Certainly the time invested in the letter will depend on what type of letter it is and how well the professor knows the student. For a PhD student going on the job market, the major professor might write a 3 page single-space letter full of applicant-specific details. For a high school student who may have only taken one class with the professor, how many personal details could there really be (other than her computer programs are elegant)? I have what is basically a form letter to which I add a few details for applicants needing a letter for internships or jobs where I don’t know the employers personally.
“So and so is a high school student who has been taking my class CS 350 this past semester. I have found her work to be thorough and even elegant at times, and have on occasion used her work as an example for the class. I highly recommend her for Suchandsuch College.”
I would keep it short and sweet. The ethics are murky but if your daughter tells him she is just quoting his own comments maybe it is okay. She didn’t really make up the comments but is just repeating them.
Then again, she has a grade for the course and may not be known that well by the professor, in which case she could just skip it.
Since the admissions office has requested the letter, and the only way it appears she will get a letter from this professor is to write it herself, then she is going to have to write the letter. I agree with compmom above to keep it short, sweet and fairly generic. Then, let the professor add his own style to it (which he probably will).
What’s the ethical problem? My son’s been asked to do this on occasion - especially by professors who had him a while back and don’t necessarily remember every detail of what he did in their class. You know the position you are applying for better than the professor and can make sure the right stuff gets emphasized. It takes a lot of time to write a good letter, so I can imagine that getting at least a rough draft to work
“Teachers usually ask for a “brag sheet” highlighting the students accomplishments and awards to assist them in writing the rec. I know there are parents who get involved in that process and turn the brag sheet into a draft of the letter they would like to see. I agree that if you want the letter from this teacher you will have to comply with the request or risk him writing a very mediocre rec.”
Ding ding ding ding.
Come on people. There is ZERO ethical issue here.
At my kid’s high school, the teachers and counsellors will not write any rec letters for a kid unless/until the kid/parents submit a “brag sheet”. The info in the brag sheet can then be used by the recommender (or not) in writing the rec letter. Is it unethical for the kids/parents to feed this info to the recommenders?
Would it be unethical for the recommender to have a conversation with the recommendee about the position and points that should be emphasized in the letter?
The practice described in the OP is common. If you look at discussion boards for academics, you’ll see that even among professors there is a wide range of opinions. Some people think it’s fine, and others see it as plagiarism.
MIT has a nice guide for how to write a good letter of recommendation for college applications - http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs. I am not sure how an applicant would go about writing one about themselves - at the very least it would be very awkward. One benefit of recs is that they can give context to what the applicant has done. MIT’s example has things like “I taught David A.P. Calculus last year as a tenth grader, and he was one of the very top students in an extremely able group of mostly seniors,” and “This is a phenomenal accomplishment for anyone, especially a young man in rural Arkansas.” I don’t think a high schooler would really be in a position to make those types of statements.
I also don’t understand the idea of giving a teacher or professor a brag sheet or cv, though I’ve always done this when asking for letters. If the OP’s daughter was involved in the Spanish club, for example, would it make sense for her computer science professor to talk about it in his rec? Especially if he isn’t involved in the Spanish club, or even knows any Spanish?
The CV or brag sheet might put things in context even if the professor doesn’t make note of anything directly. My son’s APUSH teacher had a long list of questions, including which textbook the kid liked best and why. I’d love to have read his recommendations, because it was a lot of work answering all the questions he asked. He did ask about ECs and potential majors. I think if they were related he might bring them in, if they weren’t he wouldn’t.
But this isn’t a high school teacher, it’s college there are different expectations for what kids are capable of, even if they are actually still in high school. If the student doesn’t know how they did in comparison with other students I’d say they could put something like “Her grade of __ put her in the top __% of the class” or something similar. She should have a sentence about how her work was used as an example. I agree the MIT site is a great resource for what is useful in these sorts of letters.
If there is an ethical issue here (and I’m not sure I see one), it’s surely the professor’s issue, not the student’s. My D’s main college recommender for grad school asked for a draft. Based on D’s experience with her (she seemed either lazy or disorganized or overburdened or some combination of those), if D hadn’t complied, it was clear no recommendation would have been forthcoming in a timely fashion. So she put together a draft, using suggestions she found online, adding details about the classes she had taken with this professor and assignments she had completed, and tying her success in the professor’s classes to D’s suitability for this type of master’s degree and the related career.
D had no way of knowing whether the professor used the draft as written, edited it slightly or significantly, or tossed it and replaced it with her own thoughts, but even if she used it verbatim, by signing her name to it the prof was adopting it as her own recommendation and endorsing its contents. The admissions staff wanted to know what the professor was willing to say about my D and surely didn’t give a hang about the writing style. It’s clear to me from what I’ve read on CC and elsewhere that some high school teachers and college instructors are happy to craft recommendation letters for favored students and see the process as part of their jobs, while others resent the burden and see it as unpleasant and uncompensated extra work. I can see how members of both groups might request a draft from the student, and at the end of the day, the goal for the student is to make sure the thing gets completed and submitted on time (often easier said then done). How that happens shouldn’t be a concern.
Of course. That would be a dumb anecdote. Saying “this kid is intelligent” is also dumb, since presumably the student’s transcript will show that already. Saying “this student approached me after class asking for book recommendations about [topic we discussed in class] and then came back a week later to discuss several of the ones she’d read since I recommended them” is better. Saying “this student [experienced academic setback] but [responded well, showing specific instances of tenacity]” is even better. Putting up a slipshod form-letter against a terrible anecdote example is poor form–it’s strawmanning when we should be steelmanning.
Correct!
Until, that is, the student participates in it.
No, the transcript does not show all relevant forms and levels of intelligence.
Maybe that’s typical for high school, but it seems trivial in a university context.
lol
I remember my kids having to check a box to indicate whether they would see a letter of recommendation or not. I believe this was on the application itself. The reason behind this question is that a college will presume the recommendation is less honest and reliable if the student is going to see it.
If the student actually writes the letter, that takes it a step beyond being able to see it. The letter is really not reliable in the college’s eyes. If they knew the student wrote it, I think they would put little stock in it for admissions purposes.
I don’t know if the daughter in question has to check the box on this issue. If the college doesn’t know, it won’t hurt her, but it really is on the border of being unethical, maybe even over the border on the part of the professor.
The real issue here though is how useful SHOULD a recommendation be from a professor who asks for this? In other words, this professor doesn’t know the student well enough to write an authentic recommendation and wants to just rubber stamp a draft from the student.
The best letters are from teachers who really know the student. An anecdote about the kid staying up all night for a departmental cat is actually really helpful in showing character, and also in affirming the authenticity of the recommender’s opinion of her.
The daughter asked late in the game, and the professor really should have just said no. I think, honestly, despite my previous post, that the best path would be for the daughter to get a recommendation letter from someone who knows her well enough to write a good one without her involvement, and she should not ever look at it either.
I posted a very short example of a possible letter. It would not take more than a couple of minutes to write my example. The key is to ask someone who can write it him or herself in an honest way.
To amend my earlier post, after thinking about this, I think it is okay for the daughter to remind the professor of things he has said to her, but not to write a draft letter for him to sign, which is, indeed not ethical.
Neither does your ghost-written letter. Which is shady and lazy.
Hear, hear.
Yep.
I write recommendations all the time for young employees who are applying to grad schools. I cannot recall an instance where it took me more than 15 minutes to write the letter. This isn’t a dissertation- paragraph one, how long you’ve known the person and how, an overall assessment of their ability, a comment on drive, intellectual capacity, curiosity. Paragraph two- a specific anecdote demonstrating something wonderful- analytical skill, creativity, unusual work ethic or grace under pressure, etc. Paragraph three- a comment on how successful said person will be based on something not already mentioned.
My signature.
It would take me 12 minutes to edit a letter someone else wrote and 15 to write a new one. I’m having trouble seeing the big deal. We are talking about a college professor after all.
So, @Marvin100, the letter written by me for another student, which I use as a template to overwrite salient information about the new student, including any charming anecdotes that come to mind, with attention to his or her actual intelligence and work ethic, is ‘ghost-written’ and ‘shady and sleazy’.
I hope that professors everywhere give your opinion the attention and action it deserves.
For an academic, you’re not good at quoting accurately.
And honestly–how lazy do you have to be to refuse to give a student the time to write an original letter of recommendation? I mean, presumably you want to recommend the student (if not, you shouldn’t agree to write for her), right? Shouldn’t you be eager to write about that person?
The idea that it’s okay for someone to draft her own letter of recommendation is just nuts and defeats the purpose of the recommendation process. If you want a brag sheet or some info, fine, but asking a high school student to write her own letter of recommendation? I mean, spin it all you want, @sorghum , but it’s either lazy or shady or both.
“It would take me 12 minutes to edit a letter someone else wrote and 15 to write a new one. I’m having trouble seeing the big deal. We are talking about a college professor after all.”
Not everyone is like you. Personally, I type slowly using only two fingers. And I produce the best work product through extensive editing and re-writing. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as good writing; there’s only good re-writing. I dread nothing more than a blank sheet of paper.
I always produce a better and faster rec letter if the person provides me something to work with first. And there’s zero ethics problem is doing that. It is just efficent. Hence the common practices of providing resumes and brag sheets (preferably in soft copy!) to the recommender. Which is basically the same thing asking the recommed-ee to do a draft as a starter.
I see this as a substantive difference, a difference in kind rather than just degree. After all, a drafted letter could just be signed and sent, and thus gives (at the very least) the appearance of impropriety. A brag sheet? Well, the rec writer will at least have to organize that info and format it as a letter, even if she’s trying to be as negligent as possible.