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<p>I would not. However, knowing myself, I would have thought, “what sort of school is that anyway?” --whether or not I should have thought that.</p>
<p>My science teacher gave me a great attached letter, but in the “words that come to mind when you think of this student” section, he wrote “very competant”. Apparently this was supposed to be a great compliment, but it sounds horrible and was spelled wrong…I don’t think it’ll count against me that much because the rest of his letter and everything was fine. I think it also depends on the subject the teacher teaches (in this case, all science classes).</p>
<p>^^^ definately, your ttly rite ;)</p>
<p>“very competant”</p>
<p>The appropriate response is to laugh and think wow, this teacher sure messed that up, then move on.</p>
<p>The inappropriate response is to say Whoa! this teacher can’t spell ‘competent’, he/she must be a terrible teacher…every teacher at the school must be a terrible teacher…this student must not have learned anything…this student will surely not do well at our school…we should reject him/her.</p>
<p>Apparently Northstar worries many adcoms will do the latter. I don’t. Think whatever you like. </p>
<p>teacher recs can only hurt you if the teacher wrote something bad about you i.e. you were lazy etc etc. The fact she had grammar errors will make her rec lose weight, but in terms of admissions it will not hurt your admissions but may not help you as much as it could have.</p>
<p>lux,
Post #24 indicates you have misread my post. My point was virtually the opposite of what you think.</p>
<p>“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>People generalize all of the time. Indeed, that’s how colleges decide whether or not to accept students. For colleges that consider essays as part of the admissions, bad writing, bad grammar, an unwise choice of subject by the student may cause the student to be rejected. Colleges also generalize about a school based on information from the GCs and from teachers’ recommendations. </p>
<p>While we’re on the subject of generalizations, I recently was part of a committee that made a decision to not offer a college student an unpaid internship because the student’s cover letter contained several spelling and grammatical errors. This included a major spelling error in the letter’s first sentence.</p>
<p>The committee figured that if the student was that careless before being offered a position, the student’s work would be even worse if the student got the position. The organization decided that it would rather have no intern than to have someone who seemed to be careless/incompetent/unmotivated.</p>
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<p>What a straw man! No one (else) here is exaggerating like that.</p>
<p>Northstar, it’s one thing to hold the student who is actually applying, who is, in effect, “on trial” to that standard, it’s an entirely different thing to penalize a student based on the writing of someone else- a factor that is completely beyond their control. </p>
<p>I don’t know what you think your point was, but you did indeed imply that the grammar mistakes will cause admissions officers to think that the school has generally poor teachers, has low hiring standards, provides a sub-par education, etc, etc. After that analysis, the hypothetical conclusion that I offered is every bit as plausible as the one you offered. </p>
<p>I realize that we ultimately agree that the grammar mistake won’t hurt-- the difference is that you think it will lead to the kind of analysis I provided above, except with the conclusion being that the student is helped because it shows that he or she has been disadvantaged educationally. I think that the grammar mistakes will more or less be ignored and won’t have any effect one way or the other.</p>
<p>This is a particular problem for international students; for example, in my school, many very good teachers aren’t that strong in English. I hope they take this into account when evaluating international recommendations.</p>
<p>I’d rather have a recommendation with a grammatical slip or two than one that looks like a form letter. One of my daughters had a glowing recommendation that referred to her as “he.”</p>
<p>I think the English skills of international recommenders won’t have any impact at all (assuming that English appears to be a second language for them).</p>
<p>I agree with NSM that a poorly written recommendation may say something about the school. Presumably, that bit of information will be viewed in the greater context of other recommendations, average scores for the HS, performance of previous matriculants from that school, etc. I’d also assume that the teacher’s subject area would make a big difference. Grammar errors by an AP Calc teacher would probably be less significant than similar errors by the head of the English department.</p>
<p>Back to the OP’s question, it probably won’t have any effect. I’d always take an enthusiastic and well-documented recommendation with a few English errors over a bland but oh-so-correct one.</p>
<p>“I realize that we ultimately agree that the grammar mistake won’t hurt-- the difference is that you think it will lead to the kind of analysis I provided above, except with the conclusion being that the student is helped because it shows that he or she has been disadvantaged educationally. I think that the grammar mistakes will more or less be ignored and won’t have any effect one way or the other.”</p>
<p>The difference between us is that I’ve been on scholarship and internship committees so have seen how the writing in teachers’ recommendations can affect students’ chances. I haven’t been an official member of any college admissions committee, but did sit in on some meetings when I was an undergrad and grad student, so I have a general idea about how admissions committee members may react to materials.</p>
<p>As a parent who was very involved in my kids’ schools’ parent organizations,l I also have seen the correlation between the quality of a school and the writing ability of teachers. The best public and private schools either won’t hire to teach classes in which s/he’d have to teach writing skills or will quickly boot out a teacher with very poor writing skills. The worst schools, however, don’t have that luxury because they end up getting the weakest teachers because the best teachers choose to go elsewhere.</p>
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<p>Well, I did work in an admissions office. I would not draw sweeping conclusions about the entire faculty or the entire school when I saw a poorly-written or badly-constructed recommendation, but I might have wondered about the teacher’s ability to discern a truly outstanding student when she sees one. Recommendations are very subjective, and frankly when you’ve read 100 of them they can start to run together or even seem inauthentic. One may begin to judge their credibility in part by the skill and writing style of the author. Does this person seem like they know what they’re talking about?</p>
<p>Let’s say it came down to two students, both very similar in qualifications so the admissions committee is going to rely on recommendations to determine who gets in (or gets the scholarship). One student’s application features an outstanding rec written by a teacher that demonstrated in every possible way in his/her writing that s/he is an intelligent, careful, well-educated, discerning, teacher who is a good communicator. The other application has a recommendation that is just as complimentary but is written by a faculty member whose writing is unedited, unclear, hasty, and more difficult to understand. Which recommendaration is ultimately more persuasive? Which writer seems like a more credible judge of the student’s intellect, ability, aptitude? Whose judgment should you go by? </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s “silly” or “irresponsible” of readers to make that kind of distinction, although I am sure it does seem unfair to the person who got the sloppily-written recommendation.</p>
<p>“I agree with NSM that a poorly written recommendation may say something about the school. Presumably, that bit of information will be viewed in the greater context of other recommendations, average scores for the HS, performance of previous matriculants from that school, etc.”</p>
<p>This is very accurate. Making conclusions about a school/faculty quality based on a few grammatical mistakes by a teacher is indeed irresponsible, however if the other information about the school confirms this suspicion, then it is probably more fair. That said, if the other, much more credible information also reflects poorly on the school, the school would have probably been viewed poorly regardless of the writing quality of the reccommendation. The point is that the grammatical mistakes aren’t going to make a difference one way or the other. If the school really is that bad, there is going to be better evidence elsewhere on the application to support that–the adcom won’t make such a judgement based solely on the recommendation.</p>
<p>My only problem with Northstar’s analysis throughout this thread was that she seemed to think it was both appropriate and common for an adcom to condemn an entire school based on a grammatical mistake from one teacher, and on that ALONE. </p>
<p>To address hoedown-- I don’t think those kinds of hypotheticals are really useful, as it’s completely unlikely that two applicants would be exactly identical save but one or two grammatical mistakes by a teacher in one recommendation. In almost all cases, there are going to be better, more useful and meaningful differences between any two applicants that a decision could be based on. Is it possible? Yes. However, it’s so unlikely that it is not really relevant or worth having the OP worry about.</p>
<p>To address one more thing related to hoedown’s post:</p>
<p>You’re quoting me out of context. I never said it would be irresponsible to read the grammatical mistakes as a reflection of that SPECIFIC teacher’s writing ability or ability to judge the student, which is what your quoting me implied. I only said it would be irresponsible and silly to take that grammatical mistake and extrapolate it as an indictment on the ENTIRE faculty or school. Sorry if you missed this point.</p>
<p>"My only problem with Northstar’s analysis throughout this thread was that she seemed to think it was both appropriate and common for an adcom to condemn an entire school based on a grammatical mistake from one teacher, and on that ALONE. "</p>
<p>I never said that. I repeatedly said that I was referring to teachers whose letters demonstrated horrible grammar. There’s a big difference between a teacher who has a minor grammatical mistake – the kind that easily can occur through carelessness or overwork – and a teacher whose mistakes indicate a lack of command of the English language.</p>
<p>Examples of horrendous grammar would be things like routinely dropping “s” endings: “She come to class prepared each day”, dropping ed endings in the past tense: “When he talk about his research, he knew the details” or using the wrong past tense “She should have went to the competition, but was ill.”</p>
<p>My sons had English teachers who made those kind of errors in their speech and writing, and of course such teachers were not able to teach students excellent writing skills. Frankly, my opinion is that such teachers should not have been teaching any course in which students were expected to learn excellent writing skills. At excellent public schools, such teachers either are not hired or don’t make it past their probationary period.</p>
<p>I have seen those kind of errors in recommendations written by AP English teachers. No surprise, the AP pass rate was dismal in such teachers’ classes. That wasn’t the student’s fault: The low pass rate indicated a lack of good instruction, not laziness or a lack of ability.</p>
<p>“I have seen those kind of errors in recommendations written by AP English teachers. No surprise, the AP pass rate was dismal in such teachers’ classes. That wasn’t the student’s fault: The low pass rate indicated a lack of good instruction, not laziness or a lack of ability.”</p>
<p>That’s fine. If the AP pass rate is that low then that is good evidence about the quality of instruction at the school. That changes the discussion completely, as if that information is available, then the grammar problem isn’t going to be needed to tell the adcoms that it is a poor school. My only point is that the adcoms aren’t going to base their entire opinion of the school on grammatical mistakes of one teacher. In most cases, yes, you’re right the teachers that make these mistakes are going to be at very poor schools, and the adcoms will have the data in the school profile to confirm that. In that case, the student shouldn’t worry about the grammar, because the profile of the school will do enough to point out the poor quality of instruction. In any case, the profile of the school is where the judgements about the school will come from. While poor grammar in a recommendation might CONFIRM that, it will not, by itself, lead to the conclusion that the school is of poor quality. If some teacher from Andover sends in a rec with bad grammar, do you think that the adcoms will then judge Andover to be a poor quality school? Absolutely not. Thus, the grammar in a recommendation BY ITSELF (As I’ve made abundantly clear is the only context in which I’ve spoken in this thread) will not make or break an application or lead to judgements about a school in its entirety.</p>
<p>You may have been addressing northstar’s assertions, but they also contradicted some things I had said earlier in this thread, and which I stand by. My point is simply: I believe it is too broad to say that a poorly-written recommendation can have no effect on a student’s candidacy. </p>
<p>Some people find it useful to employ a simplified hypothetical example, so that readers can reflect on the basic issues at the heart of an argument. That’s what I was attempting to do, perhaps not wholly successfully. Hopefully not all comers to this thread will find it irrelevant (even if it does not directly address the OP’s specific question). One of the useful things about this board is that more than one reader may have a stake in the question, so discussions of the underlying issues are interesting even if they do not address the OP directly. </p>
<p>You’re right that except in a few instances (like for scholarships) there are seldom times when it comes down to two students competing for one slot. However, I think it’s still true that when you’re sorting through dozens of applications, most of whom have glowing recommendations, some of those recommendations will stand out as more credible than others. And in my reading, the ones that are poorly-written tend not to be among those. That may not matter for an otherwise stellar candidate, but it didn’t ring true to me that this kind of flaw in a rec could make <em>no</em> difference. </p>
<p>I hope that clarifies my position.</p>
<p>Do adcoms ever suspect a rec letter might have been forged (written by the student, a friend, or relative) because of its impossibly bad grammar for, say, an English teacher? </p>
<p>Just curious.</p>
<p>It will have absolutely NO effect at all… but maybe your teacher will use grammar check before sending it in…</p>