3 out of 4 of my recommenders have forwarded me the letters they wrote AFTER they have submitted them. So far, all 3 of those letters have some inconsistencies.
One of my teachers has AP Calc AB, Pre-calc and AP stats. I took him for AP Calc AB my junior year and Pre-calc my sophomore year. On my recommendation letter, he wrote about how I was an amazing student in his AP STATS CLASS, the one I never took.
I have a fairly “foreign-sounding” first name, and one of my teachers consistently misspelled it. I don’t blame her for this. The pronunciation of my name barely resembles how it’s spelled, but I have to admit, this makes it look like she never knew me.
Lastly, the volunteer coordinator at the after-school program/STEM outreach program I teach in wrote in great detail about the computer science class I run for young children. The problem with this is that I actually teach a chem lab, and this is the activity I wrote the essay on. I’ve been teaching this class for two years, and the volunteer coordinator isn’t necessarily the most involved. She definitely keeps the program running by contacting sponsors and running fundraisers, but her involvement in the various classes are minimal. Most of the young students have never even seen or met her.
I know there’s nothing much I can do after this, but I feel like this hurts my chances for all the schools I applied early-action to. My recommenders know me very well, but I do believe that they were too busy with their day job that they may not have had the time to look at the facts. Should I care? Will admissions officers even notice?
I wouldn’t worry about it. It is far more important to the schools that you have clearly been taking a very rigorous schedule - taking AP classes, and having meaningful EC’s like volunteering show you are a worthy candidate. Vounteer teaching in a STEM outreach program in Chem or Computer Science are both noteworthy, and what matters is that you did these activities, which were meaningful to others in your community.
I think it is very likely that the admissions officers won’t even notice these mistakes - well perhaps your name spelling may catch their attention, but they won’t give it enough weight to matter a lick. It certainly won’t be the difference between acceptance and rejection.
Competitive colleges that have Early Action programs know that rec letters that come from overworked HS advisors, teachers, and counselors are often similar. If you were to tell me that you are attending a private HS with a very low student/faculty ratio, then it might matter a tiny bit, but otherwise, don’t worry about this at all. I hope you’ll be hearing good news very soon - if not from your early schools, you will do great in the RD round.
It is unfortunate. “but I do believe that they were too busy with their day job that they may not have had the time to look at the facts.”…No, they shouldn’t be in the teaching business. People who agree to write, but write such a sloppy letters should be ashamed of themselves for putting a student in the situation. As @3puppies said it above, hopefully admissions will overlook. I do agree that recommendation letters don’t play critical role. Make sure you don’t submit these in the future.
Disagree with the above. Recs are a critical piece of the app. It paints a picture of the applicant that stats alone can’t do. Admissions folks can read between the lines to figure out who is truly excellent. That being said, it probably does not matter if the teacher got the name of the class wrong. What is important is what they said about you. And spelling your name wrong is a reflection on them, not you.
Let’s be a little less dramatic here. 3 of your recs each had one mistake (albeit one of the mistakes was made multiple times). If you look through some of these threads, you will find many many freak-out posts from students who made errors in their own application. Perhaps the OP made an error or two as well. It’s not that big a deal. The OP was fortunate (or unfortunate) that the recommenders gave him/her copies - most don’t. The purpose of the recs is for AO’s to find out more about the applicant as a student and as a person. The AO’s are not grading the recs for grammar. Few recs, unless written by an English teacher, will win an award for eloquent prose. The OP can certainly ask that the recommenders make the corrections for later applications, but otherwise, don’t worry about it.
I also disagree with post #3. If the letters speak well of you that is what is most important. You shouldn’t be hurt for careless errors on the writer’s part. That said, if it is possible to have corrections made before your RD applications are submitted then I would try to do that just to clean things up.
As an aside I hope you did not submit 4 academic teacher recommendations – no school wants more than two.
I agree with @skieurope - with FERPA, most students don’t even see the letter of rec. So, you have no idea what a teacher has written. At my S school, the college counselor reviews the letters. I would not worry about it.
@happy1 I had a guidance counselor (the one I didn’t get to read), one math teacher, one science teacher, and one from the place I’ve volunteered the most in. The guidance counselor one is embedded in the common app, and I only included the volunteer rec letter to the tech schools I applied to EA
I think these mistakes are probably pretty common except students generally never know about them. I agree with everyone else - no worries, but if they can be changed for RD, cool.
At our kids’ HS, the GC office reviews letters before they go out for this very reason. They ask the teachers to please make corrections if they identify errors. I wouldn’t worry too much about these. If the colleges are confused, they will contact your GC for clarification.