<p>Teachers gave their recommendation letters directly to my D to give to her GC so she could see them first. They were both outstanding letters but one of the two contains quite a few errors: spelling and grammar plus a missing word here and there. You are able to determine what she meant to write when you read it - but the questions is…should we point out the errors and have them corrected or submit as is? Will the teacher be insulted to get a marked up copy of the letter to fix?</p>
<p>Why not have the GC address this?</p>
<p>If the teacher is a foreign language teacher who is a native speaker of that language, I would let it go. I don’t think anyone expects those teachers to write absolutely perfectly in English.</p>
<p>But if the teacher teaches any other subject, I would mention the situation to the GC. Having the letter go out full of errors makes the school look bad.</p>
<p>I agree…bring the subject up with the GC…and have that person handle getting the corrections, which I believe SHOULD be made.</p>
<p>Letter was written by History Teacher who she had/has for AP Euro and AP Gov & Pol. Thanks for the suggestion to have the GC handle getting corrections made.</p>
<p>I don’t know how you are going to do that without the teacher getting miffed or worse yet - embarrassed. :eek: Taking it to the GC is obviously light-years better than “direct” for the kid but for the writer it’s just another adult being shown their “mistakes”. I wouldn’t do it. </p>
<p>Go with it as-is or find a way to go back to the writer for another one. Maybe ask that he include something that he left out, anything to get another shot. But I wouldn’t be correcting my teacher’s grammar or spelling. I’d rather find another teacher.</p>
<p>Three cheers for tenure!!! Imagine a professional in any other field being able to keep his job if he hadn’t mastered proper grammar & spelling!</p>
<p>It’s an awkward spot. I’d feel quite angry that this person was teaching AP courses where writing is critical to get a good score & thus the college credit.</p>
<p>Ease up there a little, StickerShock! Anger wouldn’t help the situation. Plenty of very bright people are lousy spellers, and/or write so quickly they leave out a word here or there. Yes, Teacher should have checked spelling and proofread letter - but was probably in a hurry. GC should mention it to teacher. If it’s on the computer, no problem to correct it.</p>
<p>I guess this is why they don’t normally have students and their parents even see the teacher recommendations?</p>
<p>We had the same situation - we sent the letter as is. The teacher was wonderful and wrote a very nice, well thought out recommendation. My thought was - the teachers are overwhelmed with so many students asking for letters in a short period of time and w/o support staff to help type , etc. it was not a big deal. I am sure the spelling errors were all typos and figured the colleges would overlook the typos and read the letter for the content. Maybe wishful thinking but I would not have wanted to embarrass the teacher by pointing it out to him or the GC. Yes - it is an awkward situation…</p>
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<p>I earn my living as an editor. Most of the documents I work on were written by scientists, business executives, and other people in responsible positions. The grammar and spelling are often full of errors. You would be amazed.</p>
<p>This is a tough one. I don’t have an answer; I think you have to let it go, as normally you wouldn’t even have seen it. So pretend you didn’t.</p>
<p>This is a pet peeve of mine… no one can spell or even cares about trying anymore! A friend in the scientific field says its particularly rampant there…</p>
<p>Given the fact that students don’t see most recommendation letters, college admissions people are undoubtedly VERY used to seeing rec. letters full of errors. I would give it no thought at all.</p>
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<p>Oh, yes.</p>
<p>Some of the problem, though, may reflect the international nature of the scientific community. Many scientists who write in English are not native speakers of English.</p>
<p>When I suggested having the GC handle it, I was assuming that the teacher would not think you brought it to the GC’s attention. At our hs, all teacher recs go through the GC, who packages them with the transcript, GC form, hs profile etc. So it would be in the natural course of events for GC to see the letter. She could then let the teacher know, in her ever-so-well-honed GC-diplomatic way, that a few typos slipped in. Or, she could realize from her years of experience that it matters not and leave it alone, reassuring you of that.</p>
<p>If, otoh, the teacher would know you brought it to the GC’s attention and thus be doubly embarrased, as curmudgeon is thinking, I don’t know which I’d do. Either one is ok, imho: Have the GC handle it at the risk of teacher embarrassment. Or don’t bring it up with the idea that the colleges understand and care more about the content of what the rec says about your kid.</p>
<p>I had this same problem, but my teacher had told me to look it over and tell him if anything needed to be changed. I told him and he was happy to fix the simple spelling error.</p>
<p>The teachers are not applying to college, the student is. Though it would irk me to no end knowing that there were spelling errors, the reality is that the student (or parent) should never have seen the recs. So I would just let it go. It’s the content of the letters that’s important, and you did say that they were outstanding, so let it be. At some point, give the teachers token thank you gifts for taking the time to write about your child.</p>
<p>I agree with letting it go and not contacting the GC. I am a reviewer for several scientific journals and have seen all kinds of mistakes from very competent authors. I have made mistakes myself. The way we in our group avoid having the editor see our errors is to let another scientist who was not an author on the paper read it first. He or she will spot the errors much more quickly than the authors.</p>
<p>Some school districts and/or individual teachers allow the students the option of seeing the recs first and others don’t. On the other hand, many college rec forms ask to know whether or not the student has waived the right to read the recommendation and it is generally to the student’s advantage to do so. </p>
<p>If your daughter is NOT waiving her right to see the recs (momof2011, is that the case?) , I don’t see options other than bringing the “typos” to the teacher’s attention or getting another rec, because once the colleges know that your D read and approved the error filled rec, then don’t they become her errors as well?</p>
<p>She did not waive her right to see the Recs - but the wording on the Common Ap says “may someday choose to review this recommendation” - someday could be after they were submitted to colleges, right?</p>