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Recieved a lovly little postcard from Cornell today notifying me of my application's withdrawl. I call the adcom up and find out it was withdrawn due to my rec's never being turned in.

I gave my teachers the rec forms before the holiday break....

I called my history teacher up and he swears he sent it days after I gave him the form, my english teacher said "Oh, it's in this pile on my desk, I'll get to it next week"

So, I'm assuming these letters never went to any of my colleges...How screwed am i!

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 04:55 pm: Edit

I strongly suggest that you call all of your schools and find out what you can do. Even call Cornell and see if they still will accept your application if you get reccs in on time.

I also suggest that your parents go in and have a long chat with the principal. What happened to you is totally unacceptable, and the GCs, teachers should personally be calling the schools to explain what happened and to beg the colleges to still accept your applications.

Good luck!

By Mjl86 (Mjl86) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:04 pm: Edit

Mike,

Normally you have to give the teacher 4-6 weeks to write the letter. Do not blame it on the teacher if you did not give him/her the opportunity to write you the recommendation in a reasonable amount of time. Teachers have a life too like everyone else!!!

By Candi1657 (Candi1657) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:07 pm: Edit

Wow...this is uniquely terrible. I don't know what to say.

By Ohio_Mom (Ohio_Mom) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:13 pm: Edit

Which holiday break - Christmas? If so, your parents definately need to get involved - right now. In our HS, the GC will provide the application in a sealed envelope to the student (signed across the flap), who then mails it him/herself. The envelope contains a postcard with a stamp address to the student that the college can send, saying ... we got your package. Also, would find someone other than your enlish teacher to write the rec.

By Krpatel (Krpatel) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:15 pm: Edit

Please Mjl86, it is not necessary to give a teacher nearly two months to write a rec. Its true that they do have other things to do (actually, many), but come on, six weeks? At our school, If you tell a teacher to write a rec for you, the next week, if you see him/her in the hall, he/she will tell its been taken care of. If a teacher is very enthusiastic about a student (which will probably be the case with a Cornell applicant), he/she may begin writing it the next day. Your point about 4-6 weeks is completely invalid. Mike gave his recs out before the holiday break, which is nearly 10 weeks ago. In ten weeks, if a teacher is unable to write a rec, its negligence on his/her part, especially in the case of the English teacher who found it lying around in a pile of papers. If a teacher knows that he/she will be busy and unable to find time to write a rec, he/she should ask the student to ask another teacher to write a rec. Mike, hopefully, if you do what Northstarmom has suggested, your schools Guidance department and administration can straighten the situation out. I hope the best for you.

By Mjl86 (Mjl86) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:16 pm: Edit

Did you clearly convey to the teacher about the due date of the recommendations? Did you check on your online account to see if they had the recommendations? I see it as a lack of initiative in your part to cehck your credentials. People who really care about what they feel is important do it by themselves. Also, it is almost 2 months after the deadline. That would give you plenty of time to check to see if they have all your information.

I would call Cornell and see if you can still turn in your rec.

By Ohio_Mom (Ohio_Mom) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:20 pm: Edit

Candi - I agree that's its terrible - but not unique. Friend's S almost lost a full ride to Penn State Honors. Quick action saved it!

By Otterpop (Otterpop) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:25 pm: Edit

Gheez Mike, aren't you the same person who posted a while ago about your parents, who wouldn't let you take the SAT? It sucks that all this crap is happening to you. You should definitely call the schools and ask them if you can still send in your application. Also go to your English teacher and ask what happened. You gave him over 6 weeks to do the rec, and he STILL hasn't done it? You should definitely tell your principal and GC about this, as NM said, although it may be hard to complain about your rec-writer, whom you're supposed to like. Ah, good luck man, and I hope everything goes well.

By H0neymoon (H0neymoon) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:31 pm: Edit

That's ABSURD!! I cannot believe a teacher would do that! They of all people should understand the importance of a teacher recommendation, and the severity of meeting deadlines! It's so very hypocritical of them! I really think that if you can, you should either talk to the teacher yourself and get them to call the colleges and explain, or have your parents call the school. Like Northstarmom said, this is totally unnaceptable, and completely unfair.

By Virgo007 (Virgo007) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:40 pm: Edit

I'm so sorry to hear that...I find it APPALLING how some teachers are so irresponsible when it comes to this. I may be dramatizing this a little bit, but your future depends on their punctuality. I sincerely hope everything works out. Some of your teachers deserve a slap.

By Krpatel (Krpatel) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:43 pm: Edit

Its not only absurd, but also too common. This year, from my school, about a dozen students were counting on a certain teacher to write a rec for them. It turns out that not only did she completely disregarded there recs, but didn't even tell them about it. She walks around school with no stress in her life, yet the students whose recs she did not write have to worry about their recs. One of these students is our valedictorian who applied to Yale, UPenn, Cornell, Columbia, JHU, U of Rochester, and CMU. I am pretty sure that, because of her neglect, they were unable to replace the missing recs because deadlines had passed before they found out (although they haven't taken the type of action which has been suggested on this board, which would help).

By Awesome (Awesome) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 05:46 pm: Edit

"Some of your teachers deserve a slap." -- hhahaha, made my day. Some of MY teachers deserve a slap...

By Xiggi (Xiggi) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 06:05 pm: Edit

What is absurd and appalling is that colleges still place a great value on the school recs, especially the opinion of the guidance counselor.

On the one hand, I understand that colleges cannot rely exclusively on grades and scores. On the other hand, there is such a variance in the quality of the adminstrative offices at schools that it seems to be an unfair practice. It also represent a devious variable as it is as much a popularity contest as a bona fide evaluation. Some schools allow the parents to read the rec letters while other act in secrecy. Some schools ask the parent's input or even to write the letters while others ignore the requests of large groups of students.

As far as the posters who put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the students for not following up ... that sounds good in theory but the practice is a tad different. What do you do when the GC swears he sent everything out, only to find your envelopes in a stack of junk?

Want to hear the best story? A self-stamped self-addressed envelope was returned to my parents because the postage was insufficient. My parents opened it up only to find 5 or 6 transcripts/letters for OTHER students. The secretary said that the schools ROUTINELY mixes documents and uses the available envelopes, especially the stamped ones. This would not be so bad it the colleges DID not ask you to affix sorting labels.

If I had to do it again, I would NEVER let the high school mail anything on my behalf without a full inspection by my parents and mail everything using USPS priority mail.

By Candi1657 (Candi1657) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 06:12 pm: Edit

Xiggi- You are exactly right with that last statement. I refused to let my counselor send any more of my stuff after she claimed to have handed in Part I of my SUNY app and they never received it. I had to send it three months later.

By Mini (Mini) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 06:38 pm: Edit

I'd say sue 'em. I'm being quite serious. You have the two actionable elements that make up a suit: demonstrated harm, and actual negligence.

I know that sounds very serious, but I would think a clear message should be sent. (and bureaucrats don't get it any other way -- they know you will be gone next year, and so can continue on their merry way to the next set of students.)

Imagine what would happen if you treated your homework -- or a final paper -- that way.

By Mike28 (Mike28) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 07:01 pm: Edit

Yeah, it seems fate is out for me not to go to college.

Both have agreed to redo them tonight, and I am going to fax them ASAP to every college, with a letter explaining the sitatuion and just to trash them if they recieved doubles.

Sucks for me.

By Nebul0us (Nebul0us) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 07:04 pm: Edit

Repulsive! take some sort of action toward that teacher! I'm actually angry and it didn't happen to me. However, I have to say that u had a part to play in this as well. I MADE SURE that my teachers took care of my recs, I asked them about how far they got twice every week! My english teacher, which is the only teacher in my school that has been there since I was in the 7th grade ( my school is secondary), had to write over 90 recommendations for students seeing that we knew her for the longest, and was our teacher multiple times. I understood the amount of work that she had to do- took the time to write personal recs for everyone- but nevertheless i made sure that she was ontop of everything. The fact is that ur teacher could have said no to doing ur rec if they didn't have the time. by the same token, it was/is ur future and u should have taken more responsibilty in making sure that what u needed was being completed.

By Excusememixed (Excusememixed) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 07:09 pm: Edit

.:Sends Positive Vibes to Mike28:.

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 07:43 pm: Edit

Mike,
You really do need to talk to the GC and the principal. They can go to bat for you. I understand that your parents won't help, but the principal and GC can. The colleges need to hear from an adult at the school that the teachers, not you, were irresponsible.
This is important enough to take it to the school superintendent/school board if the school doesn't do what they should do. What they did was heinous, and they need to be held responsible.
You also can ask the colleges to call your GC to verify that you are a responsible student who wouldn't lie about something like this.
Colleges honestly aren't out to eliminate students who have worked hard and are doing their best to get to college. Let the colleges know what's going on, and ask them to verify things with your GC. You also can let the colleges know what your parents have been doing.
One of my former students had a similar situation with his parents who threatened to disown him because he wouldn't go where they wanted. They also stopped speaking to him. He let the college know what was going on, he got major merit aid, and ended up being a star student there.
If you are a strong candidate for a college that offers merit aid, they may do the same for you because they would be thrilled that a student who is a star in their pool wanted so much to attend their college.
I am sorry you are going through so much. Keep posting here so you can keep getting support.

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 07:45 pm: Edit

Mike,
I also wonder whether other postcards have come from colleges letting you know that the reccs weren't in. There is a chance that your parents have been throwing them away. I think that it's odd that Cornell is withdrawing your app without giving you notice first about the missing reccs.
And is there any chance that your parents have asked the teachers not to do the reccs?
Talk to the adcoms.

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 08:39 pm: Edit

Interesting point Northstarmom. Mike, listen to her! Good luck - I too am sending positive thoughts your way.

By Mjl86 (Mjl86) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 09:34 pm: Edit

Northstarmom,

Parents are not evil.. what you are suggesting is ludicrous.

Why would parents disown their child. I would move away as soon as I could if my parents treated me like that

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 09:45 pm: Edit

Mj,
I am fairly certain that Mike posted here about 6 weeks ago about how his parents caused him to miss his SAT testing. Seems they sneaked into his room and turned off his alarm. If I have the right person, his parents have been deliberately sabatoging his college plans. This can be hard to imagine if one is lucky enough to have supportive parents. However, I have seen posts by students whose parents do everything possible to prevent the students from making it. I also taught some students like this.

By Mike28 (Mike28) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 10:29 pm: Edit

Northstarmom is correct, my parents have before sabotaged my attempts at getting into a top 25 school.

I got an email from harvard asking for my transcript which my GC faxed that day, same thing from Yale. Both were taken care of a few weeks ago.

Cornell gave me no warning or anything, just the withdrawl postcard. I have yet to recieve anything from other colleges but tomorrow morning I intend to call them all and see if I'm missing anything.

Thanks for the vibes.

By Mjl86 (Mjl86) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 11:05 pm: Edit

sorry, i didn't know

By Nebul0us (Nebul0us) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 11:13 pm: Edit

oh man. I hope everything works out for you.

By Deeny1414 (Deeny1414) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 11:27 pm: Edit

I'm surprised Cornell automoatically withdrew your application...My teacher did all my recs too and Brandeis sent me a letter the other day informing me they never received one, even though I'm sure it was sent and just asked for a fax and hard copy ASAP...I feel bad for your situation though, and I hope everything works out!

By Ohio_Mom (Ohio_Mom) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 08:01 am: Edit

Mike,
keep working the contacts that Northstar mom has suggested - your colleges have to know what is going on. When you go in to talk with your principal, make sure that you have as much of a paper trail as possible: deadlines, dates requested, etc. I know that you are (rightly) embittered by this, but make sure that you as professional as possible when discussing the situation. Best wishes to you, keep posting.

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 08:17 am: Edit

Mike,
Please keep posting on CC, and also use the Parents' area, where there are many nice, supportive parents who go out of their way to offer good advice on boards to young people in difficult situations.

If there is any way that you can get professional counseling, also do that (If you aren't able to do that now, you will be able to get free or extremely low cost counseling when you go to college). It is extremely painful and confusing having parents who are as controlling as yours are. It is also hard to keep one step ahead of them. Professional counselors can help you figure out what to do, and can also provide good advice.

I am sorry to say that based on what I experienced myself in my teens and what I saw with college students who had parents similar to yours, your parents will probably get even worse the closer you get to leaving home. There seems to be something that goes on inside some parents to make them feel so envious of their offsprings' independence and success that the parents go out of their way to make things difficult.

My advice is to not expect anything from your parents as you go through the rest of the process. Don't even expect them to drive you to college or to give you even basic assistance such as help shipping your things to college. Get a PO Box so you can be sure of getting mail from colleges. If there are supportive adults in your life such as grandparents or friends' parents, rely on them to do things that normally students would ask parents to do. Clue them in not to talk to your parents about these things.

One of my former students had to take Greyhound 1,000 miles in order to start college because at the last minute, her mom -- who had promised to drive her -- changed her mind. The student had an athletic scholarship, and almost lost it because of arriving late.

You seem like a very nice young man, highly motivated, independent. I wish you well.

By Musictoad (Musictoad) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 08:25 am: Edit

I found out recently that I had won a full ride back in 1970 and my parents knew it and destroyed the info so I never knew. They didn't want me to go to the school. I'm 52 and my mom just told me about a month ago. Thanks mom.
So don't think this junk doesn't happen. It does.

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 08:38 am: Edit

Musictoad,
How devastating to learn about that now. Was it a surprise to learn how controlling your parents are?

By Angstridden (Angstridden) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 08:43 am: Edit

I am really sorry about what happened to you.
One thing about our school is they put the rec in sealed envelope but kid has to send it in themselves. Regardless, I always assume that things that are supposed to get done..dont.
And follow up. So I KNOW those teachers should have sent the recs. But I also think you have a responsibility to follow up and make sure they were sent. So I would have asked the teachers.
At this point its too late for that now. I would call the colleges and see what you can do.
I am sorry this occured.

By Musictoad (Musictoad) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 09:43 am: Edit

Northstarmom--actually I just have to laugh about it now.Controlling, absolutely but different times and different viewpoints. I wound up going to a college that I had never visited, knew very little about and had the best time. It had no campus, the buildings were ancient--so it just goes to show why I don't want D to have the same---NEVER DO WHAT YOUR PARENTS DID. HA! For the same amount of money, go to a school you have visited, love, green lawns but if it happens that you wind up elsewhere, everything will work out. It usually does. We're just holding our breath as the auditions are over and we wait for the schools' decisions to come rolling in.

As an additional comment on the OP dilemma. We still have no idea what is going on with Tulane. Our GC was to have called them and still hasn't informed us as to result. I'm waiting until Friday to call as they have lost everything. Their ineptitude has greatly colored my perception of the school and now all I can say is "party on" which seems to be their motto.

By Dads2kids (Dads2kids) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 10:40 am: Edit

We're still having problems with rec's from one teacher. He had the forms before Thanksgiving!
He supposedly has mailed them twice. Now we're having him fax each separately when we hear from a school. This part has been the biggest PITA of the entire application process. We still don't know if three schools received the rec or not. The schools say it takes several weeks to post once the rec is received so we dont even know if its received until 2 weeks after they get it. This process of sending all these parts of an application piecemeal is ridiculous. Its no wonder parts of an application get lost or misfiled when you have 7-8 different forms/recs being mailed separately for each student.

By Angstridden (Angstridden) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 12:48 pm: Edit

One good thing about our school..they wont send anything. They give it all to the student in sealed envelopes. So it can all be sent together.

By Musictoad (Musictoad) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 02:57 pm: Edit

We just were handed a postcard from Northwestern stating that recs and transcript havent been sent. That makes two schools for us--is there a pattern by the GC? Calling all schools monday.

By Emperoriv (Emperoriv) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 03:24 pm: Edit

To all of you missing parts of application:

It is very clear which parts of the application you should send and when they should get to the colleges. The fact that you never bothered to check with them that nothing is lost in the mail or some teacher screwed was your own negligence. Many schools have online application status pages that allows to see clearly which parts you are missing.

The fact that you are missing things shows either you dont care about the college or you are too irresponsible, neither will help!

peace

By Emyh (Emyh) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 03:32 pm: Edit

To me also, it seems like negligence. After I gave my teacher rec forms, I would also stop by their class to see the status of the rec if it had been written/sent yet. I won't even let my friend who was swinging by the post office send off a scholarship form for me. My reason? I want to be THERE at the post office when the form leaves my hand. That way there is no mistake. Well, with that to keep in mind, I hope the OP can fix the problems w/ Cornell. Good luck, and sorry to hear about the parent situation.

By Mike28 (Mike28) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 09:31 pm: Edit

Yes, I do take responsiblity for not following up, but I felt bad badgering them as I figured they did have a bunch to do. Also, I never see these teachers and I barely have a free moment at school, 90% of the time I don't even get to eat lunch without going to a meeting or taking care of something.

By Ohio_Mom (Ohio_Mom) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 11:23 pm: Edit

No, no, no don't start feeling bad about expecting someone to DO THEIR JOB. If they felt that they could not write you a valid recommendation, then they should have told you about it. Or, the GC should have kept after them. Certainly, it you had it to do over again, or if your parents were more useful than doorstops, things would be different. We're getting my son's recs the spring of his junior year - on his GC's advise. I wish I could give you the keys to the wayback machine so you could do the same.

Anyway, at some point somebody has to be the responsible adult, and it looks like its you. You are a very bright and motivated young man. Don't give up - its tactics, strategy, professionalism and paper pushing at this point. If you can get a sympathetic adult to help, please do so.

By Andrew123s (Andrew123s) on Sunday, February 29, 2004 - 12:48 am: Edit

I'm so sorry for what is happening to you. As Northstarmom said, call the colleges; they are humans like everyone else and hopefully will give your application consideration.

Did you ever end up taking the SAT after the incident with the alarm clocks?

By Paleonard (Paleonard) on Sunday, February 29, 2004 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Mike28,
As a parent whose second child is now awaiting college decisions, I will tell you that yours is a not uncommon situation. We learned with our first that as each private school requires 5-6 different pieces of information to apply (application, supplement,Sat's, teacher and school recommendations and mid-year reports) something is bound to happen! For our first son, the issue was that the teacher just didn't bother to write the recommendation. He got a back-up letter from another teacher. Most of the colleges misplace at least one piece of information. Most schools politely notified us if a piece of information was missing. My first son did not apply to ivies and ALL of his schools promptly notified us if something was missing and we re-sent it (including Calt tech). My second son applied to two Ivies. Neither was willing to tell us by phone if the application was complete. Both required the we follow the application on a website (one of which would not give us the password when we called!)

You need to make a decision here: How important to you is Cornell? If they are summarily dismissing you because they either did not recieve or lost a recommendation, how will they treat you as a student? If going there is very important to you, definitely call and see if they will reverse their opinion.
You are a good student and a valuable human. The "game" seems to be one of trying to prove your "worth" to an elite school, when in reality the truth is some lucky school will recognize your value and pursuade you to attend their school.