<p>My point exactly Epiphany. A recommendation could come across as bland or less than stellar and not because the teacher deliberately chose to do so. Some teachers don’t know the student as well. Perhaps they only had one class last year together. Maybe they don’t know anything about the student outside of class. </p>
<p>Pick carefully. That is totally within the student’s right. To ask to see the recommendation before it is sent is also within the student’s right. </p>
<p>I do think that colleges value teacher and guidance counselor opinions or they wouldn’t ask for them in the first place.</p>
<p>Perfect on paper…there are some kids that can make themselves look extremely desirable on paper, but it doesn’t really show the whole picture. In this day of polished essays, and professional college counselors etc…it is harder to tell what is the student, and what has been prettied up.</p>
<p>Just be careful about rec’s. If someone appears too eager to write a rec, there might be a reason. There have been instances where a teacher has tried to torpedo a kid by offering to do an exceptional rec. Just be really careful. A poorly written rec from someone who honestly likes you is lightyears better than a well-written one from someone who feels you didn’t deserve your status at the high school, and their pet did. Just be really really careful.</p>
<p>Cur,
How is a student suppose to realize that a teacher who claims to write a glowing rec has nasty intentions?
S’s math teacher volunterrily gave S a copy of his letter of rec for college. Grammar wasn’t the best, but it captured S’s personality & gave specifics. S asked this same man for letters for NMF and summer program. Why? Because he was only teacher who shared the letter.
It was better to go with known letter-writer than the unknown. I don’t understand the secrecy. (OK, if friends all apllying at same time and could compare)</p>
I think the people at your school are probably wrong about how admissions really works. My son had two school extracurricular activities - Academic Team and Science Olympiad. He clearly enjoyed both, and got medals in the latter, but he wasn’t president of anything. His real extra curricular passion is programming computers. That came through loud and clear in his application.</p>
<p>" don’t understand the secrecy. (OK, if friends all apllying at same time and could compare)"</p>
<p>The secrecy is due to:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A good recc is not uniformly glowing because that seems fake. I have heard, for instance, Harvard admissions committee members say that they find interviewers’ reports more believable when the reports contain some information about where a student could improve (assuming, of course, that the improvement isn’t needed in something like stopping their cocaine use or stopping cheating!).</p></li>
<li><p>Whether or not students are applying to the same schools, if they saw their reccs, they still could compare them, and that could lead to anger, hurt feelings and even lawsuits from students whose reccs were accurate, but weren’t as glowing as they believe their friends were. Lots of students erroneously think that teachers give glowing reccs based on how much the </p></li>
<li><p>Students and parents could start feeling that it’s their job to demand that certain things be included in a recommendation, things that the teacher doesn’t agree with. For instance, every student might want their recommender to check the box, “Best student I’ve ever taught.” There are students and parents who quibble over every assignment grade. Imagine what they’d do with recommendations.</p></li>
<li><p>The college admissions officers also are more likely to view a recommendation as being completely honest if it seems that the student wasn’t aware of the contents.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>"When people at my school talk about extracurricular, all it is is about how colleges will look at it for ‘leadership’ "</p>
<p>Lots of people erroneously think that way. They are wrong.</p>
<p>Impact is important, which includes honors and awards related to their activities as well as leadership demonstrated through actions that they took to organize things, raise money and influence others and make a difference in their community or in others’ lives.</p>
<p>For the relatively few colleges that consder ECs a great deal as admissions factors (and these are places like HPYS, which have an overabundance of high stat applicants), the admissions officers know how to tell the difference between students who did ECs that were meaningful and had an impact and ECs including “leadership positions” that are simply resume dressing.</p>
<p>I’m a true believer in the sports EC’s. I virtually ONLY had sports EC’s, but it was 12 seasons, 10 years varsity, and with 2 captainships. When you do a good amount of sports with practices and games on the weekends nearly every other EC is completely out of the question. I don’t think I listed one community service activity I did. Worked out beautifully for me.</p>
<p>In our state we (parents and students) have the right to review our student Cume Folders, which I assume (I never looked at my kids’ folders) include any referrals, testing, teacher end of year evals, counselor evals, grades, placement recommendations, etc. At any point a parent can go in and sign something and he/she may sit down and examine the folder. It seems odd, then, at the very end of a student’s career, that there would be ANY surprises in a counselor evaluation. In my opinion, it should certainly not deviate substantially with whatever has been recorded about that student over the past 13 years in the system. So in light of that, I don’t see what the big secrecy need is. It seems too much of a “wild card” to me. My personal hope is that in the future, this confidentiality thing will be thrown out and students know everything that was sent in with their applications.</p>
<p>Personally, I DON’T trust every administrator at our high school because it is a private school and as an insider I saw way too many favors bestowed on students because of their family standing. </p>
<p>My son did, however, get two glowing letters (which he saw) from a coach and a band director. Both letters talked about his talents, his leadership, his initiative, using specific examples, etc. They were great letters. There were also two confidential teacher letters in the guidance office. When I spoke to his counselor, I asked that the “best” two letters be sent, or all the letters. That is, if there were no restrictions by the school about who the letters came from (academic teachers vs. others). I’m assuming she did the honorable thing and put whatever would help him out the most in his application packet.</p>
<p>I know some of us have discussed the issue of “personality type” or temperament on other threads and I believe it is a huge factor in teacher recommendations.</p>
<p>I’m trying to avoid “over generalizing” but the fact is that there is a “high school teacher type”. And, quite frankly, this “type” is not necessarily the same type as college professors, admission directors, or even top students.</p>
<p>Even when these teachers “love” their students and think they are the best thing since “sliced bread”, their recommendation may hurt the student because it is full of “hard working” “rule following” “respect authority” types of comments - values of the teacher that he or she thinks would be positive but, in fact, may be interpreted negatively by those of different types. </p>
<p>And, just imagine what the teachers’ recommendations might look like for brilliant students who are outspoken and individualistic or quiet and contemplative. etc. I think this is more likely to “hurt” male students who haven’t “mastered” or don’t “buy in” to all the “teacher pleasing” activities of some of the female students.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, most teachers still favor the perky, bright (but not necessarily brilliant), complimenting, “over and above” embellishing, homework completing student and their recommendations reflect that preference.</p>
<p>My children did not ask to see their teacher recs. They chose wisely. Letters do come across as fake when a child just walks on water all the time, in all areas. The colleges are asking for honest opinions, which means allowing teachers and counselors to put down the good along with anything they have misgivings about. What is the point of asking if everyone is just going to put down only what the parent/child wants to see? Can’t the teacher have an opinion? Is this student truly the best student this teacher has taught? Was his/her contribution better than everyone else? Are they the best candidate for this college from this school? It reminds me of when my husband was in the USMC and you had to be evaluated by your commanding officer every year. Anything less than an “outstanding” meant you probably would not be promoted. Eventually everyone in the unit was “outstanding.” They had to move to a system where the “outstanding” men were then ranked so there was something to differentiate.</p>
<p>On the one hand, people complain that students who shouldn’t move ahead while stepping upon the dead bodies of their peers are allowed to do so, and then on the other hand people want only perfect recs sent in by teachers. At some point the application process is in the hands of others. A student can only control the portion that is theirs to control.</p>
<p>I’m not saying “blackballing” or “torpedoing” a student app is right, but I am saying it happens and to be prepared beforehand not after the fact. A teacher is free to write what they think. If the letter is confidential, then a teacher has the freedom to do just that.</p>
<p>What do you think about a student that uses the people who work under their parent to do research, and then they “crunch the numbers” and turn it in as their own and use it in the college application process? Would you write a good rec? What would you say? Should this student just get good recs and a pass to their first choice school over someone that did not have access to a lab full of people, and did all of their research? That’s what I mean about better on paper. Oh sure, they have a great research project to their name, one they didn’t do themselves. How about the kid that “fudges” a little on how many hours they devote to an EC? Or their actual involvement in the EC? </p>
<p>In a perfect world, students would be honest on their applications, and teachers in being honest with their recommendations would only have wonderful things to say. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.</p>
<p>Now I have NO interest in putting any faith in “personality types.”
…Because once again we have the stereotyping of “teacher types” with the accompanying put-down.
You apparently have no idea how many teachers with masters & doctoral degrees there are teaching at rigorous private schools. <em>Many</em> of them additionally teach college, simultaneously even to their h.s. teaching workloads. The ones with heavier h.s. class loads (at our school) teach community college; the ones with slightly lighter class loads teach at ELITE UNIVERSITIES. </p>
<p>We have ACADEMIC “types” at our school, which includes self.<br>
What type are you? Informed, or not informed?</p>
<p>The best guarantee of good recommendations is to havean open and transparent relationship with the guidance counselor. Guidance counselors are human; they like to be recognized and appreciated for their hard work. A friend talked to me about “suiting up and wearing pearls” for a meeting with guidance counselor and her rage that the woman told her daughter “she didn’t like Vassar” presently the girl’s top pick. Well, I’ve been known to say stupid things on my job so I would not respond in rage to a silly comment. My D has a quick temper herself and recreated a scene over something trivial in GC’s office. For our next meeting (I insisted on attending) I smoothed ruffled feathers, brought Starbucks for everyone (not as phony, butter up gesture; this is the kind of thing I tend to do. She was so taken for granted that this was the thing she remembered. She was then extremely supportive and discussed which recommendations were the strongest without giving specifics. She worked very hard on getting D into her top school (Ivy level) as did her successor with my S (top pick, Ivy level with very surprising Ivy waitlist then acceptance.) A GC is a gatekeeper for a mediocre rec.</p>
<p>About EC’s: Encourage kid to expand and grow within parameters of his/her interests/talents/abilities. Friend criticized me for encouraging kids to do things “just for college”. This was never the case. However, when editorship of school literary magazine became available I encouraged D to go for it, even though she was only a sophmore because I knew she’d love it.She did it for three years and now counts editing among her most important skills. S is a very cerebral musician; I encouraged him to try composing which he did and now wants to pursue in college (the next John Williams? LOL). This was for him, not college, but the fact thathe wrote a string quartet was important I’m sure for Ivy acceptance since STATS thogh IVY level are not the highest IVY level. Elite colleges let us know what kids can do’ it’s up tp kid how far s/he wants to push him/herself. S, who also wants to be a doctor, made it clear he did not want to go Intel route, even though a best friend was and research opportunities very available. This was his decision. Ultimately we are encoraging kid to develop him/herself, not the resume. Both kids had leadership positions; neither did student gov’t. or sports.</p>
<p>Post 610:
I agree that some teachers DO like the shmoozing. My kids went to the two teachers for their letters of rec that were pretty straightforward in their classes- expectations, relationships with kids- they were all math and science teachers, and weren’t the types to cater to schmoozing. At any rate, there ARE some teachers who love the behind-kissing and some who don’t. </p>
<p>I’ve worked within our school and some of the stuff I’ve witnessed- 1. a kid who consistently goes up to the teacher after class and thanks her for the wonderful lecture after each class; 2. a kid who periodically brings sweets into the front office to be shared by the clerk, principal, and GC’s; 3. Christmas and end-of-year cards for teachers and assistants that contain THOUSANDS of dollars (I’ve been on the receiving end of one of those 4. a kid who comes in during vacations and installs landscaping at the school on his own dime (maybe he collects donations, but from whom?). Many more examples. </p>
<p>Anyway, we’re digressing from the EC thing a little, although I suppose those evaluations and letters that go into apps count for at least as much as all those years of work doing extracurriculars.</p>
<p>With the exception of the thousands of dollars in gifts, which I think are unethically excessive for teachers to accept, I think the below things are simply gracious things to do.</p>
<p>Why not compliment a well done lecture? Express appreciation through a card or small gift? People like teachers hold their low paying, low status jobs because they want to make a difference – to touch people’s lives in a positive way. For teachers, there’s usually no better "reward’ than a sincere thank-you.</p>
<p>Most people also appreciate expressions of genuine appreciation. People who are kind enough to demonstrate such appreciation go far in life. </p>
<p>Too many people think that people like co-workers, bosses and teachers are basically robots there to serve them, instead of realizing that all people have hearts and appreciate kindness and appreciation.</p>
<p>“I’ve worked within our school and some of the stuff I’ve witnessed- 1. a kid who consistently goes up to the teacher after class and thanks her for the wonderful lecture after each class; 2. a kid who periodically brings sweets into the front office to be shared by the clerk, principal, and GC’s; 3. Christmas and end-of-year cards for teachers and assistants that contain THOUSANDS of dollars (I’ve been on the receiving end of one of those 4. a kid who comes in during vacations and installs landscaping at the school on his own dime (maybe he collects donations, but from whom?). Many more examples”</p>
<p>“Too many people think that people like co-workers, bosses and teachers are basically robots there to serve them, instead of realizing that all people have hearts and appreciate kindness and appreciation.”</p>
<p>I don’t know about co-workers & bosses, but I do know (and CC is an extension of it) that “too many people” consider themselves above teachers in ability and/or intelligence, and consciously or unconsciously treat them like servants. </p>
<p>I have no idea what kinds of high schools include very many teachers who could possibly be considered less capable, less talented, less intelligent than the families of children they teach. At my D’s school, 2 teachers just retired who are among the creme de la creme at that school, but could be considered so at all such schools, as well. They are absolutely brilliant – superior in intelligence & insight & ability to judge character, to many of the quite well-heeled parents. One of them is only one of many of the teachers there with advanced <em>international</em> education.</p>
<p>Some time in '06 I saw a news segment involving a plane trip some private prep schools were taking. It was obvious form the dialogue that the students were exceptionally bright & well-spoken. Teachers hired for such schools are generally articulate, very intelligent, & with superior education; parents of such students demand as much, & usually get it. I’m sure in just about every school, public or private, one will find a handful of “political” appointees, but as with the Elite colleges, high-profile high schools stake their reputations on the quality of their faculty & programs, & cannot afford to play around with that. I’ve never met a teacher of <em>that</em> caliber that is so insecure that he or she needs lots of patronizing pats on the head. Just like, um, the parents, they get satisfaction out of meeting the challenge of their profession – which is in this case engaging the mind. Funny how that works.</p>
<p>epiphany - don’t you ever get tired of the playing the “poor misunderstood low-paid teacher” card? </p>
<p>Maybe, if you were open minded enought to take a glance at the reams of research on personality type and teaching/learning - you would have understood my meaning and wouldn’t always be so defensive!</p>
<p>Sadly, when any group spends much of their career in one field - they develop an “us against them” mentality. It certainly shows in your posts!</p>
<p>I’ve never played that “type” you just accused me of. Did I mention pay? No. I can guess that my critical reading score is probably considerably higher than yours, judging by the way you read <em>content</em> of my posts.</p>
<p>I don’t consider myself “poor” or “misunderstood,” just not respected by parents like yourself who mistakenly believe they are brighter and of a higher "class’ (<em>cough, cough</em>) than me. Your posts reveal otherwise. Further, your selection of the words “poor” and “misunderstood” (as if I’ve ever painted myself to be some victim-type – not) further emphasize your condescending attitude. You truly need to get over yourself & your superior attitude. I’m not your housekeeper, nor are the high school teachers at any truly competitive school out there, all of whom can probably run circles around you when it comes to logic & coherence within debate.</p>
<p>Nor do I have an us-againt-them attitude. There’s nothing in my posts suggesting that. You have no idea how many careers I’ve had – speaking of supposedly “staying in one field.” But this is just one more area in which you reveal how judgmental you truly are.</p>
<p>Oh please - do not insult my intelligence or those of the other posters by referring to your one post on this thread as if it is the sum total of your posts on this topic. </p>
<p>You “pop in” on numerous threads - and it only takes a cursory “search” to find those where you have, contrary to your above words - complained about the low salaries and benefits of teachers. </p>
<p>And, I can’t imagine any adults - other than teachers - who would bring up critical reading scores - as if they are indicative of one’s abilities and intelligence. Doing so indicates that you view the world from a “school bound” perspective. Yet you cannot seem to see the correlation between such posts and the resulting judgments made about you! </p>
<p>There are two individuals, you are one of them, that can be counted on to jump into any discussion attacking any poster who dares question a teacher.</p>
<p>wow, relfectivemom, your put down of TeacherTypes for Highschool teachers was pretty damning</p>
<p>Guess you don’t consider those teachers usually, unlike their college prof counterparts- well those HS teachers coach, run clubs, mentor, and so much more</p>
<p>Yes, I have a personal interest, my mom taught special ed for 35 years in various schools</p>
<p>And Yes, I know that certain teachers can not be great, but I give most the benefit of the doubt</p>
<p>By lumping HS teachers in like that, you have shown a disdain for the profession, and we should be grateful that people still WANT to be teachers with the low respect, pay, angry snooty parents, wild kids, etc that they often put up with</p>
<p>And if a child is quiet and doesn’t share in class so they don’t get a good recommendation about participation, gee, who should maybe open up a bit in that regard, and stretch themselves a bit, while the over exurberant student should reign themselves in at times</p>
4. a kid who comes in during vacations and installs landscaping at the school on his own dime (maybe he collects donations, but from whom?). Many more examples. </p>