<p>Our school requires a minimum of a 3 week lead time on all application requests (including the SSR/Rec). Students were advised not to wait until the last minute on the teacher recs either because the teachers get inundated with last minute requests and basically end up having to just throw something on paper, which is not very helpful to the student looking for a sold, well-thought out recommendation.</p>
<p>I would contact the asst principal and without being accusatory, simply tell him that son is anxious to get this application in and ask him if he has an idea of when you can expect the SSR to be completed. If you can not get a solid commitment or he misses the deadline, I would go to the principal. I would also check with the GC office and make sure they are aware that the SSR hasn’t been sent.</p>
<p>I do have a few questions though:</p>
<p>1) how many seniors are there and why is the Asst. Principal and not the GC doing the SSR? In our school the GCs do all the SSRs and non-teacher recommendations. That is their job. Even though we only have 60 seniors in the class, our asst principal would never do that because 1) he doesn’t have time 2)if he did it for one student, every student would request it because people perceive that a recommendation coming from the school administration would carry more weight than the GC.</p>
<p>If it is common practice for the Asst. Principal at your school to do the SSR/Rec, he may be inundated with requests because there are lots of early deadlines. My son has a deadline of Oct.15th for several applications. Many state U have very early regular deadlines. </p>
<p>I agree it’s out of line for the Asst. Principal to respond to your son with such flip comments. Unfortunately, now that your son has asked him for a recommendation, you can’t afford to get the Asst. Principal angry so I wouldn’t say anything about the comments at this point. I would wait until after your son has completed all his applications and has been accepted to college and then lodge a complaint with school Principal. Right now, your choices are to go to someone else for the SSR/Rec. or wait it out while being polite but firm in your expectations.</p>
<p>With schools, just like insurance companies; corporate HR departments; and town government offices; there are always a few (or more) people drunk with power and nasty by nature --and there is always the dilemma of fearing that if you complain it will just make things worse. That is why so many nasty HS athletic coaches get away with their behavior.
The asking the GC for help idea has promise. Going over his head to the principal is a nuclear option–expect the Assistant Principal to lie about your son (“He was late; rude; etc”) to cover his actions–and the principal to side with him.
The importance of early submission to Rolling Admissions is a strong, objective fact to use.
You might decide to wait until the process is over and the Assistant can no longer harm your son, and then go to the principal, to protect future kids and to not have to live with this sort of behavior without responding.
My son just had a teacher admit she not only did not do the recommendation she promised in June, but had lost the materials she had him give her in support–all without apologizing–and not in a school district where teachers are eithr overworked or underpaid.</p>
<p>Seems like a tough spot. On the one hand you don’t want to antagonize the guy into writing a crummmy rec. On the other hand, you don’t want your kid to not get the rec in time…How to work the system? Best bet, imho, which is only an opinion? Go to the asst principle. Bring cookies, brownies, cake…pretend this is all your fault for pushing your son to contact him so often…take the fall, even though the guy is completely falling down on the job, to allow him an easy exit. Say you’re stressed and then, very nicely, hold out tin of chocolate chip cookies while pretending you are incredibly grateful for his cooperation. Ask him, “What should we do here?” Enlist him as an ally. Roll your eyes at the ridiculousness of the college application process. Sympathize profusely with the fact that this man has so much to do and now “THIS?” too? What can these colleges be THINKING? So sorry we are all in this situation. My GOD! </p>
<p>After your son graduates from high school, as long as you have no other kids going throug this system? Go to principle and explain what happened and why you are so furious.</p>
<p>I don’t think I could disagree with this more. First, I didn’t see hurling going on here, but I do not agree that parents “have” to step in all the time. And seriously, what would be the point of giving desk people and earful and being done with it? It’s not their fault. It’s like yelling at a waitress for poorly cooked food when all she has done is brought it to the table.</p>
<p>Still don’t understand why the kid in question couldn’t have possibly completed this packet of information prior to school beginning, but I might ask this… if “there is no way he could have turned it in any earlier than he did due to no fault of his own” over the course of three months time, why should the asst principal be required to complete his in less than a week?</p>
<p>Poetgirl is offering excellent advice. Kiss up and move on for now. If it still even matters after the college admission’s process is over, you will be in a much saner frame of mind to deal with it as well.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why your S didn’t work with the GC for the rec in the first place rather than the AP. It seems that writing the recs fits in more with the GC’s duties and the GC may have more time to do it since they’re not overseeing all the GCs and getting involved in quite as much of the other daily management and issues of the school. </p>
<p>How about leaving the AP situation alone to hopefully resolve itself but also seeking a hopefully expedited rec from the GC?</p>
<p>I think it would be okay for the mom to call the asst principal and together set up a due date. Then if he doesn’t come through, she is perfectly justified in contacting the principal.</p>
<p>The “rec” part of the SSR probably isn’t as important as the profile (personal and school) part of the SSR. At our school, an AP would be like a fish out of water trying to do the profile part of the SSR. GCs do it all the time.</p>
<p>If you think the AP would write a dynamite letter, I’d have the GC do the SSR and have the AP write an supplementary rec that would get submitted separately from the SSR.<br>
Some schools will accept supplementary recs; some will not.</p>
<p>Why do you want the AP to fill out the paperwork rather than the GC office?</p>
<p>S got your message loud and clear. You don’t want him following up with you re: the SSr. Sorry if that offended. Can you give us a date that we’ll have the rec so we can stop being anxious? With rolling admissions, we’re of course concerned.</p>
<p>OP: Did your son/you felt that the AP had better knowledge of your son than the GC hence the reason he was solicited to write the Rec?</p>
<p>It appears that you may have bypassed the GC and now may have to go back to the GC to make ammends. Hope the GC doesnt think he/she was in any way slighted.</p>
<p>So much to think about so not to put our kids in uncomfortable positions…</p>
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<p>Thank you very much for taking the time to give advice and support. H, S and I will dsicuss our options and decide our choice of action before Monday.</p>
<p>Some have asked why the AP is doing the SSR/Rec. The reason is he offered last semester when S was in talking to him about something (cant remember what). The school makes it clear that any GC/AP/P would be happy to do it. AP used to be a teacher at the middle school, then moved on to the high school as counselor, then AP. S knew him since 6th grade from middle school and also attended a sports summer camp that AP used to run for several summers. S also has a good relationship with GC who started in his sophomore year. So S had a choice of AP or GC. He chose AP just because he knew him longer.</p>
<p>We live and learn all the time. Knowing what we know now. This certainly was not a good choice. Probably should have asked for advice here first before making that choice.</p>
<p>Modadunn,
I left out many details because it just takes too long to read and write. Since you brought it up twice, S worked on the packet over the summer and went to turn it in a few days after school started. The office usually is very busy the first few days so he waited until they are not as busy. Secretary told him there is another form that needed to be filled out but she wont have it until tomorrow. S went back the next day, got the form, filled out the form and went back again. S needed GCs approval for his college list. GC was out sick for a few days and must wait until she comes back. She was very good though, called S in as soon as she got back and approved his list. On to the next step, so on, wont bore you with all of the steps but it took until 9/14 while keeping up with all his classes which includes 5 AP/Honors and finalizing his 4 essays.</p>
<p>I am certainly a lot calmer today after the initial shock. AP is probably making close to 6 figure for being head of guidance. What is in his job description anyway. Instead of calming his student, he cannot handle the pressure and stress, scolded (No one check up on me like you do.) and threatened (The more you check, the worse it will be.) his 16 year old teenage student for being nervous about his first college app that happened to be rolling to a competitive program. When all he has to do is to take a couple minutes and say something like I understand your situation, given my busy schedule, here is the best I can do, how about I will get it done by this date.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t get a recommendation from an assistant principal anyway. An assistant principal is an administrator, they don’t teach students in class. The things they can comment on aren’t even direct. Most of the administration at my high school was inefficient.</p>
<p>Regardless of what your son did or did not do, the AP was out of line with those comments. We’ve have a few similarly inappropriate comments from teachers. I didn’t follow up on them at the time because I was afraid of the repercussions to son. Fortunately, they were both communicated via email - which I kept and plan on passing on to the principal as soon as son graduates.</p>
<p>I agree with the others that I do not understand why you did not let the GC write the recommendation. </p>
<p>In my experience, unless there is a real problem with the GC/student relationship or some other extenuating circumstances as to why they should, most AP’s/principals do not write recommendations.</p>
<p>Forget about the AP at this juncture and go to the GC. Just because he is AP of guidance, does not necessarily mean that he is going to write a better rec than the GC would. In addition, the AP is not going to pull the transcript and profile to send with the recommendation. there is going to be a push back to the counselor.</p>
<p>Unless the AP is responsible for writing all of the recommendations, going to the principal may come back and bite your son. If there is a process in place at your school as to how recommendations are done (if they all all handled by the GC). </p>
<p>What ever the process there is an expectation that your son knows (or should know the process). If your son went to the Ap instead of following the protocol in place, your son could be viewed as trying to circumvent the process, or having an “entitlement” issue, or not following directions. </p>
<p>Where I think the AP is wrong, is that unless he does SSRs on a regular basis, he should have said no to the request and should have reminded your son of the process. If there was a problem with the process, then he could come to the AP for assistance or to intervene.</p>
<p>Although having an AP write is unusual, the OP said her HS required it, so she not be criticized for following the rules. In addition, if she went to the GC without telling the AP, and the GC told the AP, the AP might be upset that she was asking them both to do the same thing.</p>
<p>Colleges do not “require” Aps to write the SSRs. The SSRs can be written by the AP, Principal or GC. Op’s son chose to go to the AP instead of the GC.</p>
<p>Sybbie, thank you for pointing out my mistaken recollection. I was influenced by the AP having accepted it in the first place.
How would you address the issue of the AP and/or GC being upset that the OP would now be asking both of them to do the same thing, assuming they find out?</p>
<p>Kid should cut his losses, explain the situation and go to the GC. I could tell you for a fact that my AP-GC, doesn’t write student recommendations. If a kid came to her, she would refer back to the counselor of ask the counselor if there was a problem as to why the work was not done (if it took an unusually long time to get back to the student).</p>
<p>If the kid goes to the GC, no one is going to be upset as the GC is just doing his/her job. The downside would be that OP is now at the end of the line. </p>
<p>If this student were a kid on my caseload and explained what happened, I would interview the kid, before of afterschool, get a copy of the paperwork and write the rec.</p>
<p>I would email the ass’t principal and ask if those were his words (I would also include the above record of contacts)…then once you receive written verification (via his return email), I’d take it to the top. </p>
<p>Frankly, I think after receiving such an email from you, he’d do the rec immediately since he’d fear what you’d do with a negative response. (and, don’t take a phone call from him, make him put his response IN WRITING!!!)</p>
<p>Yeah for getting such comments in writing…I remember when a church youth minister told me by email that it “wasn’t any of my business” that the kids went into canoes without life jackets and some of the canoes had holes in them.</p>
<p>I immediately forwarded that email to our pastor, and wham! LOL</p>