<p>My daughter did an unpaid internship this past summer. She asked her supervisor for a general letter of recommendation, and it just arrived. Overall it's a very nice letter, but there are two or three fairly minor typos. Probably no one would notice unless she was going for an editing job. Still, the errors do detract a bit from the letter. I imagine the text is stored in Word on her supervisor's computer and would be fairly easy to fix, but D doesn't feel comfortable asking for a corrected version. Any opinions? In general, is it okay to ask someone to redo a letter of recommendation?</p>
<p>Personally, I would leave it alone. Did this person also give you copies that were sealed in envelopes? Every letter of recommendation that my boys submitted (for college applications and transfer applications) were "sealed"--the writer sealed the recommendation in envelopes and signed across the seal. A tear in the signature across the sticky part of the closed envelope indicates that confidentiality of the recommendation has been broken. I'm not sure if it's mandatory to send them the way we did but it was recommended by their guidance office.</p>
<p>I would leave it alone, too. After all, it is not your daughter who wrote the letter, and her writing skills and grammar knowledge are not reflected by little typos made by someone else. I'm absolutely positive admissions officers would not hold it against her. Good luck to her in her college application process!</p>
<p>My d's GC recommendation had typos too. I don't think it's any big deal. D got into many top colleges & an Ivy. Just make sure everything she personally completes (essay, resume, application) does not have any typos and she will be fine. Good luck.</p>
<p>Cringe and write a thank you note.</p>
<p>Don't sweat it. If it was her English teacher then it might matter, but not in this instance.</p>
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Cringe and write a thank you note.
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<p>Because teachers are not allowed to be human...</p>
<p>Don't mention it.</p>
<p>Agreed-- I'd leave it alone. The head of the homeless shelter where my s did volunteer work wrote a letter for him, as did one of the teachers there. Neither were extremely well written and had some grammatical errors and typos, but the letters came from their heart and that is what matters. I think the colleges will not see the typos as a reflection on your d. No worries.</p>
<p>Hi Lurkness,
Agree with most of the above posters. As long as the supervisor didn't substitute another name for your daughter's name, (;)), I'd leave it alone and wouldn't worry.</p>
<p>Leave it alone. It is not going to reflect on your D, but the supervisor, and I am sure they get a fair number with typos of the sort you describe.</p>
<p>Say nothing.</p>
<p>In many cases, students don't even see the letters of recommendation that are written for them so they would not be aware of any typos.</p>
<p>The only time I would be concerned about typos is if the person was recommending the student for a job or internship that required editorial skills and if this particular recommendation focused on those skills. In that instance, it would be obvious to the recipient of the letter that the person who wrote it was not qualified to judge the student's performance in this area. But in all other instances -- including a college admissions recommendation from an English teacher -- I don't think it matters. It may reflect badly on the recommender (if the person reading the recommendation even notices such things at all, which many do not), but it would not reflet badly on the student.</p>
<p>I am relieved to see these opinions.</p>
<p>D has danced at the same studio for 12 years, and she mentioned once having her studio director possibly write a letter of rec for her (not an academic one, obviously, but maybe an extra one). The problem is that the director is a great dance teacher and choreographer, but her written newsletters are full of typos, grammatical errors, etc. I was sort of afraid that adding a rec from her might do more harm than good. But perhaps we will leave that as a possiblity.</p>