar achievers. Our personal acquaintance with this issue is verified by posts on many cc forums, regarding schools and regions where this is a major factor impacting admissions. One such person we know, who graduated with a stellar record & test scores from a major top tier small, extremely selective private high school with a high-profile, was admitted only to a middle-level public U. Students from my D's school, with more of a range of abilities in the class, and a <em>less fine</em> record that this student, had much better admissions results to the same public U's to which he applied.</p>
<p>(4) The behavior of the College Park teachers:
"reprehensible," marite, is an understatement, in my view. They should be drawn & quartered. Victimize the students, there ya' go: true professionalism. Not much different from medical personnel refusing to send immunization records to a college because they're "mad" about something. How mature, how ethical. It's called compliance. Whatever kluge's or anyone else's "fluffy" characterization happens to be about the value of recs, they are required by most private institutions. Shame on those teachers.</p>
<p>What's interesting to me is that my daughter has received a fair number of those "priority application" emails and mailings in the past few weeks...and nearly all of them waive having to send in teacher recommendations. These are not from third tier schools, either. Many of the largest public university systems - such as the U of California - don't even consider teacher recommendations. So, I suspect that, on some level, at least some colleges are recognizing that teacher recommendations really don't add a whole lot that is absolutely necessary to making an admissions decision. (By the way, the National Association of College Admissions Counselors annual study on admisisons factors found that the school recommendation carries more weight overall in the admissions decision than teacher recommendations. IT also found that small schools and the most selective schools are the ones most likely to use teacher recommendations as tip factors.)</p>
<p>I also suspect that 90-95% of teacher recommendations for different kids would sound pretty much alike if you laid them side by side. Let's face it: most teachers these days, especially in large public schools, really don't "know" the kids they teach. So, yeah, they can say "Joe participates in class" or "Joe is a hard working kid with a great attitude" what more can they honestly say in most cases about most kids? </p>
<p>I am not bashing teachers here - I know and respect how hard they work and how much they care - but it is unrealistic for anyone to expect that most teacher recommendations are going to be truly unique and different for each child except in a few instances.</p>
<p>With all due respect, Marite, the statement that "life is not fair" is not a strong response to a comment about the unfairness of a particular process, in my opinion. Suggesting a manner in which life can be made less unfair is always worthwhile. The example you cite - the lack of academic support at a particular student's school -- is relevant to that student's college application. Acknowledging that fact is a recognition that life is not fair but we can try to make it less unfair. The University of California acknowledges this fact in its applications process, but relies on objective standards, not LORs, to apply it to the admissions process. Relying on LOR's to bring it to the attention of Adcoms is unnecessary and unreliable - like just about everything else connected with LORs. </p>
<p>As to the subjectivity of grades, that's true to an extent, but tends to be ironed out by the fact that each student receives many grades. So if a student gets shafted in one class (or get an undeserved A, for that matter) the impact will be diluted by the other 30 or so grades on a kid's transcript. But each student only submits a few LORs - and 99% of them are just routine rehashing of facts evident on the face of the transcript blandly seasoned with the same group of tired adjectives. I'm sure there are lots of stellar students who simply didn't have a conscientious and articulate teacher they "connected" with in a subject they were excited about. And it's kind of like none of them are going to be able to get an "A" in a third of their classes due to that fact -- no matter how good they are or how hard they work. That's what I mean about an uneven playing field.</p>
<p>And the suggestion that LORs are a good thing because they enable a teacher or counselor to torpedo a student's application based on an unproven suspicion of plagiarism - well, I'm really not all that comfortable with that, to be honest. That just brings up an area even more subject to abuse. I acknowledge that no system is perfect, and that there will always be someon trying to work the system, but I see LORs as 99% useless and the utility and reliability of the remaining 1% as being pretty random.</p>
<p>carolyn, I could not disagree more with your second paragraph. I don't know how much you talk to teachers about things like details about your student, class dynamics among the students, etc., but it is astounding to me how much teachers can pick up, in a small to mid-size school, about individual characteristics of students, & the academic comparisons between students, within even a few short weeks. </p>
<p>The Back to School night occurs a mere 3 weeks after the start of school, in the case of my D's h.s. Consistently, year after year, even short conversations I've had with these teachers have turned up amazingly detailed observations from them about both of my daughters. Given that, it is doubtful that any teachers at that school would ever write such shallow & generic comments about a student such as you have suggested. And while I will grant you that larger classes in very large schools may make it more difficult to draw fine distinctions, I would not be surprised if many of those teachers are also able to do so; after all, they multi-task for a living. I've noticed that this is particularly true for veteran teachers. They have their protocols & their classroom management on such auto-pilot that they are freer to pay attention to details. Whether teachers of large classes can devote the time to communicating those details, is another question. But I think you definitely underestimate how perceptive most teachers are.</p>
<p><small schools="" &="" the="" most="" selective="" are="" likely="" to="" use="" teacher="" recs="" as="" tipping="" factors.="">
Well, yes.... hello. With the numbers of students seeking "Most selective schools," the importance of teacher recs is magnified.</small></p><small schools="" &="" the="" most="" selective="" are="" likely="" to="" use="" teacher="" recs="" as="" tipping="" factors.="">
</small>
<p>Ephiphany,
I do talk to the teachers at my childrens' school frequently and in depth. This is a private, college prep school with 1500 students. While some teachers do know some kids very well, most teachers do not know all of the kids in the depth and detail you describe at your daughter's school. You're quite lucky that your children attend such a school.</p>
<p>This is especially true for the good-but-quiet kids like my daughter. If asked, most of her teachers would say exactly that: She's a good girl, a good student, but on the quiet side. She does have some teachers who know her a little better, but I doubt they know her dreams and aspirations in any particular depth. My son - the outgoing football player who lives to debate in class discussions - well, that's a different story. Most teachers can tell me hundreds of stories about his antics in the classroom, both good and bad because he is such a noticeable character. Still, whether they know him in any depth beyond that is a good question. </p>
<p>So, while teachers may know some kids, I doubt they can speak in depth about EVERY student that passes through their class, especially at schools where there are 2500 or 3000 students. That is an unrealistic assumption.</p>
<p>But carolyn, do the adcoms really expect "in depth" recommendations? I think your example of your son makes the point about the value of recommendations. Colleges read the student's essays to learn about the student's dreams and aspirations. They read the recs to see what the student adds to the classroom. In the case of your son, "living to debate in class discussions" would add quite a lot. :)<br>
Recs are one subjective opinion of a student's classroom performance. They can give the adcom a clue into the student's curiosity, love of learning, energy, enthusiasm, team spirit, competitive drive, imagination, sense of humor, compassion , and on and on. Usually student's stand out in one or more of these areas, ( or dozens of others) and teachers can give specific examples of how these positive traits affected their class and helped make the learning process better for all. Which traits, exacty, a teacher might pick out for a particular student is what makes them unique and helps the adcoms get an idea of what kind of contribution the student would make at their school. Why wouldn't they want this information? Sure it's just one opinion, but they know this. The recs can help round out a student, or solidify what's already shown in other parts of the application. I think they generally help, not hurt, all students, providing the student picks a teacher who genuinely likes them.</p>
<p>carolyn, regarding the 2nd paragraph of this most recent post, yes, the quieter students are definitely more difficult to get to know. -- Remember, I have one of those! :-) . However, I think this is where we parents can be of help: (1) I've mentioned that to a couple of teachers; their response was to take extra care to get to know her & be the one to take the initiative to probe; that doesn't take hours & hours, weeks & weeks of a busy teacher's schedule -- again, because if they have any experience, a slight attention to that situation is likely to have an efficient result. (2) I think we parents need to counsel our students to take initiative themselves, in developing a partnership, a "connection," a mentoring situation with a teacher. I know I've suggested that to other parents of quiet students; the families have encouraged the students to do just that, & with positive results. (3) Sometimes it does mean that a private appointment is called for between parent & teacher (esp. in a large school), & that can also result in subsequent careful observation of a "retiring" student.</p>
<p>As to "speaking in depth," again -- depending on the experience of the teacher, the level of their perception, & their communication skills -- a little can go a long way. One of my older D's teachers offered unsolicited a portion of what she says was a short recommendation about my D. Yet the few words spoke volumes about the quality of the student. No, you're right: not all teachers are equally skilled in doing this. (And, btw, this particular teacher has the largest course & e.c. load in the school! It's not the available time of the teacher, necessarily; it's the skill combined with motivation.) Nor are all teachers in large schools equally morally committed to the quality of the rec. But it is possible to bridge some of these observational gaps with effort by student & family.</p>
<p>And while I agree with you that extroverts are easier to read, not all teachers favor them over introverts. (Partly depends on teacher's own personality!) And extroverts being so highly visible, there's a downside as well. Adults often expect much more of the "visible" students & judge them more critically. You gotta be careful when it's all out on the table like that. The extroverted students we know actually did not do as well in admissions results (vs. their desires) as my introverted D.</p>
<p>I came from a high school with 3000 students, the largest high school in NC. My teachers knew all of us very well, but I doubt they could recognize any of our parents, who seldom placed a foot on campus. Based on my own limited experience, I would venture to say parent intervention/involvement is possibly overrated. </p>
<p>However, if your teacher does not know you well enough to write a good rec, why choose that teacher? Once again, you come to common sense. When choosing a teacher to write a rec, you should choose a teacher who knows you well. I am definitely an introvert, but my teachers wrote some things in my recs that pleasantly surprised me- I had no idea they had noticed the little things I did that they wrote about. </p>
<p>As far as counselors go, well...
1) They were useless. They forgot to nominate people for the Morehead, and we're in-state.
2) You're only allowed to see your counselor if you schedule it a week in advance (aka lots of red tape).
3) Not only did each counselor have 7-800 students, but I had a different counselor each of my four years. There was no way they got to know me. </p>
<p>Luckily, there is often a loophole that many people don't use. If your counselor doesn't know you that well, another qualified school official can write a rec. I asked my IB coordinator to write mine since I'd known her since middle school. I didn't have a problem doing this at any of my schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The University of California acknowledges this fact in its applications process, but relies on objective standards, not LORs, to apply it to the admissions process. Relying on LOR's to bring it to the attention of Adcoms is unnecessary and unreliable - like just about everything else connected with LORs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What do you mean by objective? GPAs? Board scores? Despite your disclaimers, you seem to think that these are objective. They are not. Not even from the same teacher in the same class, let alone from different teachers, in different classes, from different schools in different districts.</p>
<p>I really don't see what the fuss is about the subjectivity of LORs. Grading is subjective. How many students have lamented that their teachers do not like them and therefore have given them a lower grade than they merited? Some of it is actually true. I've experienced being given high grades because the teachers "knew" I was a good student.</p>
<p>I had a chance to look at my son's recs (after he was admitted). The GC drew attention to the fact that my S had taken APs while in middle school. I doubt the adcom would have connected the dots by merely looking at the year when the AP exams were taken--and my S did not mention that fact in his application. Surely, the adcoms were swayed by the recs. </p>
<p>You dismiss LORs because your child is interested in schools where they are not required. Fine. There are other cases where they may not make a difference. That's okay, too. But in some, they do make a difference. But there are colleges where they are gone over with a fine tooth comb, and I have evidence of that. And it's not for teachers who are paid to write them to decide which is which. Epiphany would have the recalcitrant teachers drawn and quartered; I am not as bloodthirsty as that :)</p>
<p>Carolyn:</p>
<p>S1 was a quiet student. I mentioned it at early parents-teachers conferences, and, as in the case of Epiphany, the teachers promised to try to draw him out. Several years after he graduated, when I had occasion to bump into the teachers and GC who had written recs for him, they still remembered him and asked about him. So despite his quietness, he had made an impression! I do think good teachers will look out for the good but quiet student.</p>
<p>What do I mean by objective? </p>
<p>
[quote]
A disadvantaged educational/school environment indicates that the applicant attends a California high school that is among the 4th or 5th quintile of all California public high schools using the following academic indicators: high school completion rate, percentage of students enrolled in college preparation classes, percentage of students enrolled in Advanced Placement/Honors courses, percentage of students admitted to the UC/CSU, and the percentage of students taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT).
[/quote]
--That's from the UCSD admissions website explaining how this factor is determined. Looks pretty objective to me. </p>
<p>
[quote]
You dismiss LORs because your child is interested in schools where they are not required.
[/quote]
I didn't say that and no reasonable person would infer that from what I did say. It also doesn't follow logically from the position I took. All I suggested was that my kids have been neither helped nor hurt by LORs, so I don't have an axe to grind one way or the other: I can be objective on the subject, pro or con. My son may change his mind; that simply would raise the stakes for me personally. (And I don't know where my daughter will want to apply to in two years, so it's not an entirely academic issue for me.) </p>
<p>Nothing that the pro-LOR contingent has said in this thread has come close to convincing me that LORs are worth the time, effort and trouble they require. A few students will benefit from them - that's been made clear. The necessary corollary - that an equal number of students will suffer from the lack of a connection with an articulate and interested teacher due to no fault of their own - balances that out as far as I'm concerned. And nobody seems to want to touch the "suspected plagiarism" post with a ten foot pole.</p>