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.

@AnonymousBleep I am sorry for your bad experiences; however universities actually exist to further knowledge. Teaching is only part of that.

The pressure on the research side is intense, at least in STEM and other fields where goos grants are a possibility. That has been true for a long time but it is worse in the current fiscal crisis.

Ok. If she doesn't ask for more time, then I'm not sure what the problem is about the 10 minutes? If she needs the time, then the PT will provide it. If she doesn't like her PT, get a new one.

I'd ask my tutees before they came in via email...do you want an answer to an administrative question now, so we can make the meeting more productive. Often, the answer was yes, I answered it, and then they said, I'm fine, I don't need to come in. Others wanted a chat. Either is OK. But the PT can only provide the services asked for.

Indeed

@AnonymousStudentParent - kindly, I’m not sure what you’re getting from this thread? You are spending a lot of time defending and repeating your position but what’s the actual plan?

Quite a few people, myself included, suggested your DD speaks to her head of dept and complains. You’ve ignored those people to keep on reiterating that your DD is an excellent candidate who has followed the institutional rules and is going to put in a great application. I don’t doubt any of that, I agree that her PT has acted badly, so what is she going to do to ensure that the poor reference doesn’t derail her?

Arguing with strangers on the internet about what she’s done correctly advances you / her no further. Speaking to the HoD, asking for a change of PT and putting in an informal complaint is far more likely to get some sort of result such as a better reference. As I speculated, it’s likely this PT is known to the HoD as a lazy arse already. Of course some HoDs are better than others but the ones I have worked with have been pretty good at resolving stuff like this.

I'm glad to hear she has another plan and is learning to deal with possible disappointment. If she is working for income generation, I wonder if a paid internship for her interests might work for her better, but that is just speculation.

You'd be surprised! I got a lot of other stuff done and had a great evening out at a lecture by an author on her new book and a nice Chinese dinner ;)

She's fully planning to do both paid work and the summer school. As you know, student summer holidays are very long and we have always encouraged our children to pack a lot in during the summer.

do you really think he intentionally messed up the reference op? seriously?

A research-based institution which is harvesting a lot of cash off its students should surely value accuracy. This reference does not sound accurate. It’s a character assassination. Why on Earth did he think that was suitable? Surely it damages not just this student’s reputation but also the reputation of the university?

I'm not ignoring anything that is helpful, but a lot of it isn't. What is useful is people providing perspective/insights on the PT's possible motivations.

aside from 6pm-11pm…. you spent the entire afternoon posting very long and detailed posts on this thread, so yes i suppose i would be surprised 😆

OP i’m trying to understand if you am seriously think he intentionally did this?

Well done on the masters. As I said, I expected people to give examples of this at newer universities too. Although I notice that while you said ' it was exactly the same there' the personal tutoring side, which is at the heart of this thread and my point, was actually quite different: twice as much time allowed as a starting point, and you said 'mine actually did loads more because she's fantastic'. A very different experience to the one of the student this thread is about, though I am not surprised.

Ok. I hope she gets some time to relax.

Ok, I don’t see why understanding the motivation of a lazy uninterested lecturer would help when what your DD needs is a proper reference from a person capable of writing one but that’s your call, or more realistically your DD’s. Not sure why all the effort on this thread if she’s not actually going to do something proactive about changing the outcome.

exactly
my uni summer holidays consisted holidays with family and holidays with friends, lie ins, catching up with school friends and lots of sex with my boyfriend! Good times!

I was doing plenty of other stuff simultaneously;) I'm good at multitasking.

sure OP, sure 😆

now will you answer whether you do think the tutor did this intentionally as you’d said upgrade?

That's my call not yours. If I had thought that escalating things all guns blazing was a good idea I wouldn't have started this thread for extra insights, some of which have been extremely useful!

I've given my position on that upthread.

yes

and you think it was intentional

and i’m saying WTF… you seriously think he did this because he wanted his other students to get in more than your daughter??!

We always take family holidays at Christmas, Easter and in the summer, to which all our children are invited ;). They also seem to spend quite a lot of time lounging around on the sofa and in their bedrooms at home even if they are all grown up these days and of course they take holidays with their friends in circumstances about which we know little but don't seem particularly relaxing. Their call!

I think you need to re-read what I wrote.

From what we know it was this: Nice, hard working, worth taking a chance on, but underqualified, bit young/maybe not at the maturity level. I don't think that is a character assassination but we can agree to disagree. I suspect as I said upthread, academics are just going to provide name, dates attended and degree classification as universities are worried about increasing litigiousness.

As to harvesting cash. The below is from Times Higher Ed. It is paywalled so providing an excerpt from this article:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/english-universities-lose-ps3-billion-real-income-three-years

The figures are about right if you look at HESA data
***

English universities ‘lose £3 billion real income’ in three years

The English sector has lost about £1 billion in real income for each of the past three years because of inflation, analysis suggests.
The real-terms value of the £9,250 tuition fee for domestic undergraduate students – effectively frozen since 2012 – has fallen to below £6,000, causing many of the sector’s financial difficulties.
However, analysis from the consultancy dataHE shows the impact of inflation when converted to today’s money, with the current fees worth almost £13,000 in 2017. Funding per student is sliding fast and will soon fall below the low point of £8,800 in the mid-1990s and reach roughly half the per-student resource of 2012, it suggests.
“With no solution in sight yet, these values are already within financial planning timelines for universities,” said Mark Corver, co-founder of dataHE.
“The unit of real resource will affect quality of student experience.”
Dr Corver said funding levels for UK students were “unusually low”, with universities left unaided in a commercial market but unable to take action because of increasingly distorting price controls.
But approximating the total income for this group by year of entry, dataHE estimates that English providers will have £9.9 billion to support teaching the 2024-25 entry cohort – down from about £13 billion, in 2024 prices, just three years previously.
“From this perspective, universities are nursing a £3 billion cut, around 30 per cent, in their annual funding for this dominant activity, and over a period too short to allow much accommodation,” added Dr Corver.
The aggregate real income for 2024 is similar to the mid-2000s but is now spread more thinly across increased student numbers.

It’s not inconceivable there is some favouritism going on here. Maybe he HAS written her a bad reference to enhance the chances of another candidate. Lecturers do have inappropriate relationships with other students. It is known to happen - even if unethical!