I’m convinced most parents SAY that, but too many don’t actually believe it. One of my kids worked a summer job along with a few friends this year. She left after school started, but a good friend stayed and works mainly weekends. The manager was very nice and got along well with the teen employees.
My daughter thought about asking him to write a LOR, but ended up not needing it. Her friend who stayed asked, and he said he’d gladly write one IF she promised not to use it for a highly selective school where his daughter is applying. She can use it anywhere else, but not the school where he sees her as being “the competition.” What kind of a message is this to send to a young person (who happens to be a great employee)? Why is everything a competition? I told the girl to politely thank him, but let him know that it’s no longer needed. This makes me so sad. I hate how people feel their child(ren) miss out on something when others succeed.
I dont find this to be true at all except for parents who are really into LACs and stats.
All of our professional friends their kids went or are going (Surgeon, Lawyer, CFO) to Texas schools and wouldn’t want it any other way.
Funny every college tour I went on had parents talking all day about stats, schools, rank, reach, but back to real life in Texas no one cares that we know.
Texas A&M, UT Austin, or Baylor is where all of them go.
Sorry, never heard any parent say that college admission was “NOT” a competition. (Now our GC tries the best that he can to support the party line, but parents aren’t buying it.)
I doubt it will matter that she didn’t get a LOR from him. She has two from teachers, but wanted to highlight that she also held a job.
The manager is not American, but has been here over twenty years. He often joked with the teens that they had better do well in school or they’d end up having a job like his. It’s just a shame that he feels that helping this girl means hurting his child.
@emptynesteryet I know both types of parents, with most in my friend circle being less concerned with competition than with solid, affordable schools.
I can’t really let this rude and uncalled for comment pass without calling it out. This is ridiculous – what evidence do you have that parents looking into LACs or encouraging their kids in that direction are particularly competitive? I see them as no more competitive than any other set of schools or majors out here. How does “small school” or “liberal arts education” translate into competitive?
It is sad the manager felt that way, but I suppose at least he was honest. What if the employee did want to apply to the same school as his daughter? Would he have written a poor LOR? That would have been truly awful for everyone.
Fortunately it’s a somewhat hypothetical situation. Colleges are primarily interested in teacher’s LORs. If anything tips the needle, it’s likely going to be having a job and the dedication and responsibility and lessons learned from the job, not the LOR from the boss.
I suppose it’s better than purposely tanking her on a recommendation. People have a lot of misconceptions about college admissions. In the end, I’m not sure any of those reccomendations mean all that much unless it were to support and explain something odd with stats and transcript. People are always going to be weird.
Yes, it is a competition, obviously, when there are more applicants than available spaces. Whether that employer was justified in his actions, or whether such a letter even matters, are separate questions. You will have an easier time going through the process if you recognize the reality of its inherently competitive nature.
Most schools, especially the top schools, will only consider LORs from an academic (someone who’s taught the student). So a summer employer is irrelevant. Much ado about nothing, IMO.
I cannot think of any experience more competitive than college admissions, short of the Olympics!
I echo @momofsenior1. It is most ethical for alumni who are interviewers/admissions volunteers to take a year off in the year they have a child applying to college. Some colleges are even explicit that they should do so.
When you know that the number of students taken from your child’s high school and surrounding towns will be miniscule relative to the number of applicants, how could you promote someone else’s child?
Letters of recommendation do matter, although it is the ones from teachers and guidance counselor/school that matter most. That was a clear take-away both from comments by admissions officers quoted on CC and elswhere (I recall a really strong statement of the importance of recommendations by a Dartmouth a.o.?), and from the mock admissions committee meeting my family attended at an event for the children of alumni at Vassar. I remember our family talking in the car afterwards about how that potentially could be unfair because some recommenders write better than others; we thought that variations in recommendations are due to the recommenders’ writing talents and insights as much or more than to the students’ abilities and impact.
^I tried unsuccessfully to find the Dartmouth statement that stuck in my memory when I read it once upon a time. But I did find this interesting and nuanced commentary on the importance of letters of recommendation (in the answer to the last question in this interview) by an admissions dean, Fitzsimmons of Harvard.
@intparent this is my experience. I’ve never heard anyone bring up rank, usnwr, or talk about so many other schools pecking order based off “that” stuff and all the places their child is applying except when touring LACs.
At big schools nary a word of this stuff aside from maybe a test score …sorry there is no document to cite. Just my life expereince yours may be different.
@TheGreyKing “…how could you promote someone else’s child?” Wow. Seriously? I guess we must be from different planets. The attitude that anything positive that happens to someone else results in something negative for you is precisely the problem. The girl will be fine without the manager’s LOR, but my issue with the whole situation is that he turned it into a you vs. me competition, when it’s not.
I have yet to meet anyone who applied to a good variety of schools who didn’t get accepted to at least one of them. Students are NOT competing with each other. There’s no trophy that comes along with a college acceptance. I’ve already told my D that within her friend group it’s more important to support each other through the process than anything else. Some will get into schools where the others will be denied. They will all end up where they should. There is no win or lose.
One last thing - the manager knew that his D and the employee were applying to the same selective school. Other than his crazy response about the LOR, the kids all really like him, including my own D. He obviously wants the best for his child. I just think he went about it the wrong way.