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.

huh?

If you read the thread you would realise that your speculation is unjustified.

Goodness! I don’t know why she hasn’t chosen to go to another country….or maybe the Moon! Could it be because she is already at this university, studying here, now, and needs a decent reference from this place?

The lecturer may have been going on holiday. Ditto, the students who have tasks set in “holiday” time. He needs to learn some time management! He is getting a salary, I presume? His work isn’t charitable. He should just get on and do a good job like the rest of us have to do.

what have you or your daughter actually done to address the issue in RL Op? if anything
or do you just intend to discuss it on this thread?

I am still not clear what really happened, OP. So that is good, at this point.

IMO (for the third time) the PT should not have written the letter you’ve described. However I still wonder whether for some reason, whether of DD’s making or not, he felt put on the spot and reacted inappropriately.

I am another who would try requesting a second letter from a lecturer who knew me as an excellent student. Given the factual mistakes in the PT’s letter chances are the assessors will use the second anyway, but DD could ask that his letter be withdrawn owing to a misunderstanding of the programme.

Tbh I think his allegations that she is too young and under qualified isn’t for him to make.

He was asked for a reference not to critique candidates for the summer school

I would want to know why if she is in the age range of the course he put that she wasn’t.

That just makes out that she has lied on her application about her age

I would want to know why he put she was under qualified

What qualifications or experience was he dismissing and why would he lie.

This reference just makes your dd out to be an immature liar, when in fact it is the writer who is the liar.

I think this “reference” is libellous. You do have to nip this behaviour in the bid otherwise these things have a habit of impacting you years later

That's not your business.

😆

so bugger all

I don't think anyone at all knows exactly what happened since my DD doesn't. There has been a communication issue and the point of this thread was to garner ideas as to what might possibly have been the reasons for that in order to think about how best to approach it. I am somewhat fascinated by how contentious an issue this seems to be!

only because i chuckled at your belief that employers and tutors should be “sued” if they provide a “bad reference without good reason”

presumably they think they do have “good reason”

I definitely would raise a complaint. I would if the answer to the complaint was not satisfactory take it further and get legal advice

This person might have a degree and be considered as an academic but seems to lack basic knowledge that he can’t go around writing lies about people.
Or does he think he is immune from any legal comeback

How on earth do you know how much they have trained in the UK? I work at a RG and most of our international staff, particularly L/SL level have completed UK pgche qualifications because it is part of their contract to do so if we are taking them on as their first post after their PhDs. Of course our more experienced academics also engage in all their CPD for teaching at our institution too.

They can be sued if what they write is lies

It's all very clear from their bios.

@redstroll has some good points.

The name could also refer to a stroll that is scarlet in colour.

The OP can

1. endure it
2. complain on here about it
3. Have her DD study somewhere else because she doesn't think UK trained staff are good teachers or personal tutors
4. Go through channels at the university and sort it. Several people have made suggestions how to do this.

That's pretty much it.

yes “lies” but the lies would have to be a factual lie that could be clearly held up as factually incorrect, not an subjective opinion

but “none of our business”

so i just think…. nothing has or will be done, other than the OP investing hours in to discussing it on mumsnet 🤷

my name was one of the suggested ones and then i cut it in half as so long

If they are teaching in the UK, they are doing CPD in the UK. I have never seen an academic bio detail where they did teacher training, they might say where they had research contracts, or post docs but where the training happened isn't usually mentioned.

Saying she is too young for this course was the first lie.

Saying she is under qualified for this course was the 2nd lie

She might be underqualified. We don't know.
As far as the age thing, well, then the DD sees the personal tutor about it and books in for longer than 10 minutes and solves the problem.

I think there are many more options than that but I am certainly not going to share them here ;). Thank you to everyone for getting so extraordinarily excited about this - without your emotions running so high there wouldn't have been nearly such a vivacious exchange of ideas.

Yeah I don't get this either.

i read “there are many more options” to mean you’re considering rocking up at front door of this poor chap to confront him! 🤭