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<p>Exaggerate much?</p>
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<p>Umm, you may want to get your facts straight before making more crazy statements like this. At our school, all teachers write rec’s - and there is no disparity in the numbers requested from any one subject</p>
<p>Besides - writing rec’s IS part of a faculty member’s job and our teachers enjoy doing so because they enjoy helping students they have taught</p>
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<p>Do you really think that all teachers from all subjects equally write recs? I think you need to get your facts straight. I have several family members who are high school teachers and they would tell you quite a different story. Freshmen teachers don’t write recs very often, PE teachers don’t write recs very often, I could go on and on.</p>
<p>And, if ALL teachers love writing recs so much, why do we have students here on CC complaining that have to beg, remind, and cajole some of their teachers to write their recs and get them done on time?</p>
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<p>CC students probably comprise one-bazillionth of the student population in general which requests recs.</p>
<p>And CC students who complain about having to cajole probably comprise one-millionth of the CC population in general which requests recs.</p>
<p>You’re formulating a theory based on the smallest possible body of evidence you can drum up!</p>
<p>You’re right, freshmen teachers probably do not write recs very often. But they teach kids right out of middle school, which may have its own set of “overtime requirements”. You’re right, PE teachers don’t write recs very often, but perhaps their “required overtime” is lots of coaching (and sniffing around the locker room for alcohol or dirty laundry).</p>
<p>The point is, ALL teachers have requirements outside the 4 (or 3 or 6) classes they teach. There’s ALWAYS extra work involved, whether it’s writing recs or supervising detention duty or leading the club that, every year, dishes out food at the soup kitchen on Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>That’s what being a teacher is all about. If somebody wants to make widgets in a factory, punch a clock, and get paid for every second of overtime, s/he should NOT go into teaching.</p>
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<p>Actually, our teachers are funded to do caf. and detention duty. They teach 5 class periods, have one “duty” period and then 3 free periods.</p>
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<p>I believe class ranking at our school is done by a computer program. Not too hard or time consuming.</p>
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<p>I have my facts straight. Please do not tell me pretend to know what goes on at my school. The only teachers who do not write recs are PE teachers. But a lot of them coach and as coaches, they often advocate for their athletes in the college admissions process. We don’t have freshman teachers. Our faculty teach a mix of all grades. A student could have a teacher for a freshman class and again for a senior class. In fact, it is not unusual for students from different grades to be in the same class. So go on and on all you want -you are wrong.</p>
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<p>I am not speaking for ALL teachers - I am speaking about our teachers at my school. No one, you included even though you have tried, can make blanket statements about all teachers and be accurate.</p>
<p>Also, its my perception that CC students / parents are far more anal than most other students when it comes to the college process and they represent a very very , very small subset of the population. So no one can extrapolate some complaints here into a blanket statement</p>
<p>What berryberry said. Anyone who thinks that CC is representative of college-bound high school students needs a reality check of their own. And of all the burning issues facing the public schools with regard to funding and the allocation of teacher time – and there are many of them – I wouldn’t put this question in the top 50.</p>
<p>Anyone who is unwilling to write recs shouldn’t go into teaching as a career. It comes with the territory. It always has and probably always will.</p>
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<p>Like I said on the first page, it depends on the school. Our HS does not have “Frosh” and “Senior” teachers (nor GCs, for that matter). AP teachers also teach Frosh courses, as well as Sophomores. And, many coaches also write recs for their players. Of course, coaches are also academic core teachers, whether it be math, history, science or english. (No foreign language teachers at our HS are teachers.)</p>
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<p>mom2collegekids–I guess I’m wondering why you started this thread if you don’t believe in your point. But, since you are still arguing so strenuously, I think you might actually believe in your theses. I would agree with the majority of posters who feel that you are being a tad overdramatic and not particularly accurate because (i) transcripts and counselor recommendations are not an issue, either from a cost or a time allocation standpoint and (ii) while I believe that some teachers are overburdened because they are known to write excellent, thoughtful recommendations, it certainly isn’t a cost issue (since a teacher generally only writes one recommendation for each student and then copies it for different schools and/or submits it online) and for most teachers, the time spent on recommendations is anticipated and in many ways considered part of the job.</p>
<p>hudsonvalley:</p>
<p>In my D’s school, the kids select the “great” teachers…like your wife.</p>
<p>Most colleges do ask for an “academic” recommendation, so of course that narrows your field of selection. Then you hopefully want an 11th grade teacher, since senior year teachers don’t know you very well yet (if you’re not waiting until 12/31 to apply, that is). So you only normally have 4-5 choices. Then they pick their favorite teacher from that small pool. </p>
<p>So…what the most popular of my D’s teachers does is to limit the number of students whose request they can accept. I don’t know all their systems, but the teacher my daughter wanted most had a “sign-up” paper on his door the FIRST day of school. He takes only 10 students per year. By lunch, the paper was full and it only took that long because he doesn’t publicize it so it had to filter around this large school by word of mouth (I’m sure some kids with older siblings knew about it, but nobody would probably tell anyone that secret until he/she got THEIR name on the list first). It’s just the only fair way, I guess. Fair to both the student and teacher. It has to be a bit heartbreaking for the teacher (and certainly for the students), but it limits the work that any given teacher has to do, and seems to work well.</p>
<p>To the poster who menation “charging” for the service…you said they charge for “extra” transcripts. And I’m OK with that. But one could probably never charge for a recommendation. That’s a sticky situation that could easily get out of control. It’s probably ALREADY being done in rare instances by unscrupulous people. “Uhhhh…$30 for a recommendation huh? Well how much for a truly stellar recommendation”?</p>