The Rochester City Newspaper published an article about a retracted letter of reference that was brought to our attention. The gist of the article is that a young lady at a private high school had a letter of reference retracted that cost her admission to University of Pennsylvania. (She was ultimately admitted to Harvard using letters of reference from different teachers.)
While we don’t mean to scare anyone, we do want this to be a cautionary tale to choose your recommenders wisely and maintain those relationships just as carefully even after the applications have been submitted. (An errant email is allegedly responsible for turning the recommender against this particular applicant.) Retractions are made only on very rare occasions. When a recommendation is retracted, it usually follows a formal disciplinary action against the applicant. What made this story so newsworthy is that there was no such formal action taken by the school for the errant email that was only mildly disrespectful of the recommender.
