My favorites from this week:
Dear Professor Cynic:
I hope you are having a good summer. I'm not sure if you remember me, but I took a class from you freshman year and remember how good you were at providing honest feedback. I'm attaching my letter for Dental School and need you to edit it for me because I know I've missed errors that you are likely to catch. When you have finished editing, if you could print it out and mail it to the following address, I'd really appreciate it. Just forge my signature. Oh, did I mention that it's due there by Wednesday? Thanks so much.
Not-a-chance-in-hell Nate
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Dear Mrs. Cynic:
I never took a class from you, but my roomate (sic) said you helped him with his essays. Please find attached my letter of intent for Medical School. I appreciate your help.
Are-you-fucking-kidding-me Arthur
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dear dr. c:
i really need help w my letter for dental school. pls help me. i don no were to start. thx.
lower-case larry
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So... there folks, are three of the requests I have received this week. I suspect a deadline is looming (today, perhaps? Given the first student's demand that I mail his statement FOR him by Wednesday?).
How, if at all, would you respond to these? So far, I've simply been filled with rage and have ignored them in my InBox because I want to respond with: "Don't you know that professors don't work in the summer?" and leave it at that, but that seems inadequate. Instead of WWJD, I'm wondering WWCMD?
As tempted as I'd be to rant at each of these students and set them straight, I'd be more likely to take a simple and direct approach.
ReplyDeleteI think something like the following would be enough:
Dear Not-a-chance-in-hell Nate, Are-you-fucking-kidding-me Arthur, and Lower-case Larry,
I cannot assist you with your letter of intent. I wish you the best of luck.
Sincerely,
Professor Cynic
In the end, it would be a hassle to say anything more.
We would actually suggest WWSD.
ReplyDeleteIt might get you arrested, but when Strellie's van shows up at their doorstep, they might get the hint.
We'd almost be tempted to "selectively edit" Nate's letter and sign it with an "X." He could at least pony up a buck for shipping and handling!
I would be sorely tempted to just tell them, "I couldn't possibly do anything more to improve this. You should send it just the way it is." They can take that any way they like.
ReplyDeleteI'd just tell them that we have a lovely writing center for just that purpose.
ReplyDeleteThat said, my favorite (sarcasm people, sarcasm) experience in running a WC at an R1 was the student applying to med school whose personal statement said she wanted to give her family free surgery and procedures, and honest to god had no idea what the hippocratic oath was.
Dear Nate,
ReplyDeleteIf you had made your email a request instead of a demand, waited until I said I'd do it before attaching it to an email, and sent it to me a month ago, . . . I'd still say no. It's apparent that you didn't learn anything in my class or you wouldn't need anyone to edit it for you. Oh, did I mention that I'm going back and changing your grade to an F.
Dear Arthur,
You'd probably appreciate my help more if I were willing to provide it. But, as I don't know you, bugger off.
Dear Larry,
In decoding your request (I'd use "reading" but for the fact that I'm pretty sure you're using some super-secret Kerbleckistani secret police code), I would suggest a starting point for you. Don't apply to dental school. In fact, the closest you should come to a dental school is as a test patient. The closest you should come to another person's teeth is the french fries you serve them.
Such requests to me get back dead air. Like when a student emails me seven hours before the paper is due (in the middle of the night) and asks me to proofread the paper and send it back to them before they formally turn it in.
ReplyDeleteWhy agonize over these things, especially when the students aren't your own? Just ignore them. If they actually come to your office, give them a list of stuff they have to show you before you will help them with a rec.
When I recently wrote a student whose essay was pocked with proofreading errors (I usually use that term), and cited the type of error I'd seen, the student wrote me back and said she hadn't had time to proofread. Then she asked me to send her the entire paper with every single error marked and identified. Well, there's not enough red ink, seriously.
So I wrote her and said, cheerily, "Why don't you go over the paper thoroughly, proofreading it and eliminating every error that you see, and then email it to me so I can tell what you think it's supposed to look like."
I got back nothing. When a student, unbidden, asks a professor for help, I think in 95% of the cases, that's not really what they want. They either want you to do it for them or they're asking for help because they're sucking up--they want you to think they are going to try to improve.
So whenever a student wants help I give them as much as they need--so long as they put in at least as much effort as I do. The vast majority of them won't do that, so they don't get help.
Ah, this is why I love College Misery. This post and every comment.
ReplyDeletePat's got the right idea. Non of these students asked for help. They are too stupid or arrogant to actually request anything. Instead, each made a series of statements. "I'd appreicate your help." I'll bet you would sunshine. I want a pony. Goodbye.
ReplyDeleteYou are showing more respect than they deserve by getting mad. Let it go. (After writing the CM post, of course.)
Like Stella, I usually let dead air do the talking for me in such situations. Although once or twice I have responded with the following oldie but goodie:
ReplyDelete"The failure to plan on your part, does not constitute an emergency on my part."
I think Stella's solution (dead air), followed by Mestopholita's (short and direct refusal; no explanations) if they persist is probably the route to go. But, as usual, it's fun to see the emails we'd all like to send.
ReplyDelete@My Little Proffie: the student who wants to give her family members free "procedures" (do we really want med students who are already talking about "procedures"?) who visits the writing center strikes me as posing an ethical dilemma of her own: is there a situation in which those of us who might help students revise what are clearly truthful if alarming statements to make them more acceptable to the intended audience have a duty *not* to point out the problems, in the interest of the larger social good (i.e. not unleashing an unethical doctor on the world, or tying up a place in med school with someone who may well, if the school is doing its job, fail on ethics grounds)?
I would appreciate your taking the suggestion of telling the student to send the letter as is, so that America's teeth and bodies are safe from these people.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why I love you all so!!!
ReplyDelete@Ben: You don't understand indirect speech, huh? So when you and a colleague are in the parking lot and he discovers one of his tires is flat and says, "Oh, I always have trouble with the lug nuts - I could use some help with this," you just say, "Bye," and drive off because that was a statement, not a request, so nothing more was called for on your part?
ReplyDeleteThe risk of playing dumb, whether with colleagues or students, is that someone may figure that you're not playing.
I'd respond,
ReplyDelete"What's a dentist's favorite time? TWO-THIRTY!"
And leave it at that.
As an adjunct, I don't get many requests for letters of recommendation or looking over applications and the like. But when I do, the requests are polite and WELL in advance. I always help.
ReplyDeleteGuess what? I teach at a school most of you would call a "diploma mill". Many of you would cringe in horror that we are actually accredited. The laugh is on you, I guess, for selecting the losers you get. Our non-trads sometimes can't write very well, but the ones who come to me for stuff like this all have basic people skills.
@contingent cassie:
ReplyDeleteAt the time, I posed this question to our Director of Writing who more or less said we had to help them with higher order concerns and THEN proofreading, just like any other student. We could not offer some services to some students and others to well, others. She claimed that we just had to trust that anybody that stupid's test scores were horrible, or that their letters of rec would fail to make them stand out.
Needless to say, I sort of disagree. In the case of hippocratic oath girl, we instructed her to go read it and come back. Apparently she had thought all doctors did stuff for their families for free. She had no idea it was unethical. Maybe she watched too much House or something.
She didn't get in though--there was nothing in her application otherwise that would have made her an ideal candidate. I have no idea what she is doing with her life or undergraduate degree now.
The pre-dent students were the worst though. They all claimed that they were going to travel to third world countries and do dental work for free because "that's what the schools want us to say" but clearly had no idea as to the reality of doing that. Others would outright say in their statement that they wanted to be a dentist because they "make a lot of money." Most had literally no reason to want to be a doctor other than money and family pressure, and had no idea what they would do with the degree once they got it.
Thinking of this, I sort of pity the people on the other end who have to read all this crap year after year. I wonder how depressing their lives are, seeing all these apps for medical and dental school that are completely serious but also completely WRONG?
@Adjunct Slave: Go ahead, gloat away... Why are you on CM, again???
ReplyDeleteI also get requests ahead of time that students ask for politely, but those aren't the ones that cause me misery, and therefore, aren't ones to write about on this blog.
PS If the PROFESSORS actually selected the students we get to teach, you can bet they'd be a different population.
@CC - I come to CM to whine and bitch about my students, of course. But there are contexts in which I see fit to gloat. Think of it as my small contribution to the misery of my fellow miserables.
ReplyDeleteOooh, oooh. I've got another one.
ReplyDeleteDear Larry,
I would help you, but I'm concerned for your health. Did you know that Doc Holliday was a dentist and that he died of complications from tuberculosis? I'm just trying to save you from tuberculosis.
You can thank me later with a few extra fries in my value meal.
@AdjunctSlave: at least you have one context about which to gloat. I need to find me one of those. :o) Alas, I'm looking high and low... Um... oh, wait, I think I have colored Sharpies in my department. "free" Post-Its? :o)
ReplyDelete@Stella, do you help students who AREN'T ones you've had in class rewrite their grad school statements? I mean if random students come by just because you happen to teach a subject they think renders you qualified to help them write a better statement of purpose or letter? I don't really see that as my job, because I'm not really helping them to be a better writer (which I DO see as part of my job) but perhaps I have a narrow definition of my job.
ReplyDeleteI view part of the initiation process of grad school to be crafting a skillful letter. Gosh darn-it, they SHOULD be able to do that on their own with minimal help after four years of liberal arts education, or at least know where to get help other than from their freshman writing professor, right?
@My Little Proffie: I'm not sure many of our dental or medical students KNOW why they want to be a dentist or doctor, beyond the big bucks or the humanitarian spiel they're given at my school.... most of them seem to be doing it because it's a family tradition or expectation. So they have to spin their way into Med/Dent School. I know what you mean about how many write about wanting to do humanitarian work. Four years later, they seem to have lost that sparkle.
ReplyDelete@Cynic: Perhaps you or someone else should perform the public service of explaining to the them that the "big bucks" days have been over for some time now. Unless they are lucky enough to land one of the limited number of lucrative specialist positions, they are more or less consigned to a lifetime of onerous debt repayment and indentured servitude to the reimbursement departments of large insurance companies.
ReplyDeleteIt is kind of like academia, when you get right down to it.
I have a form I make letters of recommendation requesters fill out, asking for some info that I may not know, such as why they are applying to that specific school/program. (This form also includes a statement and signature line granting me permission to discuss their academic performance--this is due to my VP of Instruction's overzealous interpretation of FERPA). At the top of this form, in bold letters, it states that all requests must be made a minimum of three weeks in advance of application deadlines. This has nearly eliminated requests like those received by CC. Sometimes I kind of regret this, because I do find desperation often breeds humorous reasons as to why I should care about their lack of planning.
ReplyDeleteI do not work during the summer, either. I have an out-of-office message on both email and voicemail indicating I'll be available when I return in mid September. This way I can pick and choose what I respond to when I do check in.
Dear lower case larry:
ReplyDeleteIS IT SAFE? IS IT SAFE?
Want some clove oil?
Best Regards,
Dr. Szell
I am actually faculty at one of these med/dental schools.
ReplyDeleteI am also on the admissions committee. The beauty is that as faculty, we actually DO get to choose the snowflakes we teach. The downside is that the majority of them know how to turn off the snowflakery long enough to appear to be a wonderful individual on an interview. We never really know what we're getting until we get deep into the curriculum at which point their true colors shine through.
On this note, I would love for you to send their letter of rec, as requested by the student, accompanied by the email - to the program. This would make my life, and the admissions process much easier, as we would already know what we were dealing with.
I meant statement, not letter of rec- sorry!
ReplyDelete@FDa: That would be great, except of course that isn't how Medical and Law School recs work. In the case of Law, a single rec is sent to the clearing house in Philly, which sends an entire admissions packet (recs, transcripts, LSATs the whole enchilada) to the schools on each flake's list.
ReplyDeleteAnd Medical recs are handled through a similar process, although usually at the institutional level rather than the national level. So any such material I included would be dutifully scrubbed out in the process of making the sausage which is a professional school application. I have written scores of med and law school recs over the years, and not once have I ever sent one to an address at an actual law or med school. In fact, I don't necessarily even know to which schools the student is actually applying (I ask for a list to get an idea, but I know that such lists are often incomplete or inaccurate).
So what you see is not what I sent. Or at least it is not exactly what I sent.
@AA- Alas, you are right. I spent some time on the "middleman" website today. Not sure why it didn't pop into my mind. Maybe you could just send them all to me, then I would file them all away to match up with any that happened to make it to the institution I am currently at. :) (kidding of course)
ReplyDelete@FDaSnowflakes: the systems for letters of rec I have actually used only allow a single attachment or require that I write the letter IN the tiny box provided. If I had access to the admission committee's emails, I'd be happy to send supporting evidence for some of our flakes. Then again, I don't write letters of rec for anyone I wouldn't actually recommend. It's just too much effort to try to make someone mediocre sound brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have a policy about letters of rec., and such requests (i.e. need to be requested 3-4 weeks in advance, need specific info., etc.) but these are snowflakes; the instructions mean nothing to them! They want ME to write their statements and letters FOR them.
ReplyDeleteDear Nate,
ReplyDeleteAttached is my electric bill. I need you to pay it for me.
Dear Arthur,
Attached is my electric bill. I appreciate your help.
Dear Larry,
I really need help with my electric bill. I don't know where to start. thx
@Ovreductd: my lights just went out. who do I blame? :o)
ReplyDelete