Devastated DD - awful reference

[AnonymousStudentParent]

My undergraduate DD recently asked her Personal Tutor, by email, whether he could be her referee for a summer school (prestigious, with a generous scholarship scheme). She attached a link to the website of the summer school and underscored the information relating to the reference. She didn't hear back from her Personal Tutor immediately but after about 3 weeks he emailed briefly saying he'd already submitted the reference (she had anticipated him getting back to her for clarification on a couple of things she had done that she had mentioned in the email that he didn't know about). Yesterday she had a quick beginning of term meeting with him when he outlined to her the devastating terms of the reference, basically saying she was too young and under qualified for the summer school but a nice hardworking person if they wanted to take a chance on her.

My DD is neither too young nor under qualified for the summer school - quite the contrary, she's very amply qualified (though mostly outside the scope of her degree). It's in an area she is extremely knowledgeable about and she has properly researched the summer school. She spent several days in the Christmas holidays writing the extensive application.

She was too flabbergasted to react (and her time with the PT was up) on the spot. Needless to say, this isn't good for her self-confidence. Any advice to how she goes back to the PT and asks him whether he can spend a few minutes looking at the website and her application and rethink his hasty judgement? The deadline for submission of the application isn't for another couple of weeks.

I'm not "insecure" and it would be none of your business if I was - I just refuse to be bullied. Good night and kindly stop trying to goad me.

No, you like to bully others and have them take it. You can’t handle it when it comes right back at you.

And now silence….best way to handle a bully is give it to them, because at base, they are cowards.

When a student enters university, they are a legal adult. We are not allowed as academics to talk to parents about marks, choice of degree, nor about recommendation letters.

So as soon as someone hits 18 they’re not supposed to talk to their mother about anything and mothers are supposed to stop caring about their children?

All that’s going on here is a mother has seen that her daughter is upset about something, is therefore upset herself, and is wondering how best to advise her.

The mother has not done anything herself; as far as we can tell, she is not planning to do anything, and we don’t even know if the DD has asked for advice.

It is, and your response is not.

Hello, can we please stop with the back and forth sniping as it's derailing the thread - thanks.

But the mother isn’t going to talk to their university! She asked how best to advise her daughter, that’s all. Sheesh.

Hi Clara, as you can see I have tried to not engage with this poster but there are numerous goady posts trying to draw me into an argument that I do not want to have. Thank you.

@BeAzureAnt

Kindly - you may not be aware how you’re coming across on this thread. Aggressively shouting down anyone who suggests OP may have a point, including all the academics who feel the reference is unprofessional and would have approached this issue differently, is rather strange.

I’d imagine behind this rage and irrationality there’s a burnt out person.

Perhaps it’s time to step away from the thread. I don’t know who you’re really angry with, but it’s not with OP or her DD, you don’t know them. However much you believe OP is delusional, and DD is really stoopid - you may simply wrong. Either way it’s not helpful.

This is called the slippery slope fallacy in argumentation. It is taking a situation to extremes.

The mother has speculated on this thread that the PT has purposely undermined her daughter in a letter to favour other students. She’s said the PT is possibly sexist. She’s said that a letter in which a student is described as under qualified, but nice and hardworking and possibly worth taking a chance on is devastating.

These seemed extreme responses for a recommendation letter for a summer school.

She can care about her daughter, but sometimes letting your child handle things themselves helps them mature. That’s not an uncaring action, it actually is a very caring one.

Sorry MN, I didn’t see this. Yes, quite.

I'm wondering whether something has been lost in the retelling in this.

I think that the tutor tried, maybe slightly clumsily, to paraphrase what he had said in the reference; the student concerned has paraphrased what she thought he was saying and has then shared her analysis with her Mum.

I think that I can imagine a situation where a tutor, if he/she knew of a summer school, had even attended it him/herself perhaps, might try to guide a student who was considering an application and, in doing so, sound negative in his/her appraisal while not intending to put the student off applying at a later date.

I remember arriving at University full of beans and very excited about my subject ; I know that I would have wanted to go on any summer school I heard about. Having said that, my grasp of my subject was so much better three years later and it's then that I would have benefitted most from a summer school.

I wonder whether the tutor is offering sensible advice after all, in that he might be saying that she would gain much more from applying, say, next year. He may also be aware as to how the scholarships are allocated and may think that the student's chance of being awarded one will be much greater later on. I can imagine how this might be paraphrased as 'being too young'.

Not getting a scholarship this year could actually mean quite some expense to do a course which she would gain more from later.

I wonder whether instead of showing a lack of support, he was trying to give the best guidance he could.

Kindly never means kindly.

I’ve been insulted on this thread repeatedly. What people wanted me to do was take it.

There is no rage and irrationality here whatsoever. And, I’m not too worried about how I am coming across.

Sometimes what people like to is goad someone, or participate in passive aggression, and then when they react, say that they are being unreasonable. That’s gaslighting. I’m just pointing it out.

And I really don’t appreciate being insulted repeatedly.

My experience of personal tutors leads me to think they just take the money and the status, and do pretty much nothing for it. As a 19 year old student I met up with my PT to tell him that a close family member had committed suicide and that I was struggling a bit. I asked if he could inform the university lecturers, Dean of the faculty etc so that everyone knew. I did poorly in my exams at the end of that term, and got a standard letter informing me of the resit process and the risk of being thrown out. Devastated, I wrote to the Dean to ask for some consideration. Surprise surprise it was the first he’d heard of it. My PT hadn’t told anyone at all, not a single person. He’d left me to flounder and wonder why I was getting such a hard time from my tutors. The bastard nearly ruined my life and it sounds like OP’s DD’s personal tutor is just as ineffectual.

I’ve been asked. I’ve either suggested they ask a colleague who was more familiar with their work or requested the information I required to write it.

So, why didn’t the student provide the information for the tutor? They surely have some responsibility to do so?

OP, you sound very defensive, yes your DD followed the procedure but real world is not about procedures. Unfortunately to compete you need to do more than follow procedure. She needs to learn a lesson that next time whatever institution says in procedures she should ask for reference not from her tutor who hardly knows her but from someone who does in her institution. She also needs to learn that she can be forthcoming and asking for extra meeting with tutor instead of sending the email.
no matter how smart your DD is, she is not going to succeed by following procedures. She needs to learn to play the game — she is young and could not have known but then you need to be of help there and explain that to her instead of confirming she should continue following procedures.
If I was her I wouldn’t ask for meeting with tutor now and try to pursuade him to change reference - he just wouldn’t do it. I would ask for someone else in the institution to provide reference, she can approach lecturer who knows her, apologise for short notice and ask for it, and if she gets another reference her tutor’s one wouldn’t matter.

I’m very sorry you had a bad experience. I think what you went through is more serious than the case here of a recommendation letter.

That’s good advice

Absolutely, but it meant that when I read the OP I wasn’t surprised.

That’s a possibility too, we simply don’t know.

Fair enough. I’m really sorry you had a bad experience, honestly am, but not all PTs are uncaring. We tend to hear about the bad stuff more than the good stuff….look at the news, right?

I’m not offering this as an excuse for what happened to you…but, I can say that a lot of academics have too many personal tutees to advise. There are a lot of reasons for that, mostly financial I suspect. People can say, not the tutees problem…OK, right, but PTs aren’t trained to be psychologists, and the MH crisis in universities lately has been very hard (as you well know). There has been some call for academics to do a PG certificate in counselling whilst working, but I’m not sure if that would solve the problem. I certainly know that the wellbeing centre where I was, was severely oversubscribed.

OP says her DD was fully expecting her PT to request her CV etc.

Personally I’ve contacted the applicant with my list of requirements to write it.