system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Prof declined to write LOR...thoughts?

Some background: last year I took both semesters of organic chemistry with the same professor. I got A's both semesters and won a departmental award for my performance in the courses. It's a small department and the instructor knew me personally  (e.g. I wasn't the guy who gets A's but never participates).

This past summer, I did an REU. I had letters of recommendation from former gen chem professors. I did not ask the organic professor for a letter that time because I was still not even finished with Organic 1 when I started applying.

Now I'm starting the process of applying to REUs for the second time. This time I asked my organic professor for a letter of recommendation...and he declined, saying instead I should ask people I've had classes with more recently.

Is last semester really that long ago? I know for a fact he recently wrote an REU recommendation letter for another student who had already finished the year of organic.

The only professors I've had classes with more recently are the ones I'm currently taking classes with. I definitely can plan on asking them, but I feel weird about requesting a letter of recommendation before final grades are in.

Any thoughts on this instructor's decision not to write an LOR? Is it normal?
gpt
I'd say the most likely case is he can't write a letter that's any more in depth than "this student did well in class". No matter how memorable you feel like you were, nothing really stood out to them. 

Therefore, they're (softly) recommending that you get someone "more current", or rather, someone that knows you better because they don't feel like they know you well enough.