What to do with a principal's recommendation?

Youdon_tsay
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 01:45:30 +0000

DS2 had a LOR written by an assistant principal and used it as one of his primary two LORs. This was for a couple of reasons. One, there had been some turnover/changes in the way classes were staffed and the guy he thought could write his humanities-side rec no longer was the best choice. The AP taught a first-time humanities-side class fall of ds2’s senior year that was so up ds2’s alley. Not a core class, but absolutely reflected ds2’s interests and aptitudes. Two, this AP was the disciplinarian AP and ds, as student body pres as well as head of a couple of other organizations, had a lot of very close dealings with him. He knew that the AP really trusted him and would likely write a sterling LOR and that few kids would have the nerve to ask him (whereas some teachers at his school write dozens).

So, in our case, the administrator WAS a teacher. In that sense, ds followed the rules. But he wasn’t a core teacher, so in that sense he broke the rules. He got into six of the eight schools to which he applied (one no and one WL) so I don’t think it was held against him.