Keeping Up With The Recommendations

Back in 2009, when I considered going to graduate school to become a school counselor after more than two decades as a newspaper editor, I did informational interviews.

With the help of a friend in the school system, I reached out to a couple of high school counselors and asked them what they liked and didn’t like about the job, so I could get a clearer, more focused perspective.

Both talked to me about the relentless amount of paperwork for college-bound seniors.

Including recommendation letters.

As they discussed challenges with this part of their work, I remember thinking my current job already required…

and editing on deadline.

I could handle it, I decided. My instincts proved right.

Nearing the finish of my 12^th season of writing recommendations, I’ve written more than 500 letters for aspiring college students.

Nevertheless, I understand why this task came to mind when the veterans described fatigue factors of being a school counselor (not a “guidance counselor” – learn more here.)

Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly of Letters of Recommendation.

Let’s go in reverse order:

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The ugly? Universities requiring the rec letter.

Most are private. But some are public universities that do not require letters for students within their state, but do for students outside their state.

It’s the “require” part that bugs me.

I enjoy getting to know my seniors and touting them to the schools they’re pursuing.

I just wish doing so was an option and not a requirement.

I have a caseload of more than 400 students. (Some years, when we have five counselors rather than six as we currently have, my caseload rises above 500.) Writing rec letters is a small part of my job, but it takes an outsized proportion of time. I interview a student for a half-hour to 45 minutes.

Put another way, I’ve spent more than 33 hours during the school day between early September and early November doing these interviews. That’s time I can’t spend on other priorities.

In addition, it takes me an hour to write a letter using a template I created. There’s rarely a time when letter writing can be done at school. So, as my teacher colleagues often have to do with grading homework or creating lesson plans, I’m writing these letters at home, typically on evenings and weekends. (If anyone wondered why I disappeared from tnocs.com or the mothership between mid-September and early November? Now you know.)

It could be worse. When I started more than a decade ago, the public universities in my state required letters as well. At least that practice ceased.

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The bad? Every year, there’s that senior who doesn’t know my name.

This becomes significant when they enter my email address wrongly in the Common Application or other college admissions documents. I never receive the prompt because it goes to a nonexistent “csmalls” in my school system.

After years of panicked students sending emails saying, “Why haven’t you done my Common App?” and my replying “I didn’t know you were on the Common App!” I began telling 9^th graders on up, that if they don’t commit “Mr. Small” to memory, they’re going to regret it at college admissions time.

This may have worked. I have yet to get a panicked “Mr. Smalls” email this year.

We’ll see.

The other common frustration is with the student who fills out our packet of reflective prompts (some schools call it a “brag sheet”) with single-word or one-sentence replies. We became much clearer with our seniors about being thorough. If they don’t promote themselves, how can anyone else do so?

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Now for the good. And there’s so much of it.

I feel blessed to hear of students doing amazing research, spending innumerable hours volunteering in our community, and putting together impressive career and academic resumes that, quite frankly, would have left mine in the dust.

I try to pull out some thoughtful reflections on their experience so colleges see beyond the resume to the really cool young adult who created it. In our interviews, I try to capture not just their activities but their personalities. I take the time to read back to them direct quotes that capture my attention, hoping they will do the same for the admissions representative.

I end each student interview with “What have we not gone over that you want to make sure I include in a rec letter?” Sometimes, the student will provide an obvious restatement from the packet or their resume. But often this question sends our interview in an entirely different direction.

It’s then that I get excited about the nugget of gold I’ll be able to tuck into the letter.

On the college’s end, I’m sure the template I use can frustrate someone who gets more than one of these a year from me. The first and last sentence are literally, except for the student’s name and an adjective or two, the same. But that’s just a time-saver that allows me to complete dozens of these in a two-month time frame.

It’s the bullet points in between where the meal is.

And that meal will be only as delicious as the ingredients the students and I provide.

Sometimes, it’s filet mignon.

A senior last year completely bowled me over.

She took perhaps the most anodyne of our prompts – “What advice would you give an incoming high school freshman?”

She said she would encourage them to look at political or societal events to determine “how history got us here:”

“Can you connect the Enlightenment to Kim Kardashian?”

Since she set up that challenge, I asked her to do that – and she did, explaining the Enlightenment’s rationality, development of technology and prevalence of a Protestant work ethic before contrasting it with a tech-era mogul known for celebrity who promotes her brand nonstop. Hearing her connect the dots blew my mind.

“If you continuously practice making a subject interesting, you will find everything to be fascinating,”

I knew I was going to use that anecdote in her recommendation letter.

And sure enough, she got into the prestigious private university she pursued.

I am positive her myriad accomplishments, including being a National Merit Scholar, had a lot to do with that.

But I can’t help thinking Kim K. might have helped just a smidge.

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