Glowing teacher rec, but with poor grammar

Applying to College
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<p>One of my teachers bailed on me at the last second, so I had to ask my AP Government teacher for a recommendation to meet the deadlines. I’m planning on majoring in political science, and AP Government is my best class. The teacher also loves me. She’s also a college professor and has taught political science at the college level for over 20 years.</p>

<p>However, her grammar tends to leave something to be desired. It’s usually pretty good, but it’s a definite hit and miss. I know she wrote me a fantastic and glowing recommendation letter, but I’m wondering…how much will her grammar hurt me? Is her college prof status in my field enough to balance out the occasional grammatical mistake?</p>

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<p>The grammar won’t hurt you, but it will tell the colleges the quality of the teaching that you’ve been getting – so that will put your scores and grades into perspective. The colleges wouldn’t expect as much from you as they would from students who are fortunate enough to go to schools with teachers with excellent skills.</p>

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<p>it would be incredibly silly to extrapolate like that from the recommendation of one teacher, northstar, and colleges won’t do it.</p>

<p>That said, the grammar mistakes definitely won’t hurt you.</p>

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<p>I think that’s a bold statement. It is very hard, as a reader, to not have at least some question about the credibility and reliability of the person doing the ‘assessing’ when there are obvious problems with the grammar and writing.</p>

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<p>haha…AP Government teacher also has bad grammar. She’s an Japanese American. Anyway, i don’t think it would matter that much because there are other things that can cover up the bad grammar. For example, my teacher won this prestigous award and got to eat dinner with Clinton (when he was the president). So i don’t think her bad grammar would do harm to me. At least i hope not, cause she wrote my rec.</p>

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<p>I’m not saying it won’t affect you, but I really think it depends on how severe it is. Are her grammatical mistakes ones that are commonly made? How noticable are they? If it’s just missing a couple of commas that you think should be there or something to that degree, then you’re fine. A rec from a political science professor, when you intend to major in political science, is a plus. Given that many teachers are poor at English, I don’t think that it compromises the “quality of your education.” Otherwise, we would all be idiots.</p>

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<p>If a teacher’s recommendation were poorly written, filled with major grammatical errors, etc. it would not be silly for colleges to decide that reflected a poor quality of teaching in the student’s school.</p>

<p>I’ve had the opportunity to see a lot of teacher’s recommendations because I’ve served on scholarship committees, including national ones. The teacher recommendations from the best public and private schools are very well written: clear, logical, with excellent spelling and grammar. That’s not the case of recommendations that come from weak schools.</p>

<p>A teacher who is making major writing himself/herself obviously isn’t going to be able to help students become the best writers that the students are capable of becoming. Consequently, colleges could assume that if a high gpa student scored, for instance, lower on the SAT cr or writing than would be expected of students who are, for example, taking AP English and social science classes, the scores would reflect the poor quality of teaching, not the student’s inability to learn.</p>

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<p>My writing scores are fine…I got a 5 on the AP Language exam, a 760 on the cr part of my SAT and a 750 on the writing section. </p>

<p>Usually her writing problems are comma based (too many, wrong placement, no comma when there should be one, etc), but occasionally she’ll throw in a sentence fragment or run-on on our worksheets, too. However, she churns out a lot of worksheets, so I’m hoping that those are mostly based on lack of sleep / rushing. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were at least some on my rec.</p>

<p>My other recommendations (guidance counselor, AP Language teacher, and Senator Clinton) are all top-notch. I think I’m just being a nerves case…those other ones will surely make up for her grammatical problems, right?</p>

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<p>I had a teacher write a recommendation for an application to the Honors College at my school, which is pretty selective that said… “She is a very student.” And that I had established the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for my school when it was actually a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation volunteer program that I had been in. Besides those mistakes, the rest of the rec. was really well thought out, so I sent it in along with two other recs that were really good. Got in. So, I think it won’t matter TOO much if your other recs are really well done.</p>

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<p>grammar does not reflect a teacher’s ability to teach.</p>

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<p>As long as she didn’t rush and was wide awake when she wrote yours, it might be okay. But you did say last minute.</p>

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<p>It’s about YOUR ability to write. Hopefully, you’ve made sure that your writing is clear and free of grammar mistake.</p>

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<p>I have to agree with Northstar. It would be very hard not to let grammar issues affect my perceptions. OTOH, one single such rec would never make or break.</p>

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<p>You haven’t even seen the paper and your worrying about it’s grammer? I think you need to chill. I’m sure it has almost 0% chance of being the reason you’re admitted or rejected. If it was an english teacher, there might be some slight cause for concern, but teachers in other subjects don’t need to be flawless in grammer.</p>

<p>You gotta a rec from senator clinton?!? That’s pretty impressive.</p>

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<p>I attended one of the top schools in the area for HS and was shocked to read my Theory of Knowledge instructor’s letter of recommendation. It was full of gramatical and spelling errors.
It did not though keep me from getting accepted into Princeton, Stanford and the top UC’s.</p>

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<p>“If a teacher’s recommendation were poorly written, filled with major grammatical errors, etc. it would not be silly for colleges to decide that reflected a poor quality of teaching in the student’s school.”</p>

<p>Actually, it would be silly. It’s a complete non sequitur. Just because one teacher makes a few grammatical mistakes in one recommendation (all that these adcoms have to go on) does not mean that the teacher doesn’t know grammar (could have just been sloppily edited, quickly written, etc.) and it most assuredly doesn’t say anything about the grammar skills of any other teachers in the school. I don’t work in an admissions office so I can’t say for sure that adcoms don’t analyze things this deeply or irresponsibly. But, if they do, they are making a huge mistake, as did you if you extrapolated so unfairly when reviewing scholarship nominees. </p>

<p>Regardless, this thread was asking if the poor grammar would hurt the student, and the answer is categorically no. Colleges aren’t going to punish a student for mistakes that a teacher makes.</p>

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<p>LL, your categorical response is simply too categorical. </p>

<p>When I served on an adcom, I noticed that all of its members were human. </p>

<p>I imagine this is typical ;)</p>

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<p>point taken.</p>

<p>But the question remains: would you have dinged a kid because one of his rec’s contained grammatical mistakes?</p>

<p>For the record, my point was that this is absolutely not something the OP should be worrying about. Yes, it’s true that adcoms are human, but then you could also make the point that an adcom might reject someone because they had too many letters in their first name. In both cases, it’s not something that’s worth worrying about.</p>

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<p>"I don’t work in an admissions office so I can’t say for sure that adcoms don’t analyze things this deeply or irresponsibly. But, if they do, they are making a huge mistake, as did you if you extrapolated so unfairly when reviewing scholarship nominees. "</p>

<p>What’s unfair about taking into account the apparent quality of a student’s education when looking at the student’s scores, etc.?</p>

<p>In one case that I remember well, a student’s recommendation by his AP English was very poorly written – bad grammar, poor sentence structure, etc. . The student, who was carrying an “A” in AP English submitted an essay that also was poorly written. </p>

<p>It was clear to the committee that the student’s weak writing was a reflection of inadequate teaching, not a lack of intelligence or talent. It’s very hard for most students to learn how to write excellently if their English teachers have bad skills in English.</p>

<p>The student was accepted into a journalism program for talented high school students because the committee didn’t expect that student to write an essay that was as good as that of the students whose English teachers’ recommendation letters were well written. As top colleges do, we viewed the student’s accomplishments and skills in light of his schooling.</p>

<p>The student also ended up becoming a journalist and doing well in the field.</p>

<p>"Actually, it would be silly. It’s a complete non sequitur. Just because one teacher makes a few grammatical mistakes in one recommendation (all that these adcoms have to go on) does not mean that the teacher doesn’t know grammar (could have just been sloppily edited, quickly written, etc.) and it most assuredly doesn’t say anything about the grammar skills of any other teachers in the school. "</p>

<p>If the teacher teaches is in a writing-intensive field like English, psychology, government, bad grammar, etc. does indicate that the school doesn’t have high standards for hiring teachers.</p>

<p>For instance, after parents in one of my S’s rigorous high school magnet program complained about an English teacher who had horrendous grammar and writing skills, the principal moved her into the regular school where she was allowed to be department head. Why? Parents in the regular school lacked both the educational background and the school involvement to realize how incompetent she was. Schools like that end up having teachers that the better schools either don’t hire or quickly get rid of.</p>

<p>English teachers in particular know how what they write is a reflection of their school and of their skills and intelligence. Consequently, presumably they would do their best to write well on recommendations. An English teacher whose recommendations have blatant grammatical errors probably is not correcting her/his students’ errors either (If indeed the teacher even has the skills to recognize the students’ errors.)</p>

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<p>I agree with everything you said when you’re referring to this one specific teacher/class. My point, which you seemed to have missed, is that it is unfair to generalize about the overrall faculty from one example of one teacher. </p>

<p>“If the teacher teaches is in a writing-intensive field like English, psychology, government, bad grammar, etc. does indicate that the school doesn’t have high standards for hiring teachers.”</p>

<p>While this is entirely possible, it’s not fair to assume, as it’s just as possible that the teacher’s application presented perfect grammar, good writing, etc. For all you know, this could be the first time the teacher has ever submitted something this poorly written. The point is that you just don’t know, and so it is completely unfair to generalize, especially when the only “facts” you have are one writing sample of one teacher.</p>

<p>P.S. “If the teacher teaches is in” isn’t exactly the hottest grammar either, now is it? Should I assume you write like that all the time? Or that everyone else on your scholarship committee writes like this?</p>