<p>“Secondly, reading your letter of recommendation is not a bad thing either. If a teacher is willing to give you the letter, it is not unethical for you to choose the better recommendations. Let’s liken this to getting a free fruit from a friend. If the fruit is rotten, why should you eat it? Why should a student send in a letter of recommendation that would harm him/her.”</p>
<p>Because teachers have to spend a lot of time writing these letters, thus enabling them to write only a limited amount and by choosing more than the number of teachers required, you limit the opportunities of other students.</p>
<p>" Of course, I didn’t feel comfortable with pointing out mistakes on my teachers recommendations, so I simply thanked them and sent the letters in (after a peak, couldn’t help it)."</p>
<p>You should have pointed out any errors. This is why the teachers showed the letters to you. They wanted the letters to be accurate.</p>
<p>When I taught college, I showed students my letters of recommendation before mailing them. I wanted the students to check for errors.</p>
<p>I only wrote recommendations for students whom I could give good recommendations to. This is why I had no probs showing them the letters. I believed in those students, and wanted the letters to support their aspirations.</p>
<p>“When I was commenting recs to my English teacher she suddenly started telling me how tiring it was to write recs and how she’d like to charge for it as it wasn’t part of her job. Now that’s a big hint there, but as I’m overseas and the number of students asking for recs a year is less than 3 I think she’s making too big a fuss of it. Your opinion?”</p>
<p>My opinion is that you should have asked another teacher to write yoru recommendation. It was a mistake to ignore the enormous hint that the English teacher didn’t want to be bothered.</p>
<p>Well, there really weren’t many glaring errors in them. In fact, I was pretty happy with them. In my school, hardly anyone applies to top-tier colleges, so I don’t really think the teachers are thinking about colleges getting angry with the students reading the recs. Anyway, I’m sure the colleges get a lot of recommendations that the students have read, whether they can tell or not. Since different schools have different ways of handling rec letters, the admissions committee can’t just decide to take some recommendations seriously and some not.</p>
<p>spoonyj – Appreciate what you’re saying. When my father was sick, we had to send records from the doctor up north to the doc in florida – and the doc in Florida (who was great) expressed surprise that the up-north doc actually sent the records. He said most of the time they never get them. And he felt for this reason, that people should not migrate back and forth to Florida if they’ve got medical issues.</p>
<p>I think this is unethical! It opens up a world of problems, and could easily lead to alligations of bribery. If a teacher is that concerned about his time being wasted, he should submit the letter himself.</p>
<p>They’re teachers for a reason. :]
If you don’t like writing recs… why are you a teacher! Students shouldn’t have to pay for a rec… if they’re good students, the teacher should be happy to do it.</p>
<p>It’s that kind of unappreciative attitude that probably ticks off teachers. They’re doing it to help you, but it’s not their job/responsibility.</p>
<p>Here’s an idea: I can only speak for the district I work in (I teach elementary), but secondary teachers here have a lot of down time the last week of school. Most are done with grading finals and report cards. Why not have juniors request their recs in June and have the teachers give them directly to the guidance counselors. Students can give stamped addressed envelopes to the gc’s with their transcript requests. I wouldn’t work for all situations, but it would cut down on a crush of requests in the fall. This is exactly what I will do with my daughter, as my son had one teacher who kept promising him that he “was almost done with the rec”, “I’ll have in done on Monday” etc. He never did get that rec and had to go to another teacher at the last minute. I have friends who teach hs juniors and they told me they would welcome this and were going to suggest it to their students.</p>
<p>It may not be their job, but good teachers make it part of their job – the best teacher I ever had took the time to work on recommendation letters while manning the picket line during a teachers strike. They may have to limit how many they do, and they may have to decline to write letters if they honestly don’t think they can write a good one. Heck, I don’t mind if they decline to write one because the student appears to be unappreciative – seems a little petty though. But you can’t tell me that charging for them is appropriate.</p>
<p>i’ve had an experience like this. im a sr and asked my jr year english teacher, who regarded me as one of her best students, to write a rec for me. she was no longer working at the school but i had her number since i and my family were close to her. she told me that since she no longer works at the school and has her own tutoring business now, she would have to charge me $150 and tht if i couldnt pay, i could work it off for her. i was so shocked but just said ok to paying. im sure she put in a lot of time and wrote me a great rec but looking back on it, it seems so cheap and sleezy of her…she had even told my parents when leaving the school that she would love to stay in contact and would be happy to write me arec when the time came! i regret not saying nething to her but if i did, im sure my rec wouldnt be as great lol</p>
<p>chocolatechip, I would say that I feel bad for you, and I would get all sympathetic that you paid $150, but the fact of the matter I am not. Call me callous, but the fact is you knew that it would be money, and you had a choice to say no. It isn’t to single out chocolatechip, but sort of answer the question…it isn’t unethical. You are given the choice.</p>
<p>As a teacher, I would be hesitant to enter into any financial transaction with a student, it is too slippery a slope, especially if you are in a class and awaiting a grade. No teacher is requried to write a letter for anyone, the choice is simply to say no thank you. </p>
<p>Taking teacher recommendations (and the effort it takes to pen a well written, effective letter) for granted is one more example of the lack of respect teachers get these days.</p>
<p>glucose, the point is that a student shouldnt have to make that choice. that was the teacher that i had the closest relationship with and that would probably write me the best rec–why should i have to choose a different teacher that may not write me as glowing a rec? writing recs comes along with the job, esp for a teacher of jr or sr high school students. of course i could have declined and not paid but it may have hurt me in my college admissions process so i just went along with it. just because ur not forced into paying and have the choice to take another teacher’s rec instead, doesnt make it ok to charge.</p>
<p>i seem to remember getting one from my teacher and mailing it in myself. i didn’t do anything with the guidance counselers at my high school… took care of it all on my own.</p>
<p>no, i paid for it because i basically had no choice-i wantedthe best chance to get in to the school i was applying to and her rec clearly would be the best one. a senior citizen may pay exorbitant, unreasonable fees for health insurance and medication, not because they are acknowledging that its ethical, but because they have no choice.</p>