Faculty Swamped by Letters of Recommendation

Your heart is set on law school. You've worked hard, earned the grades, spent summers filing briefs at your hometown district attorney's office, and you're waiting for one more thing: the letter of recommendation from a big-name Harvard professor.

Don't hold your breath--so is everyone else.

In general, Faculty rise to the occasion for their students, but most write hundreds of recommendations every year and the load has increased in recent years.

"I hate it," says Professor of History James Hankins of writing recommendations. "I despise it, but it's part of the cost of doing business in a meritocracy."

Take a Number

For senior Faculty--especially those with the double whammy of famous names and small classes--hundreds of students line up for a letter of recommendation with a weighty signature.

Hankins estimates that he writes about 300 letters of recommendation each year. Mark A. Kishlansky, Baird professor of history, puts his yearly figure at around 120, while Buttenwieser University Professor of History Stanley H. Hoffman says he writes upwards of 800.

Hankins says is not surprised that he is asked to recommend as many students as does.

"I'm a head tutor--I'm in the line of fire," Hankins says. "But I've stopped writing for law schools--there are enough lawyers. We have to keep the numbers down."

Thomas Professor of Government and of Sociology Theda Skocpol, who habitually teaches small classes and advises many theses, says contact with students can be a double-edged sword.

Although she enjoys working closely with students and fully expects to be called on to help them in the future, small classes come with the price of tremendous amounts of work.

"Between Oct. 1 and Christmas it gets overwhelming," Skocpol says. "It takes about a day a week--a really substantial amount of time--and it is beginning to spread out to other times of the year."

She was especially surprised, she says, to realize that professors who teach a range of subjects get more requests for recommendations than more specialized scholars.

Luckily for students, professors say they rarely turn down requests, and when they do, it is always for a good reason.

When he feels unqualified to recommend a particular student--either because he does not think highly of the student's promise or because he does not know the student well--Kishlansky simply refers the requester to another Faculty member.

Putnam also says although he almost never refuses to write for a student, he tries to look out for the student's best interests.

"If I am going to have to write someone a letter that will definitely hurt their cause, I usually give them a chance to change their mind," he says.

"For the most part, however, Harvard students are so good that that the issue does not arise," Putnam added

Weighing Their Words

Not only do recommendations take a huge amount of time, but professors also say writing the letters can be a nerve-wracking task.

Although most admit they write most of their letters from an informal template of sorts, changing standards in the world of recommendations makes it necessary to fit the letter to the application.

"There is no fun in it because you have to conform to the standards and formulas by which the choosing agencies choose people," Kishlansky says. "You've really got to moderate your language. It's very complicated--the standards keep changing, and there is this escalation of language."

Kishlansky and Skocpol say they have noticed an increase in requests over the last few years, particularly because so many applications within the Harvard system require recommendations. Kishlansky says this makes an onerous task only harder.

"It used to be you got done by Thanksgiving. It was a November thing in the old days and I set aside time then," Kishlansky says. "Now you write them from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. It's endless, and inside the University are the worst offenders."

Coming Through in the End

So how can professors write meaningful recommendations for hundreds of students each year?

Most say they see the letter-writing process as part of their job description. And dealing with students on a daily basis gives them ample opportunity to get to know a surprising number of undergraduates.

"Except in very rare cases, I know the students quite well," wrote Stanfield Professor for International Peace Robert D. Putnam in an e-mail message. "In the overwhelming majority of cases I have taught them in a small seminar with weekly papers and lots of discussion, so I really have a chance to see them in many different contexts."

And though writing recommendation is both time-consuming and difficult, some professors say that they enjoy the end result.

"I'm not sure I enjoy the writing," Putnam wrote in an e-mail message. "But I do enjoy the results vicariously, in the sense of being thrilled when students of mine get good jobs, good fellowships and other good things that they deserve."