posted
Do you ever agree to write a recommendation for a student and then write a bad one?
Background info: I'm the editor of the Opinions section of my school's newspaper and there is one sophomore writer who particularly stands out because she gets articles in on time and writes them well. Anyways, she got a recommendation from a teacher for a summer program and the recommendation was horrible*. I won't copy and paste from it because I don't want to give away too much identifiable information, but it basically said that this girl was not very self-confident and was not particularly bright. The only positive comment was that she was motivated and loved science. In general, it just seemed like an awful thing to write.
If I was a teacher and was asked to write a recommendation for someone that I didn't like then I would just refuse to write one. I wouldn't try to screw them over.
Thoughts?
*I don't know if this girl was supposed to read the recommendation or not but she did.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
I would just kindly explain that I don't think I could offer a strong enough recommendation, and suggest that they ask someone else.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I would generally do what neo-dragon said, but on one occasion where I knew that my recommendation, such as it was, might actually be the best one the kid could get, I simply told him up front what I would have to be honest about, and let him decide if he wanted me to write it or not. Funny, I never heard from him again.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
That's awful. Even if I were unhappy with a student, I definitely wouldn't try and ruin their chances of success at something beyond my classroom.
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
My last two undergrads were awful, both premed and only there to add the job to their resume. Both asked my advisor for letters of rec for med school. He told them, ok, but here is what I can and cannot say. Both were juniors and had said that they would be doing their senior research in our lab. After that, we never heard from either again.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Papa Moose: I still have my letters of recommendation from my high school teachers. Sometimes I really think my glory days are so very far behind me.
Wanna hear about my SAT scores, too?
Except now they would sound really pathetic since SATs are now scored out of 2400.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I never saw my letters of recommendation. I was under the impression it was very much against the rules to share those with students.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: I never saw my letters of recommendation. I was under the impression it was very much against the rules to share those with students.
^^ Same here. They were confidential and I believe destroyed after they were received by it's intended recipients.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I think the rules generally are that the student must agree to let the recommender send it confidentially, and there are often systems set up to facillitate this (e.g., pre-addressed, stamped envelopes and/or a waiver to sign). In the case of letters of recommendation for medical schools, the students could refuse to waive the right to see the letters, but that was clearly noted on the form and the letters became essentially worthless.
However, I've never seen regulation that restricts the writer from sharing the letter if he/she wants to. That is to say, I've never been presented with a document or information instructing me not to share with the student, just an assurance that the confidentiality is there to rely on.
Except for rare cases, I always sent a copy of my recommendation to the student as well. I like them to know what I said, and it is a way of modelling the academic role -- we rarely get to see what such letters look like, and so many people don't know how to write a good one. Now, the students couldn't have asked me for a copy, mind you, but there weren't (IIRC) such constraints on what I chose to do with the information over and above that.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I've only written a couple of letters of recommendation (when I was a middle school teacher), and I was only asked by students that I had no problem finding things good about.
Though, when I was a student in high school, more than one of my teachers just wrote me a letter, gave it to me, and told me to mail it to however many colleges I needed to. I think I may still have a couple of them.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Out of my most recent round of reccommendations 2 of the five showed the letter to me before sending it. I did not ask, they offered (one asked me to proofread it!).
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I would never write a bad recommendation. I don't really agree with the system--it's necessarily discriminatory.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Recommendations generally are [as I suppose you note by "necessarily" ]. That is, they are supposed to discriminate between people you think are better or worse candidates for the position.
For some positions, it may be critical to have that information; or others, not so much.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by neo-dragon: I would just kindly explain that I don't think I could offer a strong enough recommendation, and suggest that they ask someone else.
Same here. I often ask undergraduate students who I don't know as well if there is anything they would like me to include in the letter. For the graduate students who I've worked with in depth, I usually send them a copy of the letter and sometimes ask if there is anything else I should include. I ask that because the students generally know more about the position or the scholarship than I do.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I would never write a poor recommendation, but I also wouldn't lie. Previous posters have summed it up for me.
Regarding confidentiality: It seems to me that the purpose for the pre-addressed sealed envelope is often to prevent applicants from forging or modifying letters of recommendation. I have often had teachers give me a copy of the letter or evaluation form they sent so that I would have a copy in my files. Very rarely have I seen it stipulated that the recommendation be kept confidential from the applicant.
I was very proud this last spring when I was applying for a new teaching job. I asked my college supervisor, the head of music education at the university I attended, for a letter. He was a particularly difficult professor to please. He demanded from us a very high level of analytical thought, rather than the mushy, touchy-feely mumbo jumbo that seems to predominate the field of teacher education (opinion based on my experience as a graduate student contrasting the music education program with the general teacher education courses). Anyway, he CC'd the letter to me, and it was filled with very high praise that he insisted in the letter wasn't hyperbole. I was glowing with self-confidence for days.
He even commented on aspects of my teaching that he could not have known about from my time as a student (that I have worked to refine my skills on each individual instrument, and that I use my playing as an effective model for the students to imitate). From this I can infer that he has heard this about my classroom teaching through the grapevine, so to speak, which demonstrates a concern for my career.
Edited to add: I got the new job, and I love it. W00t! (<---word of the year!)
Posts: 1099 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I have asked for a letter I could read before. I was interning at a company, my boss was very pregnant and not sure if she would come back. I knew I wouldn't need a letter for a while, but that one would be useful. Just before she went on maternity leave, I asked if she could write me a letter for my file. She said it was the easiest fastest letter she had ever written- very positive. She put it on official company letterhead and printed out several and signed each one. I am glad to have this since I haven't been able to find her since I finished my internship there. She didn't come back from maternity leave and the company went under. I have also been told to write a letter and then he would look it over and sign or change as necessary. Afterwards, the man said I wrote an excellent letter for myself (in terms of style and mixing anecdotes with general praise and addressing the needs of the company, etc).
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
When I was a grad student at UF, the general feeling was that if someone asked you for a rec, and you didn't feel that you could give them a good one, then you should tell that that you would not be a good choice.
If they still insist (and yes I have seen it done), then you don't write a "bad" one exactly, you just don't say anything very good. If in a letter you simply say "Student X was an assistant in my lab in X semester. For the most part they showed up at their assigned times, and tried to to the work assigned to them." the school will get an idea of what you are saying. Of course something like that would only be done after the professor told the student that they did not want to write a letter, and that it would not be a good idea to request one.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Papa Moose: I still have my letters of recommendation from my high school teachers. Sometimes I really think my glory days are so very far behind me.
Wanna hear about my SAT scores, too?
Except now they would sound really pathetic since SATs are now scored out of 2400.
I wouldn't be that sure. The average for college-bound seniors in 2007 was slightly over 1500.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I'm a middle school teacher, so I'm not asked to write that many. (More when I taught 8th grade.) I have definitely written truthful letters of rec. that are honest about a student's strengths and weaknesses. Those are usually the ones for a private high school that *requires* a letter from the current English teacher. Lots of lazy, mediocre kids from our school district want to switch to private high schools...and while I'd never say that the kid is lazy and mediocre in so many words, I am quite capable of saying it without saying it.
If a student asked me to write a letter of recommendation where they have a choice in who writes it, my reaction would be the same as Icarus. That is, I'd let the kid know that my recommendation wouldn't be 100% glowing, then let him or her make the decision.
I really like writing recommendation letters for students who are outstanding. It's still work, but it's pleasant work.
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I've got my history teacher from junior year writing me a rec for college, and I'm fully aware that not 100% of it is positive. However, I know that the positive aspects of it will out-weigh the negetive, so I'm okay with it. Since it includes the negetive, the colleges will believe the positive.
I hope my teachers let me read the recs...they preobably won't though.
Posts: 930 | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
I'm already racking up the reference-writing karma. I'm getting up into the 20+ range of grad-level letters, and a shameful number of them have been last-minute panic situations. I don't see the need for them ending any time soon, and when I start applying for jobs it's going to be even worse.
I will be glad to write letters, but I won't write them if I a) don't know the student well enough to say concrete things or b) believe the letter will be more negative than positive. And if I have to include significant negative things, I will meet with the student to discuss them, first. That courtesy was done to me, and I really appreciated it.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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]. That is, they are supposed to discriminate between people you think are better or worse candidates for the position. 
