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In the middle of the current semester, a student in my large lecture class (of an undergraduate course) asked me for a letter of recommendation, to supplement his application to transfer to another, much stronger, school. (In case this matters: this is in the U.S.)

He is one of the quiet students: while he doesn't actively participate, he doesn't cause any trouble either. So during that first half of the semester I didn't have any personal communication with him, and therefore I didn't really know him — I mean I don't have anything to say about him as a person. But he attended class, and his first two midterm test grades were A's (90+ numerically). So I told him that I agree to write the letter, but it would be short because I can only write what I know about him, which isn't much — I can only say that I've known him for half of the semester and that so far he has been performing really well. The student said it's fine. So I wrote and submitted a letter of recommendation.

This was a month ago. Fast forward to today, and by now he's like a totally different student: he's still quiet and doesn't cause any trouble, but he often skips classes, and his third midterm exam was an F (50 out of 100).

I know that it's not about me, and I don't take this personally. It may sound like he changed his ways as soon as he's gotten what he wanted from me, but that would be silly of me to assume. Probably it's just that he believes that he's already in the other school and doesn't care about this school anymore.

But my dilemma is that now I know that he is not the kind of student that I described in my letter and recommended to be accepted to the other school. By putting my name on the letter I effectively vouched for him and his ability to perform at a certain level. To me, it's as if I made a promise to the other university, but now I see that I misled them (albeit unintentionally).

Do you think it's a good idea to contact the other university and request that my letter of recommendation be retracted from his application package? Any thoughts or advice?

I think you should do nothing.

(Nothing with respect to the letter, that is. You may of course want to consider intervening with the student as you would with any other student whose performance suddenly drops off. As Azor Ahai says, he may be experiencing some sort of academic or non-academic problem.)

By putting my name on the letter I effectively vouched for him and his ability to perform at a certain level. To me, it's as if I made a promise to the other university, but now I see that I misled them (albeit unintentionally).

I don't see it that way. You couldn't possibly make promises about his future performance, and the receiving university will not have interpreted it that way. They are well aware that "past performance is no guarantee of future results". Provided you made an honest assessment based on what you knew at the time, your letter was in no way misleading, and you have no obligation to correct it.

Proactively sending a followup unrecommendation would come across as somewhat vindictive, and I think it's sort of an ethical gray area. The student consented to having you send a letter, sharing his academic progress, at a particular time; I think it's a little questionable whether that consent extends to having you send additional letters. (However, if the other university should contact you to ask about him, I do think it would be appropriate to give them an update on his more recent work - but to me that feels different.)

That said, I don't think the student is really likely to profit from this anyway:

• Your initial letter, saying "I've known him for half a semester and so far he's doing fine in this one class", can't really have done much good for his application in the first place. If the other university is "much stronger", having such a letter, in place of a very positive letter from someone that knew him well, may have sunk his application from the outset.




• If he does receive an offer of admission, it will almost certainly be contingent on continued satisfactory academic progress. The other university will review his final transcripts before he actually starts in the program. If he receives a poor grade in your class, they may very well revoke his admission. Indeed, discussing this possibility with the student may encourage him to shape up.

Based on your statements, all that you vouched for is the performance of the student at that point in time.

• What confidence can you provide in the new behavior of the student being his "true" character (rather than a sign of an unknown external pressure)?




• In what way would you retract your letter that will not cause you to appear as being vindictive?




• What reason can you give to retract your letter that is not covered equally if not better by the outcome that this student is on track to earn a lower final course grade on his transcript?

With so many unknowns, your first instinct should not be to retract the letter.

• When you care first to know why the behavior has changed, call the student for a visit and give him a chance to explain why.




• When you care first not to be seen as vindictive, call the student for a visit, explain to him that you face such a decision, and give him the chance to defend himself.




• When you want nothing less than a recognition that your letter then was only for his performance at that point in time, allow the student now his time to complete his own record of his performance past that point.

A recommendation letter is/should as close as to your perception of the truth as possible as to the time of writing.

If you have sent it, retraction would be inappropriate (unless you got notice that the student achieved his marks by cheating).

Of course, a future recommendation letter may be not that brilliant, and you should let the student know that you'd rather not send another one if he asks you for it.