Recommender Comment - Good, Bad or Ugly? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I had a recommender who sent me a draft of a recommendation and asked for constructive feedback. The recommender said the following:

"In my decade of teaching, including visiting at universities such as [T6 school] and [prestigious English university], [Anonymous] is one of the top seven students in terms of intellect that I have taught."

My question for the clerks who have reviewed apps: does being called top seven all time help me, hurt me, or do nothing?

[ndirish2010]

Solid humblebrag.

[bruinfan10]

Solid humblebrag.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. I laughed. I really wasn't going for the backdoor brag. I just didn't know if seven was too far out there. Like saying, "He's the best looking 6 I've dated."

[A. Nony Mouse]

Honestly, I think the thing that's good about the comment is that 7 is a weird enough number, it looks like the recommender actually thought about it and assessed where you fell - didn't just throw out a round number. But that's just me - I have no idea if anyone else would read it that way.

(Also, if the recommender is British - just going off the prestigious British university thing - LORs there tend to be much more honest than here; faculty actually tend to think the letters are supposed to be accurate assessments of your ability and look more convincing if they consider weaknesses, rather than here, where the expectation is that a LOR will be glowing and not breathe a word of weaknesses or it dooms you.)

[theaccidentalclerk]

Honestly, I think the thing that's good about the comment is that 7 is a weird enough number, it looks like the recommender actually thought about it and assessed where you fell - didn't just throw out a round number. But that's just me - I have no idea if anyone else would read it that way.

This was my first instinct.

My second instinct was "what a clever prof -- he knew it would seem more genuine than if he said 5 or 10 students."

[LeDique]

Ugly. Judges aren't looking for T7 students. They're looking for T2, maybe T3.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Honestly, I think the thing that's good about the comment is that 7 is a weird enough number, it looks like the recommender actually thought about it and assessed where you fell - didn't just throw out a round number. But that's just me - I have no idea if anyone else would read it that way.

This was my first instinct.

My second instinct was "what a clever prof -- he knew it would seem more genuine than if he said 5 or 10 students."

Ha! True.

And as for looking for T2 or T3 rather than T7 (wow, that looks weird), I think it depends on how many students the prof had. I taught full-time for 9 years (and part-time for longer before that) and probably had somewhere around 1500-2000 students. Once you get up the top students, it's hard to distinguish between the top 5-10.

[romothesavior]

OP here. I laughed. I really wasn't going for the backdoor brag. I just didn't know if seven was too far out there. Like saying, "He's the best looking 6 I've dated."

Well he's probably taught thousands of students. I doubt he's dated thousands of women. Ya dig?