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Arrogance Is a Substitute for Happiness

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So do you remember the bad student who asked me for a letter of recommendation to graduate school (of a very prestigious university, as it turned out)? This blog’s readers were kind enough to help me write the letter, which is why I thought they would be interested in finding out how things went.

On my readers’ advice, I wrote something like, “Dear student, I have a policy only to write recommendation letters for students who received grades of A and B in my courses. Since the last two grades you got with me were “F”, I will not be able to recommend you for graduate studies. I suggest you get in touch with a professor who is more acquainted with your strengths than I am.”

In response, the student wrote, “It’s OK, you can still write the letter. Here is the form you will need to fill out.”

As we say in my culture, arrogance is a substitute for happiness.

30 responses to “Arrogance Is a Substitute for Happiness”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    Can you just not answer him or would it give him a right to complain?

    What have you answered, if not a secret? This:

    “Dear student, I have a policy only to fill out forms for students who received grades of A and B in my courses.”

    ?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I’m not going to answer, to be honest. I’m starting to get annoyed. I hate it when people try to push me.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        But then you’ll get more letters.

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  2. Fie Upon This Quiet Life Avatar
    Fie Upon This Quiet Life

    OMG, what a moron. I think I would reply that whether the recommendation comes in the form or a letter or a form to fill out, your policy still prevents you from being someone that can recommend him/her for graduate school. Also say that these forms/recommendations frequently ask for disclosure of the grade that the person received in your class, and that it would look very bad to a graduate school to get a recommendation from a prof who taught a class that the student failed.

    Or you could just say, “The only recommendation I can give you is that you look elsewhere for a recommendation.” haha. Or you could write up a brief letter saying what a dip shit this person is and send it to the person for review, saying, “This is the only kind of letter I could write for you. Do you want me to send it on to your grad school of choice?” That makes more work for you, but also might get this creature off your back. Good luck.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I love the “My only recommendation is that you look elsewhere for a recommendation.” 🙂 I think I will use it if the student persists.

      Now the wider question is why would one want to go to grad school when one obviously dislikes studying??

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      1. Fie Upon This Quiet Life Avatar
        Fie Upon This Quiet Life

        The person has either 1) no clue what grad school entails or 2) so many student loans (without any job prospects) that he/she can’t get out of school just yet without moving into mom and dad’s basement.

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  3. AYY Avatar
    AYY

    I guess it depends what’s on the form. If this person is so intent on having you fill out the form, can you fill out the form in a way that says that this person is generally nice and pleasant, and not say anything at all about academic aptitude or just tell them to look at the transcript? Won’t that tell the admissions committee all they need to know, especially after they look at the student’s transcript?

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  4. zinemin Avatar
    zinemin

    Wow. This sounds to me more like a problem with reading comprehension than anything else. How does such a person come up with the idea to go into grad school?

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  5. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    I am beginning to wonder if maybe the student is the daughter of a wealthy patron who has given tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to a university, with the gentlemen’s agreement that his child be admitted to grad school there. But, the pro-forma requirement of a certain number of letters must be satisfied, no matter what the letters say. This kind of thing does sometimes happen. I have heard grad students in other departments talk about this or that student who was “dumb as a post” who somehow struggled through the program. It is understandable that universities would be tempted by such an offer, although sad. If you were in a department threatened with elimination, and someone offered to endow your department specifically with a donation of $250 million, would you be tempted to support it, or would you stand on principle and let yourself and all your departmental colleagues be terminated?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I wouldn’t be tempted with the donation, no matter what. I’ve watched my own department go down the drain precisely because of this kind of logic. “Let’s accept the daughter of the President of X university. Who cares if she doesn’t speak a word of the language she will be teaching? He can do a lot for our department.” “Let’s give this course to the husband of an important person Y. He doesn’t have a degree in anything but the family can do a lot to us.” And so on.

      Eventually, the students stopped enrolling in a program filled with relatives of important people. And the department disappeared altogether. One can’t be a little bit pregnant or a little bit dishonest, as we say. Once you are dishonest, it’s for good.

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      1. David Bellamy Avatar
        David Bellamy

        This does not answer the question. Do you think this student could be in this situation?

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “This does not answer the question. Do you think this student could be in this situation?”

          – Oh no, I don’t think this is a rich student AT ALL. We talked quite a bit over the years and I know this student needs to find a job and start making money as soon as possible.

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  6. E (The Third Glance) Avatar
    E (The Third Glance)

    Dear ,
    It is with great frustration that I write this letter. Unfortunately I cannot recommend for graduate work. While a hard worker and nice person, this student has struggled immensely academically in my course (receiving 2 F’s before finally passing), and does not have what it takes to succeed in a graduate program. Additionally, when the student requested a letter from me, I refused, but the student would not take “no” and insisted that I write this. It does not bode well for this student if they believe I will write them a wonderful letter, and you need only look at their transcript to see this. I do not recommend this student to your program.
    Sincerely,
    Clarissa, PhD.

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    1. E (The Third Glance) Avatar
      E (The Third Glance)

      Phooey, I forgot wordpress doesn’t like me using “” – sorry about that~

      That should have read:
      Dear [Graduate Program],
      It is with great frustration that I write this letter. Unfortunately I cannot recommend [student] for graduate work. While a hard worker and nice person, this student has struggled immensely academically in my course (receiving 2 F’s before finally passing), and does not have what it takes to succeed in a graduate program. Additionally, when the student requested a letter from me, I refused, but the student would not take “no” and insisted that I write this. It does not bode well for this student if they believe I will write them a wonderful, supportive letter, and you need only look at their transcript to see this. I do not recommend this student to your program.
      Sincerely,
      Clarissa, PhD.

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    2. Miriam Avatar
      Miriam

      This is perfect.

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  7. djiril Avatar
    djiril

    Hope springs eternal. I guess this student never learned how to properly analyze a piece of writing.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Hence an F in my Literature course!!

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  8. John Hayden Avatar
    John Hayden

    Maybe we should not judge this student so harshly. I wonder if this might be a mental health issue. The student sounds delusional or out of touch with reality. It’s good to have lofty goals, but sad when a person is totally unaware that personal limitations make attaining the goal impossible.

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    1. Miriam Avatar
      Miriam

      That’s actually a really good point. But I wouldn’t blame Clarissa if she doesn’t think it’s her job to deal with that.

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      1. Z Avatar
        Z

        No, there are all sorts of requests like this. I just refused to write a letter of recommendation for a student because I did not know her, had never met – she contacted me out of the blue saying she needed a letter and I was the appropriate person to write it. I said I did not know her and could not do this, and she said it did not matter, she felt was definitely qualified for what she was applying for.

        I said look, you will have to go see someone who is on campus, not abroad like me, because then they can at least write a letter saying they have met you. She said, she was too busy to go to campus and meet someone, she just needed someone to scan the documents and write the letter.

        This kind of thing happens OFTEN and I don’t think it is a mental health issue, I think it is a massive misunderstanding of what letters of recommendations are. The students think they are sort of the same as, having your dept. chair sign off on a request for travel reimbursement form, or something like that.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “This kind of thing happens OFTEN and I don’t think it is a mental health issue, I think it is a massive misunderstanding of what letters of recommendations are. The students think they are sort of the same as, having your dept. chair sign off on a request for travel reimbursement form, or something like that.”

          – Exactly. You are absolutely right. This is a very wide misconception. Maybe this is something that should be addressed during the Freshman seminars.

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  9. Brittany-Ann Avatar
    Brittany-Ann

    Don’t answer his e-mail, or any others this student sends. (I guarantee this moron will send you more e-mails “reminding” you to send the letter when you don’t do it.)

    Either they’ll give up (unlikely) or they’ll drop by your office. Then you can tell them off without there being a record of it.

    I wonder how many of your colleagues this student has been harassing for recommendation letters?

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  10. FD Avatar
    FD

    At this point, however or even if I decided to reply, I would give my immediate superior (if I had not already done so casually) a heads up about the situation. Just something along the lines of ‘Just fyi, I have had to refuse an academic recommendation request on grounds of failure to reach the required standard, but unfortunately the student seems incapable of accepting that.’

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Good idea!

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  11. valter07 Avatar
    valter07

    —I suggest you get in touch with a professor who is more acquainted with your strengths than I am

    I am usually more informal… (Usually is probably a strong word, as it happened maybe twice, and with C-students, not F-ones) I say, you know, people actually read those letters. I, along with other members of the committee, read those letters for students applying to graduate studies in our department. Believe me, what I can realistically write, may hurt you.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      My teaching persona is always quite formal. I don’t like shortening the distance. So the emails are always this way.

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  12. Z Avatar
    Z

    I am with valter07 on this and I do not find what he says informal. I think your administrative-speak would be confusing to a lot of students, especially of the type you describe. You have to be more direct.

    I recently said: «I cannot write the kind of letter that would get you into that school, because I need to maintain credibility with them so as to be able to place future students there. If I say I foresee you doing well in their program, which I do not, and you get in and then do poorly as I am sure you will, then they will not believe me when I recommend a future student who I do foresee doing well. In other words, if I write a letter containing insincere praise for your work, it will be bad for my future students and also for my relationship with the faculty at that school. Therefore, no, I cannot stretch the truth a bit just to help you out because you are in a bad spot.»

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I admire your directness but that just isn’t who I am. I couldn’t do this.

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  13. Z Avatar
    Z

    (It is pedagogically good, though … they say oh wow, is that how it works?! … and are truly amazed.)

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  14. Z Avatar
    Z

    And – here is an actual, recent e-mail by me on this:

    http://profacero.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/an-e-mail/

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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