DD was refused a letter of recommendation based on something dumb

[Anonymous]

Teacher did you a favor by declining. And AP Computer Science Principles isn’t a serious CS class and shouldn’t be used for a CS major rec letter. Ask math or physics. Also talk to school counselor about whether your DD has enough targets and safeties as a CS major, which is typically far more competitive.

[Anonymous]

Very selective colleges want LORs from high level core teachers…so AP Calc or AP Physics (ideally Physics C).

Principles isn’t considered a difficult class, nor is it remotely core. The teacher is doing your kid a favor even though you don’t know that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her absences were excused but the teacher probably wasn’t happy that sports and a vacation took priority over her education.

Exactly. You don’t have a right to treat high school as the lowest priority and then get upset when people call you out on it.

Hmmm, I'm not sure missing some school for other things means it is the 'lowest' priority. I mean, the kid still studied enough to get an A and presumably attended most of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD asked her AP Computer Science Principles teacher (from last year) to write her a letter of recommendation. She is applying to very selective colleges as a computer science major, so as you can imagine, this letter would have been an important part of her application.

However, the teacher said she would not be willing to write it since DD missed class a lot last year. Due to a combination of her sport, a family emergency, and travel, DD missed a significant amount of school in her junior year, but all her absences were excused and she explained this to the teacher. I'm really surprised the teacher would act like this- we are at a large public (not magnet). DD got an A in the class and is obviously passionate about the subject, and thought the teacher liked her. It's really surprising, and not fair.

DD was counting on this letter, and she doesn't know who to ask and what to do. Any advice? She is getting a letter from her AP Comp teacher as well, but it won't be strong since that's not her favorite subject.

It fair. There is reasoning behind it; your DD missed too much class. You say she missed for "sport" and "family emergency" and "travel," lol. Yeah, that's not appropriate. The teacher is doing the right thing. Many teachers only right a certain number of recommendations per year, and have to decide who they want to write for. Sounds like this teacher has reasonable criteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it better not to get the rec from this teacher? They are effectively telling you that it would not be a good recommendation.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are really nasty at times and quite full of themselves. They never want to encourage/help kids and it is really sad. Writing that letter would not have hurt the teacher. Have come across some really nasty teachers in DDs school as well

Do you know how much “free time” a teacher has? Very little. Planning time plus tons of meetings plus grading—most go far above and beyond their paid work hours.

How many personally tailored recommendation letters does a teacher have time to write? If a teacher gets asked to write 30 letters and it takes 15 minutes per letter to write and submit, that’s almost 8 hours of unpaid time. If they have family at home that’s taking time away from their family.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to have a limit on how many recs they write, and perhaps the op assumes that they wouldn’t write it because of the absences, but it may have been something else. Maybe the student was unkind or something else. It’s more than just “there are nasty teachers out there”

[Anonymous]

Wait- are you trying to get a recommendation for this year’s application? It is really late to be asking, so that also might be contributing to why the teacher didn’t agree to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her absences were excused but the teacher probably wasn’t happy that sports and a vacation took priority over her education.

Exactly. You don’t have a right to treat high school as the lowest priority and then get upset when people call you out on it.

Hmmm, I'm not sure missing some school for other things means it is the 'lowest' priority. I mean, the kid still studied enough to get an A and presumably attended most of the year.

Is it really that hard to get an A these days though?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Her absences were excused but the teacher probably wasn’t happy that sports and a vacation took priority over her education.

+1

If a teacher was missing from a class this much, due to a number of reasons, parents would be lining up on here to complain. Another who believes that a rec letter would not be a good one and that is why the answer is no.

Something dumb? No, not really. Something subjective that you and DD should have thought of last year.

[Anonymous]

Oh the whiny privilege around here ...

I think you should force the letter, OP. Lol. And then your DD will get what she earned.

[Anonymous]

Jesus Christ.

[Anonymous]

You must be a troll. First, academics come first. Sports are a hobby. Missing class is terrible if it’s your major. I know it’s upsetting, but I applaud the teacher for being honest! Perhaps it’s time to reevaluate her goals. Maybe college isn’t the best choice.

[Anonymous]

High school teacher here. That’s a reasonable reason to decline. A recommendation is just that… a recommendation, essentially telling the school that the teacher vouches for this student. Excessive absences make that hard to do.

We do have the option to decline recommendations, and I decline every time I can’t write about a student in a favorable way. That’s the nicest thing I can do, giving the student the chance to find a stronger recommendation elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

This happened to one of my kids’ friends. Though she asked last spring for a recommendation for this year. Teacher said no because she felt she wasn’t in class enough (student travelled a ton for a niche sport). But instead of whining about it not being fair, the friend just said “fair enough” and asked another teacher.

[Anonymous]

That is the easiest AP class. Get a math teacher.