Unseen Recommendation Letters?

Parents Forum
1

<p>On a recent college visit, the dean of a department told the students not to let any letters of recommendation get sent in that they haven’t seen.</p>

<p>Some colleges have forms that you give to the recommender and ask you to give the recommender a stamped addressed envelope along with the form. They don’t specifically say that the student isn’t to see the recommendation, but that is certainly the implication. Others are more clear, with instructions to the recommender to send the recommendation directly to the college.</p>

<p>In the former case, do you feel that it is acceptable to ask that the recommendation be returned to the student, who will then submit it? In the latter case, you are pretty much stuck with it being unseen as far as I can see.</p>

<p>Here is a quote from Chapman University’s form:

</p>

<p>I think it would be pretty awkward to give this to a recommender and then ask them to give it back to you. What do you think?</p>

2

<p>S’s high school, more or less, required him to sign a sheet that waived his right to see any of his letters of recommendation. He never knew how well the letters were written or what they said. He never even had a chance to verify that they contained accurate information. Personally, I had somewhat of a problem with this because many of the teachers did not want to spend the time writing them in the first place. Each teacher only would write ‘so many’ recommendations. If you were the X + 1 request, some of the teachers would flat-out refuse to write a recommendation and the student would have to go find another teacher that was not completely ‘booked’. S actually had an teacher who had agreed to write him a letter of recommendation at the end of junior year and then said that he was ‘too busy’ to write any recommendations. By the time he notified the students that had asked him, all other instructors were ‘booked solid’. Finally, the teacher agreed to write the recommendation. I really wonder what kind of grade IT would have gotten.</p>

3

<p>My son has seen none of them. It would never occur to him (or me) to ask to see them in advance, since the colleges specifically ask for them to be sent in sealed envelopes. Usually the teachers sign across the back flap.</p>

<p>I figure if you aren’t sure the teacher will speak positively about you, better ask a different teacher!</p>

4

<p>Isn’t the point to have them be honest and unbiased?</p>

5

<p>this was a dean of a department…not an admissions person…</p>

6

<p>He needs to tell the teachers that then, because that’s not the way most of them do it. My D’s music teacher put the letters in a sealed envelope and she mailed them. I guess she could have opened them and put them in another envelope, but what good would that do? She has to use him for music schools and she couldn’t very well go back to him and tell him to say something different. Her English teacher insisted on mailing them herself, with her return address. I’m sure mistakes must have been made along the way with someone’s letter.</p>

7

<p>This link might be helpful…
<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000299.htm[/url]”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000299.htm&lt;/a&gt;
FWIW my d provided her recommenders with envelopes addressed to colleges so they could send letters in directly. She also waived her right to see recommendations with the guidance office. Of course a student wants to choose teachers who will write great recs. Students can be straightforward in asking a teacher “Do you feel like you could write me a positive recommendation?” </p>

<p>I think a little humility and helpfulness goes a long way when students ask for recs. If a student asks early, provides a cover letter recapping a few high points, expresses enthusiasm for the schools and thanks the teacher for his/her help it makes writing the letter easier. Following up with a thank you note (it IS an extra chore for teachers) and sharing news when acceptances come is nice as well. Bear in mind that even if right to see references is waived teachers can choose to share the letter before they send it–one of d’s teachers did this even though he wasn’t asked.</p>

8

<p>Isn’t the point to have them be honest and unbiased?</p>

<p>Nope. The point is to have them APPEAR to be honest and unbiased. :wink: The point is to select the right teachers to do that. If the colleges truly wanted unbiased reports they know how to do that. (Get the applicant to execute a release. Get the applicant’s schedule and transcript. Randomly select two or three teachers. Send them the form. Bingo. Honest and unbiased. But nobody really wants that. If they did they’d do what I suggested. )</p>

9

<p>But the point is to have the teachers you select – whom you assume will give you good recs – be able to be honest. If I had to write a rec for someone and I knew he was going to read it, it would be very different than if I knew he’d never see it.</p>

<p>Look on the bright side: If it’s truly the case that the student has waived his right to see the letter, then a positive or glowing rec will be taken seriously by the AdComm. If the student didn’t waive his right, the school can’t take that rec seriously.</p>

10

<p>Remember that signing a waiver of the student’s right to see a letter doesn’t mean that he can’t see the letter. The waiver simply means that the student can’t come into the school’s office and DEMAND to see the letter.</p>

<p>My d saw one, written by a junior year teacher who left at the end of her junior year - since she didn’t know where she was applying before he left, he gave her (and the other students he wrote for) the letter. She copied and sent it.</p>

<p>The other teacher sent the letter directly. She never saw it.</p>

11

<p>In our case, none of S’s recs will be from teachers. He is homeschooled. Now, he did take a couple of homeschool classes over the course of 2 years at a local homeschool association, and he will ask the director (who knows him) to write a rec. Hopefully he won’t live to regret starting noisy games of spoons in the lunchroom. </p>

<p>He is taking dual-credit classes at the cc now, but those profs don’t know him at all. He sure wouldn’t ask them. His other recs will be from a youth pastor and someone for whom he interned.</p>

<p>I am sure you guys sometimes send in non-school recs as well. Would you even consider asking to send it in yourself? </p>

<p>For the record, I think it’s a bad idea to ask the recommender to give you the rec to send in. But now S is thinking that’s what he should do since this dean told him that. (What was the dean thinking?!)</p>

12

<p>Many of the college’s own forms, which they provide for the teacher recs, have a box to check indicating that the student has waived the right to see the recommendation.</p>

<p>In those cases, I believe they prefer student to make that waiver and I believe that they <em>may</em> give more credence to the rec, knowing it has not been seen - ergo, cannot have been influenced or altered - by the student. Often they expect to see the recs come in a sealed/signature across the seal envelope.</p>

<p>Where the school doesn’t require that, I think it’s fine to ask the recommender if s/he prefers to mail the rec directly or give it to the student for mailing.</p>

<p>When my S applied as a hs senior, one of his teacher’s voluntarily directly provided him a (great) rec. It was gratifying to see the wonderful things he said. But DS only submitted that to schools which allowed supplemental recs; he did not use it for the two basic required recs.</p>

13

<p>It’s quite unsettling to not know what it being said about you, isn’t it?</p>

<p>My son’s school required that students request two letters of recommendation to have on file in the GC office, sight unseen of course. At the same time, my son asked a coach and a music teacher to write letters on his behalf, and those folks gave him a copy, which he forwarded on to the GC office. At this point there were four- 2 seen, 2 unseen. The letters from coach and music teacher were extremely over-the-top great because he excelled at those two areas. The unseens were from two academic teachers who had given him A’s (big whoop?). </p>

<p>Anyway, the long and short.</p>

<p>He applies to several colleges, and we’re in the GC office, and she asks, “So… which letters of recommendation do you want sent?” (The colleges all asked for one or two, and most of them did not care if they were confidential, or teachers for that matter.)<br>
I said, “The very best ones.”<br>
She looks at me, blinks. “So, which ones do you want sent?”<br>
“The best ones.”<br>
“Well, they’re all… good…”<br>
“Well, since we’ve seen two, and they were stupendous, and we haven’t seen the other two, I guess you’ll have to either let us see them, or, if in your opinion the other two are better, pick them.”<br>
“Well, we don’t let the students or parents see the letters.”<br>
“Well, then I trust you’ll pick the best two letters.”
“Well, I need to know which ones you want sent.”</p>

<p>It was a very bizarre conversation. What part of this didn’t she understand? She was asking my son and I to “pick” which letters to send, sight unseen. It was very unsettling.</p>

14

<p>I like something that our hs GC’s did. If there were extra rec letters submitted, the GC pulled quotes from them for her GC letter/eval.</p>

<p>Doesn’t address the situation doubleplay describes which, I agree, was quite a Twilight Zone conversation, dp. When DS had to do transfer apps post-Katrina, hs recs were totally optional. I asked if we could see them then to decide whether to include any with the hs package of transcript/profile. We still weren’t allowed to. But I asked the GC to include them if, in her judgment, any were good enough to send when optional. She sent some; I trusted her judgment; and the transfer app results were quite good.</p>

<p>It would be hard to trust the judgment of the GC after the el bizarro exchange you report.</p>

<p>side note: common wisdom is that the 2 basic recs should come from core academic teachers; some recommend balanced between one quantitative/science type and one humanities type. Didn’t seem to apply in dpson’s case and wouldn’t really apply to the homeschooled OPson. But does apply to a lot of apps.</p>

15

<p>My son waived his rights to see the recs. We sent in stamped addressed envelopes for each teacher to send to each college. One teacher gave him a copy of the rec anyway and my son loyally wouldn’t look at it until I told him it was ok. I was pretty proud of him that he didn’t even peek. In fact, he never mentioned that he had the copy until I told him it would be ok if a teacher offered him a look. I still have the rec to pull out if I need some sunshine.</p>

16

<p>Different schools have different policies. D’s school sent the letters directly to the schools, so we didn’t see them. She chose the teachers, so she assumed they would give her good recommendations. Our public school gives the recommendations to the students & the students send them to the colleges. I was also surprised to find out that our public high school charges $3 per transcript sent.</p>

17

<p>Most of the schools my daughter applied to required the rec to be signed on the envelope and sent directly from the school. Both of her teachers (english and science) e-mailed her copies of their letters for her to keep. Her guidance counselor did too! We hadn’t asked for that but it was so nice to have them and read the wonderful things they wrote about her.</p>

18

<p>at my school, very few people need recommendations because our state schools dont require them. so if we do need a rec, our teachers usually dont know how to do them. so the teachers let us look the recs over to make sure that they are done correctly. almost everyone looks at their recs.</p>

19

<p>For youngest: 4, sealed envelopes, never saw 'em, always wondered.
For oldest 2 kids, also never saw any of the letters.
It’s worth retelling the youngest’s story because maybe a family will find a nuance that will help you this year:</p>

<p>Youngest S first asked each teacher(as we coached him to do), “Could you write me a positive recommendation?” and be ready to take a polite “no” without insult. All said yes, one with a big wink :wink: as he reported. Let’s all assume the wink was a good thing.</p>

<p>I would love to have known what was in them. On the other hand, from parent conferences I already had a sense of which direction the two core academic teachers would go. An AP history teacher who’d had him in 9th and 12th grades always pulled me aside in the hallway to describe the tremendous emotional and academic growth he’d witnessed and say there was no ceiling on how high he could go academically. I knew that could only be a glowing rec.</p>

<p>The AP English and Theater Elective (2 courses) teacher rightfully complained to me at parent-teacher conference that his papers were disorganized in a messy bookbag yet were always there “somewhere” and he had to dig them out in front of the teacher. Although a senior, he wasn’t using his planner appropriately. I could imagine a low check-box on “organized.” </p>

<p>On the other hand, same teacher told me (I never asked, he just used the parent conf to tell me) that the other kids in the class who’d all written short plays chose HIS to be the one to act, and that he feels kids “know” what’s good intuitively so it was high peer praise. I looked at him, not knowing if that was a “good” recommendation or not. Since S was applying for a specialty major in screenwriting, the teacher must have seen my confusion and added, “Among screenwriters that’s the highest praise, because they know someday you’ll have to promote your script and it has to catch someone’s attention. If others are attracted to it who could have “voted” for the class to act their own script instead, that’s very important feedback.” Now…how could I have known that was “positive” and yet I felt it was. Had S chosen a teacher according to the highest grade, he’d never have gotten the insightful and honest description. I’m sure he nailed him on organization, and who knows if this relates to his 5 rejections or his 3 acceptances? The schools that care most about organization probably didn’t care to see that, but the schools that understand writing might forgive it. </p>

<p>The most interesting situation was the photography teacher, because that was an elective supplementary rec, and she was hardly ever asked to write recs for academic colleges (usually for art schools, however). She expressed uncertainty to me at the parent-teacher conf, saying “of course it’ll be positive but why did he ask me?” I said that he chose her because the university required 2 core academic teachers, AND YET he was applying for a specialty major within the film school. He believed she could describe his visual sensibility and this would really add something to his application as a screenwriter that the academics couldn’t know. I saw her lightbulb go off in her head and said no more. She needed to know what TOPIC to address so it would make sense and help him. </p>

<p>A fourth letter went in supplemental from someone outside of school who’d seen him in a leadership capacity in a national youth group office. She told him, “I know what to do” but some of the schools never received hers, and we didn’t bother to chase it simply because we ran out of time to chase.</p>

<p>However, it could also have come in the week after I (yes, I) phoned during school hours to ask the admissions secretary if all the materials arrived. As a parent on administrative duty, I didn’t hesitate to ask a secretary questions such as this. In an ideal world, I’d have had S make that as a cellphone call immediately after school, but something has to give in the crunch. Many parents here say administrative is okay.</p>

<p>That’s when I learned that 3, not 4 letters had been received by several schools. It could also be that they didn’t file as many as 4. (If you ask, they’ll also name the authors of the letters received, which helps you track them down if one is missing.) </p>

<p>Conclusions: He never saw them. I’d have liked him to hear the good stuff just for his self-esteem but I hope the letters were taken more credibly because each person wrote their name across a sealed envelope and he checked the waiver. I did have a general sense of the direction of each letter by knowing what the teachers thought of him during those parent-teacher conferences in October. He got in to one of his top choices. You can kind of tell which teachers smile upon a student, although I feel sorry for the quieter types in class. My S is an extrovert so he’s easily known by teachers. This is not the only kind of worthy student, however. </p>

<p>He also gave each teacher a bullet-point reminder of his schoolwork achievements. As a teacher, I’m saying that’s a GREAT idea because with so many on their roster, it’s too easy to forget what a student chose to write for a term paper topic. Reminding of something like that ( a title) can help a teacher remember the content of the paper and how he felt when reading it. I think sometimes the student should provide bullet-point class accomplishments, hoping to help a teacher think beyond the obvious “A- student with a nice, polite personality.” It can’t hurt and it’s not rude.</p>

20

<p>On the one rec we saw, the teacher did briefly highlight some of my son’s EC activities, though most of the letter focused on his qualities as a student and person. I have to think he must have asked my son for a little resume in order to include the EC info. Though it repeated what was already on the app, I felt it corroborated the activities and gave them more weight.</p>