Do you think this is unfair?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

instigata

Full Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
1,183
Reaction score
4
My friend told me today that he asked his professor for a LOR and the professor told him to write it for himself. Doesn't this piss you off? Also, wouldn't this be kind of bad since he's not getting a "professional" person to write it? I don't get it, I tried really hard throughout college to establish close relationships with my profs, and this guy just gets to write his own...eh 😡
 
I have heard of this happening a lot actually. It has never happened to me and I am glad, I would have no idea what to write.
On another note, I wish I could read what my LOR's say one day. I get jealous when I hear of people being allowed a sneak peak 😛
 
instigata said:
My friend told me today that he asked his professor for a LOR and the professor told him to write it for himself. Doesn't this piss you off? Also, wouldn't this be kind of bad since he's not getting a "professional" person to write it? I don't get it, I tried really hard throughout college to establish close relationships with my profs, and this guy just gets to write his own...eh 😡

oh well. You shoulda given your prof a blowjob when he asked you nicely brah.

I got to write my own LORs and, sh1t, if i had to smoke a few poles to get it...so be it.
 
One of the MD's I had asked for an LOR told me to write my own and he would sign it. I tried putting one together, but I always felt like it totally obvious that I wrote it myself. I ended up not pursuing it, and instead got 3 LOR's from the CV surgeons I work with. I told them over and over again that the letters were confidential and I even handed them the stinking interfolio form showing that I had waived my rights to access the letters. They each forwarded a copy of the letter. I tried my hardest to not open the attachments, but I am weak.

I guess you must be pretty disgusted with me now. Please forgive me.
 
Its_MurDAH said:
oh well. You shoulda given your prof a blowjob when he asked you nicely brah.

I got to write my own LORs and, sh1t, if i had to smoke a few poles to get it...so be it.

lmaooo...funny

saki0005 said:
One of the MD's I had asked for an LOR told me to write my own and he would sign it. I tried putting one together, but I always felt like it totally obvious that I wrote it myself. I ended up not pursuing it, and instead got 3 LOR's from the CV surgeons I work with. I told them over and over again that the letters were confidential and I even handed them the stinking interfolio form showing that I had waived my rights to access the letters. They each forwarded a copy of the letter. I tried my hardest to not open the attachments, but I am weak.

I guess you must be pretty disgusted with me now. Please forgive me.

lol im sure you're being sarcastic....are you saki from the CC forum too?
 
instigata said:
My friend told me today that he asked his professor for a LOR and the professor told him to write it for himself. Doesn't this piss you off? Also, wouldn't this be kind of bad since he's not getting a "professional" person to write it? I don't get it, I tried really hard throughout college to establish close relationships with my profs, and this guy just gets to write his own...eh 😡

It is pretty common practice.
 
instigata said:
My friend told me today that he asked his professor for a LOR and the professor told him to write it for himself. Doesn't this piss you off? Also, wouldn't this be kind of bad since he's not getting a "professional" person to write it? I don't get it, I tried really hard throughout college to establish close relationships with my profs, and this guy just gets to write his own...eh 😡

Nothing unusual about this -- a lot of profs and physicians are busy people with too many folks asking for LORs, so they welcome someone else doing the first draft. The prof or physician of course reserves the right to change things they don't agree with. The downside is that students don't tend to know what to write, and either are too modest, or too over the top. It's much more preferable for the prof to write it, and most of the time it's a better LOR, because they have done it before and know what to say and what not to. So I'm not sure why this would piss you off -- you are doing less work and will probably get a more pollished letter.
 
I would feel weird writing my own letter. One of my writers said I could see it but i resisted.
 
instigata said:
My friend told me today that he asked his professor for a LOR and the professor told him to write it for himself. Doesn't this piss you off? Also, wouldn't this be kind of bad since he's not getting a "professional" person to write it? I don't get it, I tried really hard throughout college to establish close relationships with my profs, and this guy just gets to write his own...eh 😡

You also have to figure that if this guy is anything like a good teacher, he is probably constantly hounded by students wanting letters, most of whom he doesn't know.

I understood from a bio professor at my undergrad that he was very frustrated that the bio dept had been de facto turned into a feeder program for medicine/dentistry/PA etc. Just a thought.
 
instigata said:
My friend told me today that he asked his professor for a LOR and the professor told him to write it for himself. Doesn't this piss you off? Also, wouldn't this be kind of bad since he's not getting a "professional" person to write it? I don't get it, I tried really hard throughout college to establish close relationships with my profs, and this guy just gets to write his own...eh 😡
I have heard that it is a practice done by professors. Also, because of the high incidence, adcoms are knowledgeable about discerning whether a LOR is candid or not. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don't write that you walk on water unless you learned from Jesus himself. 🙂

I'm not going to go into the ethical issues with the waiver.
 
Noeljan said:
On another note, I wish I could read what my LOR's say one day. I get jealous when I hear of people being allowed a sneak peak 😛

Just ask the professor for 2 sealed copies of the letter and then open one of them yourself. It's too much of risk not to know what's in that letter.
 
thesauce said:
Just ask the professor for 2 sealed copies of the letter and then open one of them yourself. It's too much of risk not to know what's in that letter.

If you signed a waiver, there are both ethical and legal problems with doing this. Plus in most cases you have the prof forward the letter directly to the committee or service who is collecting the letters and never handle them yourself.
The ethics of this were already dealt with in another recent thread, but if you don't have confidence that your letter writer will write you a good letter, you obviously need to find someone else, not resort to deception.
 
instigata said:
My friend told me today that he asked his professor for a LOR and the professor told him to write it for himself. Doesn't this piss you off? Also, wouldn't this be kind of bad since he's not getting a "professional" person to write it? I don't get it, I tried really hard throughout college to establish close relationships with my profs, and this guy just gets to write his own...eh 😡

It's not because your friend is so great, the prof is lazy and probably doesn't care that much about your friend's chances either.
 
Law2Doc said:
Even better, just say you taught him how to do it.
Thought about that already. The age thing wouldn't work out though. Although I did say that I look younger than my age. The whole instant healing thing wouldn't have hurt either...
 
Yea, my sister wrote her own and her prof just signed it. But that was for Commerce, I have never heard of it happening in science, but I am sure it does.
 
My prof told me to come to his office, and he wrote it while I sat there. I gave him the form so he knew it was confidential, but he gave me a copy anyway to read and save (just in case anything happened to his computer and he lost it or something). Either way, it's way better than anything I would have written on my own.
 
Top