If the story as outlined by @jonri is factual, the only issue I have with the teacher would be her stating why she was withdrawing her LOR. When asked, I would have stated there was an action taken that was egregious enough from my perspective for me to withdraw my LOR and directed the college to the school. I suspect if she had done it this way, she may not be in the situation she is in. Or maybe that’s just my optimistic nature as I would hope parents would find it equally egregious their son uttering such horrific words and understand a teacher having second thoughts about a LOR.
My takeaway from this is that any teacher agreeing to write a LOR should make it clear that they reserve the right to rescind it and to tell the college exactly why they did so. If the kid doesn’t like that, he can find somebody else to write it.
I think that’s an excellent idea, Hunt, but it’s not going to help the teacher.
I think in the long run, this is going to come back to bite this kid and his mom and the super. By now, I doubt there are many Stoughton residents who don’t know the ID of the kid and his mom.
That seems like her error. Kid wouldn’t have known otherwise, having presumably signed the standard rec letter waiver.
I disagree here. If teachers/LOR writers can’t divulge disciplinary issues s/he’s aware of them, one of the key purposes of having LORs…along with HSs maintaining disciplinary records or guidance counselor reports would be fatally undermined.
Unless this school’s college guidance office/admins were being exceedingly remiss in instructing their students in how LORs work, teachers making it clear they reserve the right to rescind LORs and tell colleges why they did so shouldn’t be necessary.
The college guidance office/admins should have made that amply clear from the beginning of 9th grade onwards and reinforce that point during the rest of the students’ time in HS.
If a HS student is still unaware of this by late junior/senior year, either s/he wasn’t paying attention and/or the school admins were exceedingly remiss in their instructional duties.
Disagree here for two reasons.
- Students/parents should know so they are put on notice about possible negative behaviors/actions which caused the rescinding and 2. So student whose LOR got rescinded has a chance to seek out another LOR writer if there's still time.
And even with #2, LOR writers don’t always feel obligated to notify students of rescinding of LORs in time. The older college classmate who had 2 LORs rescinded by Profs in his MA program due to their subsequently finding out about negative classroom behavior from another Prof rescinded their LORs right in the middle of PhD applications which directly caused him to be rejected by several PhD programs.
And according to mutual friends of ours who knew of the circumstances much more closely than I did…there’s not much sympathy for said older classmate as the rescinding of those LORs…like what happened with the student in OP was a direct consequence of negative behaviors…and the HS student’s behavior is much more egregious than my older college classmate’s.
There’s also a section that reads something like:
Are there disciplinary actions or behavior issues…
(a) no
(b) my school policies prohibit me from answering
© yes, details:
(d) call me
UMass Boston is not a super selective school. CDS indicates their average GPA is 3.2 and top 25% sat scores are below 600. LORs likely play very little role in admissions, as GPA x test scores are likely the key criteria.