<p>Out of curiosity, has anyone here ever gotten a “No” when they asked if a teacher could write them a positive letter of recommendation? If so, then please share your story.</p>
<p>Yes. I struggled my junior year in APUSH. I was never good at history and barely got a B in Honor World History 2 soph year (my school only has honors), so I signed up for honors us history, but got bumped up to APUSH 3 days before school started because of a scheduling conflict. I had a C first quarter and worked my butt off. I ended up with a B in the class and a 4 
on the exam. I asked my teacher if he’d write me a rec since I worked really hard to get where i was in a subject I wasn’t great at. He said he didn’t know how much a rec from him could help because he thought that i wasn’t bad at history, but rather I hadn’t applied myself in the past (which wasn’t true), and he didnt think that was a story to tell to admissions. So I left it at that. The real problem was I hated my english teacher that year and didn’t have one senior year (I took it online over the summer), plus my AP gov teacher was brand new to the school senior year. I ended up asking my senior lab director (who was my precalc teacher soph year) and my geosystems teacher who was really nice. I talked to him at the beginning of my senior year and explained my predicament and closer to app time we sat down for a half an hour and chatted about what I do for fun and stuff like that, so that he could get to know me better for the rec. I know he ended up writing a great one!</p>
<p>@guineagirl96 </p>
<p>At least he was honest. I have spoken to a few adcoms & a few have said that bad LORs tanked an otherwise flawless application. So sad b/c the applicant is clueless as to why they weren’t admitted. Better to know beforehand. Often times, how others view us, is far different from how we view ourselves. </p>
<p>I never personally got rejected from a teacher, but my English teacher last year limited herself to only writing ten recommendations. I’m not sure whether she took the first ten people who came to her or picked through all the students who asked her.</p>
<p>My friend asked my honors Biology teacher and he said no because he didn’t really know him. :)) </p>
<p>My CS professor did, despite me finishing with the highest grade out of all his classes (I believe it was 113/100). i think this might have had something to do with me showing up to about 3 classes total. </p>
<p>When I taught in a high school I rejected kids almost every year. It’s the ethical thing to do; I couldn’t have written the glowing rec letters that other teachers perhaps could. I did it gently and explained myself as fully as possible. Still wasn’t easy.</p>
<p>@SweetBro: your CS prof did you a favor. If he was honest, your LoR would have sunk you – think about it. </p>
<p>“SweetBro performs materials well; completely un-engaged; arrogant; we wouldn’t miss him if a meteor hit him yesterday.”</p>
<p>Not what you want a recommender to say, right?</p>
<p>^ Agree. 113/100 from attending 3 classes isn’t something to brag about. There are LoRs where the teacher says, “I don’t really know him.” That goes right back on the kid, for asking that teacher. Or not having taken the time.</p>
<p>@SweetBro and to this point, you were quite foolish (or blindly arrogant) to ask the CS prof, who probably held you in contempt, to begin with. Your anecdote is nothing to brag about.</p>
<p>I hope you’ve learned your lesson – even though you can perform a class’ assignments well, most fields/positions require you to interact with other humans. You might want to pay attn to this occasionally…</p>
<p>DS asked his Calculus teacher who did not say no, but rather an unenthusiastic yes saying he did not know my son outside of class. Each teacher is given a brag sheet before writing the letter so this should not have been an issue. Son participated in class and had an A in the class.</p>
<p>He decided to ask two other teachers (one teacher who knew him very well thru ECs and told him he was already #1 on list of students he would write letters for) who happily agreed to write him letters and thanked the Calculus teacher for being willing to write a letter, but said he would not need it. The teacher seemed happy to be let off the hook. To me this seemed a nice way of sending the student in another direction.</p>
<p>I think it is customary that if the teacher does not think they can write a favorable recommendation, then they politely decline if you ask them. I do not think any teacher wants to write a mediocre or poor recommendation letter. So if they decline, I would not take it personally as they are in fact helping you in the long run. Sometimes it is simply because they do not feel like they know you well enough, or it could be because if they are honest it would not be a positive letter. Either way you do not want that teacher writing for you. </p>
<p>I would rather a teacher reject my LOR request then agree to write it but write a mediocre one. My chem teacher and yearbook advisor once told me that when he doesn’t think he can write a strong or favorable LOR, he tells them so and suggests they find someone else. If they were insistent about it, he would agree, but he let them know he wouldn’t be the strongest choice</p>
<p>HarvestMoon1 is correct.</p>