6 ms·

The Problem with Letters of Recommendation

42 points by diodorus 7y ago

murgindrag 7y ago
I really, truly, deeply dislike this author. This is the sort of thing which sometimes happens to academics -- in a position of absolute power over their students, divorced from any sort of checks-and-balances by tenure -- they become mean people. Over time, that leads to mean cultures, with increasingly abusive advisor-advisee relationships across entire fields. This is most common in fields where a Ph.D is required to do meaningful work (e.g. biology, philosophy, etc.). It is especially common in the humanities, where many (most?) suffer from imposter syndrome (in many cases, rightfully) so this gets tied up in ego issues too. On the receiving end of recommendation letters, I can say two things: 1) They're almost meaningless. Most are glowing. 2) They reflect more on the writer than on the student. That's something students don't (and based on information they have, can't) realize. If they pick the wrong professor to impress -- someone like Agnes here who applies a philosophy of "hyper-rationalism" to recommendation letters -- their career is shot. For the most part: * If you're applying somewhere, I recommend talking to many recommenders. Ask whether they can and will write a strong recommendation. If so, engage with them. If they don't answer, don't take a recommendation * If you're looking for a professor for graduate school, talk to their students first. Look over where they are now. A state school with a good advisor will beat an ivy league with a bad one, hands down. * If you're looking for an undergraduate projects, do the same. The stakes aren't as high, but you'll do a lot better if you chance on someone who cares about you as an individual and works to make you successful (which is their job, as a professor) rather than someone who places their career first (which is the reality, of most professors). If you want to take a hyper-rational approach to it, think of it this way: if better students students pick ethical, humane professors, you're giving ethical, humane professors an edge in the academic rat race. And you're giving sadistic bastards a disadvantage in the rat race. You're making the academy a better place.
- BossingAround 7y ago
  I think the writer simply wanted to appear very smart. The boiled-down TLDR is 1) A profesor should write a letter of recommendation for you. It's part of their job, not a favor. 2) If students believe the teachers know them deeply and the teachers deeply care about their studies, the students'll study better. Overall, I agree with your assessments of "letters are meaningless." I also think that the author's views are somewhat characteristic of the life in academia. I don't, however, think the author means, or does, harm. It's more of a 'meh' situation.
- empath75 7y ago
  I think you’ve completely misread her. She is saying that she doesn’t know what her students are capable of or what they can do, so she doesn’t tell them her honest opinion — she merely writes the recommendation letter based on what she knows objectively about the student. If she were to be honest, she’d probably direct some students away from life decisions that they’d have been successful and happy with if they had taken her misguided advice.
  - habnds 7y ago
    I've always been disappointed by people's consistent refusal to voice opinions about my "career" decisions. I'm perfectly comfortable dismissing feedback and advice when I feel that is the best course of action. I want other opinions. It's very difficult to get anyone to give feedback in a meaningful way or opinionated career advice about what I might be well suited to. This was particularly true of college professors. Helpful sentences would start with "I think you would be good at..." or "While you might be able to improve, I think you should steer away from ..."
    - jameshart 7y ago
      Agreed - particularly in my early career I wished more experienced folks would tell me what potential they actually saw in me, rather than constantly being asked what I wanted to do. In particular, this kind of withholding of advice disadvantages people who are first generation college students, from the wrong social background, or lack access to networks. People who don’t know what their options even are, let alone which of those options is suited to them. Denying those people advice is especially cruel.
wodenokoto 7y ago
I have been asked to write all my letters of recommendation myself, and the professor/employer will simply make changes and print it on university/company letterhead. I know what details are important to highlight in the letter, and have always been met with the logic that "therefore it only makes sense for you to write it".
- PedroBatista 7y ago
  But we all know the reason is effort. They have "better things to do".
- ulucs 7y ago
  That just means that the letters from your institution carry no value to the letter readers. The letters only carry weight when the people behind them have credibility
- WomanCanCode 7y ago
  This is the best kind of recommendation letter. Who knows you more but yourself?
  - neltnerb 7y ago
    Even if I'm super happy with someone's performance, a bullet list of the achievements they want to highlight is extremely useful. Heck, I have a hard time remembering exactly what I accomplished in the last year, it's super risky to assume your recommender will remember for you or happen to mention what you think is important. It's like... I keep a bullet list of things I've accomplished at work and add to it when I feel like I did something worth highlighting as especially helpful. Then during my performance review I've got more in active memory than to discuss what I did last week. Plus your recommender won't know the context of how you're pitching your application. They don't know the other recommenders you picked or what story you want to tell, even if they have the luxury of enough free time to write something personal. As a recommender, the one that I find most obnoxious is that they usually ask you to "rate people relative to others you've worked with" which is just a ridiculous question. I'm at MIT, if I find someone seems to me like they'd fit in as a first or second year grad student at MIT but maybe in the lower half, do you actually want me to write down that they're below average? It's pretty clear that it is not the question you intended to ask when you don't bother to even ask me what kinds of people I've worked with before. You can't ask people to numerically rank performance when there's never been an agreement on the scale! And knowing that you're likely using it as a first pass filter makes it even worse; what, are you going to somehow correct for the difference between the people I've worked with versus everyone else according to some magic objective scale? Even if you know that I'm comparing to MIT students, do you realize MIT has 10000+ students with skill levels all over the map? Do you know that I value practical skills more than most because I've seen what makes someone successful in lab? It's just a part of the recommendation letters I wish they'd just leave out. Filter based on GREs or something else that while equally pointless is at least uniform and then just read the letter and think what you want. Don't ask me to do half the thinking so that you can do none.
jacobobryant 7y ago
You can always take the Benjamin Franklin approach: "Sir The Bearer of this who is going to America, presses me to give him a Letter of Recommendation, tho’ I know nothing of him, not even his Name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes indeed one unknown Person brings me another equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes they recommend one another! As to this Gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his Character and Merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be; I recommend him however to those Civilities which every Stranger, of whom one knows no Harm, has a Right to, and I request you will do him all the good Offices and show him all the Favour that on further Acquaintance you shall find him to deserve. I have the honour to be, &c." https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0365 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-03...
gww 7y ago
I always enjoyed one of my friends grad-school supervisors approach to letters of recommendation: "Such and such was adequate for my lab therefore they would be more than adequate for your lab."
Bostonian 7y ago
Why don't schools scan letters or request them in electronic format and use NLP to see if letters complement grades and test scores in predicting future grades and graduation rates?
- gnulinux 7y ago
  Because, simply, we don't have that advanced NLP systems.
- impendia 7y ago
  University professors (I am one), at least in my discipline (math), tend to be diehard traditionalists. For better or worse, we tend to distrust any formal assessment mechanism.
stakhanov 7y ago
A piece of advice I would give to students: If you're applying to N universities, have your professors write recommendation letters to accompany applications to N+1 universities (including a university that you're lying about wanting to apply to). Chances are, you'll get N+1 copies of the same letter in sealed envelopes. Open one. If you dislike what they write about you, throw them all in the trash and ask another professor. Why do I recommend such an unethical course of behaviour? Because some professors are just nice people who want nice things for their students and who will write nice things in letters of recommendations. And some professors will have a character deficiency that will make them feel better about themselves by writing mean things about other people. ...in each case, the "personality test" around the professor has nothing to do with you, so why should you suffer the consequences if you misjudged someone's character.
- citizenkeen 7y ago
  I have never and would never give a letter of recommendation directly to the person I'm writing it on behalf of. I've attended four universities, and all of them had the letters of recommendation addressed directly to them - I never got a copy of the letter.
  - stakhanov 7y ago
    Really? I've always had them handed to me. If a professor refuses to hand you the sealed envelope, maybe that's the red flag right there. Even so: There's probably a way to game that system, too. (Handing them pre-addressed envelopes, and one of the addresses is a PO Box you own?) ...although you have to be careful, because at some point it presumably becomes mail fraud.
    - stakhanov 7y ago
      ...I should add, that I didn't do this myself, back in the day, because I was lacking in the worldly wisdom required to have this idea. But thinking back of it, I think it's probably what cost me admission to the places I would have most wanted to get into.
    - 7y ago
Arkdy 7y ago
I've been thinking about this from the perspective of the teachers who can be asked to write dozens of letters a year. After some interviews, my hypothesis was that having students be more involved would lead to more engaged teachers and better letters. So I started with this ( https://tinyrecommendations.com/ https://tinyrecommendations.com/ ) interactive blog post which walks you through the steps of requesting a letter (and even generates an example email to get you started).
downerending 7y ago
As far as I can tell, these letters are just a mark that a candidate has enough social hygiene to be able to find a few people to say nice things about them. (Or perhaps are psychopaths.) This system is utterly broken and useless. My response is to write glowing recommendations for anyone that asks me.
- waste_monk 7y ago
  >My response is to write glowing recommendations for anyone that asks me. I find this to be very unethical. LoR's should be an honest accounting of the merits, flaws, and accomplishments of the subject - writing a strongly positive LoR for a subpar student harms the community by subverting meritocratic admissions, may harm the subject by placing them into a position they are unsuited for, and can possibly harm other, more qualified students by having the subpar one occupy a slot in a place-limited program that would otherwise be filled by a "better" student. It may also harm your own career and students - if you get a reputation as someone who always gives out good recommendations even to subpar students, then it may reflect poorly on you. More importantly, it may harm your students - if you're known for giving good LoRs to mediocre students then it becomes impossible for you to give a good LoR to good students and have them taken seriously. I urge you to reconsider this practice.
  - downerending 7y ago
    That's a reasonable position. But I've seen too many cases of people being left behind in the reference game due to simply being unusual in some way: shy/awkward, wrong demographics, uneven career, etc. I believe in redemption and in judging people where they're at right now. If they can demonstrate their current skills and accomplishments, lack of refs shouldn't hold them back. As for reputation, that ship has sailed. My refs aren't worth much, but for someone who just needs the box checked, I'm happy to do it. (Most of my refs are for industry, if that makes you feel any better.)
BrandoElFollito 7y ago
I was once asked by a US company for "recommendations", that is people they would call to ask about me. I am French and it is illegal to call you previous employers, so I guess this was the best they could get. I was genuinly interested in that thing because the idea of such recommendations is so unbelievable to me that I must be missing something. How can a company expect to receive anything else than close friends who will describe some kind of crossover between a genious and a saint? With, of course, some weaknesses such as the tendency to be too good at his work?

42 points by diodorus 7y ago

I really, truly, deeply dislike this author. This is the sort of thing which sometimes happens to academics -- in a position of absolute power over their students, divorced from any sort of checks-and-balances by tenure -- they become mean people. Over time, that leads to mean cultures, with increasingly abusive advisor-advisee relationships across entire fields. This is most common in fields where a Ph.D is required to do meaningful work (e.g. biology, philosophy, etc.). It is especially common in the humanities, where many (most?) suffer from imposter syndrome (in many cases, rightfully) so this gets tied up in ego issues too. On the receiving end of recommendation letters, I can say two things: 1) They're almost meaningless. Most are glowing. 2) They reflect more on the writer than on the student. That's something students don't (and based on information they have, can't) realize. If they pick the wrong professor to impress -- someone like Agnes here who applies a philosophy of "hyper-rationalism" to recommendation letters -- their career is shot. For the most part: * If you're applying somewhere, I recommend talking to many recommenders. Ask whether they can and will write a strong recommendation. If so, engage with them. If they don't answer, don't take a recommendation * If you're looking for a professor for graduate school, talk to their students first. Look over where they are now. A state school with a good advisor will beat an ivy league with a bad one, hands down. * If you're looking for an undergraduate projects, do the same. The stakes aren't as high, but you'll do a lot better if you chance on someone who cares about you as an individual and works to make you successful (which is their job, as a professor) rather than someone who places their career first (which is the reality, of most professors). If you want to take a hyper-rational approach to it, think of it this way: if better students students pick ethical, humane professors, you're giving ethical, humane professors an edge in the academic rat race. And you're giving sadistic bastards a disadvantage in the rat race. You're making the academy a better place.

BossingAround 7y ago
I think the writer simply wanted to appear very smart. The boiled-down TLDR is 1) A profesor should write a letter of recommendation for you. It's part of their job, not a favor. 2) If students believe the teachers know them deeply and the teachers deeply care about their studies, the students'll study better. Overall, I agree with your assessments of "letters are meaningless." I also think that the author's views are somewhat characteristic of the life in academia. I don't, however, think the author means, or does, harm. It's more of a 'meh' situation.
empath75 7y ago
I think you’ve completely misread her. She is saying that she doesn’t know what her students are capable of or what they can do, so she doesn’t tell them her honest opinion — she merely writes the recommendation letter based on what she knows objectively about the student. If she were to be honest, she’d probably direct some students away from life decisions that they’d have been successful and happy with if they had taken her misguided advice.
- habnds 7y ago
  I've always been disappointed by people's consistent refusal to voice opinions about my "career" decisions. I'm perfectly comfortable dismissing feedback and advice when I feel that is the best course of action. I want other opinions. It's very difficult to get anyone to give feedback in a meaningful way or opinionated career advice about what I might be well suited to. This was particularly true of college professors. Helpful sentences would start with "I think you would be good at..." or "While you might be able to improve, I think you should steer away from ..."
  - jameshart 7y ago
    Agreed - particularly in my early career I wished more experienced folks would tell me what potential they actually saw in me, rather than constantly being asked what I wanted to do. In particular, this kind of withholding of advice disadvantages people who are first generation college students, from the wrong social background, or lack access to networks. People who don’t know what their options even are, let alone which of those options is suited to them. Denying those people advice is especially cruel.

wodenokoto 7y ago

I have been asked to write all my letters of recommendation myself, and the professor/employer will simply make changes and print it on university/company letterhead. I know what details are important to highlight in the letter, and have always been met with the logic that "therefore it only makes sense for you to write it".

PedroBatista 7y ago
But we all know the reason is effort. They have "better things to do".
ulucs 7y ago
That just means that the letters from your institution carry no value to the letter readers. The letters only carry weight when the people behind them have credibility
WomanCanCode 7y ago
This is the best kind of recommendation letter. Who knows you more but yourself?
- neltnerb 7y ago
  Even if I'm super happy with someone's performance, a bullet list of the achievements they want to highlight is extremely useful. Heck, I have a hard time remembering exactly what I accomplished in the last year, it's super risky to assume your recommender will remember for you or happen to mention what you think is important. It's like... I keep a bullet list of things I've accomplished at work and add to it when I feel like I did something worth highlighting as especially helpful. Then during my performance review I've got more in active memory than to discuss what I did last week. Plus your recommender won't know the context of how you're pitching your application. They don't know the other recommenders you picked or what story you want to tell, even if they have the luxury of enough free time to write something personal. As a recommender, the one that I find most obnoxious is that they usually ask you to "rate people relative to others you've worked with" which is just a ridiculous question. I'm at MIT, if I find someone seems to me like they'd fit in as a first or second year grad student at MIT but maybe in the lower half, do you actually want me to write down that they're below average? It's pretty clear that it is not the question you intended to ask when you don't bother to even ask me what kinds of people I've worked with before. You can't ask people to numerically rank performance when there's never been an agreement on the scale! And knowing that you're likely using it as a first pass filter makes it even worse; what, are you going to somehow correct for the difference between the people I've worked with versus everyone else according to some magic objective scale? Even if you know that I'm comparing to MIT students, do you realize MIT has 10000+ students with skill levels all over the map? Do you know that I value practical skills more than most because I've seen what makes someone successful in lab? It's just a part of the recommendation letters I wish they'd just leave out. Filter based on GREs or something else that while equally pointless is at least uniform and then just read the letter and think what you want. Don't ask me to do half the thinking so that you can do none.

jacobobryant 7y ago

You can always take the Benjamin Franklin approach: "Sir The Bearer of this who is going to America, presses me to give him a Letter of Recommendation, tho’ I know nothing of him, not even his Name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes indeed one unknown Person brings me another equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes they recommend one another! As to this Gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his Character and Merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be; I recommend him however to those Civilities which every Stranger, of whom one knows no Harm, has a Right to, and I request you will do him all the good Offices and show him all the Favour that on further Acquaintance you shall find him to deserve. I have the honour to be, &c." https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0365 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-03...

gww 7y ago

I always enjoyed one of my friends grad-school supervisors approach to letters of recommendation: "Such and such was adequate for my lab therefore they would be more than adequate for your lab."

Bostonian 7y ago

Why don't schools scan letters or request them in electronic format and use NLP to see if letters complement grades and test scores in predicting future grades and graduation rates?

gnulinux 7y ago
Because, simply, we don't have that advanced NLP systems.
impendia 7y ago
University professors (I am one), at least in my discipline (math), tend to be diehard traditionalists. For better or worse, we tend to distrust any formal assessment mechanism.

stakhanov 7y ago

A piece of advice I would give to students: If you're applying to N universities, have your professors write recommendation letters to accompany applications to N+1 universities (including a university that you're lying about wanting to apply to). Chances are, you'll get N+1 copies of the same letter in sealed envelopes. Open one. If you dislike what they write about you, throw them all in the trash and ask another professor. Why do I recommend such an unethical course of behaviour? Because some professors are just nice people who want nice things for their students and who will write nice things in letters of recommendations. And some professors will have a character deficiency that will make them feel better about themselves by writing mean things about other people. ...in each case, the "personality test" around the professor has nothing to do with you, so why should you suffer the consequences if you misjudged someone's character.

citizenkeen 7y ago
I have never and would never give a letter of recommendation directly to the person I'm writing it on behalf of. I've attended four universities, and all of them had the letters of recommendation addressed directly to them - I never got a copy of the letter.
- stakhanov 7y ago
  Really? I've always had them handed to me. If a professor refuses to hand you the sealed envelope, maybe that's the red flag right there. Even so: There's probably a way to game that system, too. (Handing them pre-addressed envelopes, and one of the addresses is a PO Box you own?) ...although you have to be careful, because at some point it presumably becomes mail fraud.
  - stakhanov 7y ago
    ...I should add, that I didn't do this myself, back in the day, because I was lacking in the worldly wisdom required to have this idea. But thinking back of it, I think it's probably what cost me admission to the places I would have most wanted to get into.
  - 7y ago

Arkdy 7y ago

I've been thinking about this from the perspective of the teachers who can be asked to write dozens of letters a year. After some interviews, my hypothesis was that having students be more involved would lead to more engaged teachers and better letters. So I started with this ( https://tinyrecommendations.com/ https://tinyrecommendations.com/ ) interactive blog post which walks you through the steps of requesting a letter (and even generates an example email to get you started).

downerending 7y ago

As far as I can tell, these letters are just a mark that a candidate has enough social hygiene to be able to find a few people to say nice things about them. (Or perhaps are psychopaths.) This system is utterly broken and useless. My response is to write glowing recommendations for anyone that asks me.

waste_monk 7y ago
>My response is to write glowing recommendations for anyone that asks me. I find this to be very unethical. LoR's should be an honest accounting of the merits, flaws, and accomplishments of the subject - writing a strongly positive LoR for a subpar student harms the community by subverting meritocratic admissions, may harm the subject by placing them into a position they are unsuited for, and can possibly harm other, more qualified students by having the subpar one occupy a slot in a place-limited program that would otherwise be filled by a "better" student. It may also harm your own career and students - if you get a reputation as someone who always gives out good recommendations even to subpar students, then it may reflect poorly on you. More importantly, it may harm your students - if you're known for giving good LoRs to mediocre students then it becomes impossible for you to give a good LoR to good students and have them taken seriously. I urge you to reconsider this practice.
- downerending 7y ago
  That's a reasonable position. But I've seen too many cases of people being left behind in the reference game due to simply being unusual in some way: shy/awkward, wrong demographics, uneven career, etc. I believe in redemption and in judging people where they're at right now. If they can demonstrate their current skills and accomplishments, lack of refs shouldn't hold them back. As for reputation, that ship has sailed. My refs aren't worth much, but for someone who just needs the box checked, I'm happy to do it. (Most of my refs are for industry, if that makes you feel any better.)

BrandoElFollito 7y ago

I was once asked by a US company for "recommendations", that is people they would call to ask about me. I am French and it is illegal to call you previous employers, so I guess this was the best they could get. I was genuinly interested in that thing because the idea of such recommendations is so unbelievable to me that I must be missing something. How can a company expect to receive anything else than close friends who will describe some kind of crossover between a genious and a saint? With, of course, some weaknesses such as the tendency to be too good at his work?