The Other Side of Letters of Recommendation

Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about what it’s like to be someone who writes letters of recommendation.

My Bad History With Letters of Recommendation

Previously, you might know that I was once on the other side of the letter of recommendation process; the student requesting letters. Back then, I hated the humiliation ritual that is begging for letters. The linked article is paywalled, but it’s been enough time that I’m comfortable rehashing some of that pain.

In short, when I was applying to graduate schools, I had to secure three letters of recommendation. I ended up picking my favorite computer science professor who I happened to grade for, the professor I went to Poland with for study abroad, and the music professor who saw me build a video game in the UK where I studied abroad.

These choices are obviously a bit more diverse than I think you generally want. But, I had just come out of industry and didn’t know who to ask. In fact, I was a shy kid in college, so I only really got to know a handful of professors.

Of course, things got messy when one of my letter writers—the one in the UK—suddenly declined to support me because of differences in institutional culture between the US and the UK. Apparently, in the UK, it is not customary to apply to a dozen schools. Instead, you basically need to already have an established relationship with your desired advisor. Also, it’s required to have a master’s degree, which is not typical in the US.

Anyway, I sent them a somewhat harsh response, and I ended up just pivoting to another faculty member—one of my band directors that I also happened to work for at one point. I think some of the universities got one letter and some got another. Funny enough, I just went back through the list of institutions, and 3 of the 4 that ended up accepting me were from applications with the band director letter. That’s literally a 60% success rate, since I only had them submit letters to 5 of the 12 institutions. 1 out of 7 for the UK guy is crazy.

And hey, look who has a PhD in spite of all that.

Being the Change You Want to See

If I had my way, letters of recommendation wouldn’t exist. Or better yet, institutions would do a better job of instilling some sense of community between students and faculty. At least that way, students wouldn’t need to consider the idea of letters since freshman year.

Like, what an absurd premise: only students who know they want to go to grad school know to build this weirdly transactional relationship with faculty. Isn’t this just another form of nepotism? Kids who have parents or relatives in the academy have a major advantage over kids who don’t because the latter group lack key knowledge about how these systems function. Though, I suppose that’s a rant for another day.

Because I can’t wave a magic wand to fix the systemic issues of the academy, I at the very least try to make myself the one person that students don’t have to worry about asking. In fact, when I do my career day at the end of each semester, I literally pitch myself as a source for letters, and students take me up on that very often.

If you’re curious just how many students take me up on that, I have written 25 letters so far this year. Last year (not the academic year), I wrote 53 letters. While that might sound almost absurd, I generally write succinct single-page letters for everything from grad school applications to scholarship applications. Likewise, the first paragraph is usually the same for every student because I only teach one class, while the next three or so paragraphs are catered to each student.

All of that is to say that I enjoy filling this role. Writing letters tends to suck, but there’s a couple things that make it worth it for me. First, I really do enjoy filling the role of the one faculty member who students can trust. Second, I like to be the one faculty member who is actually writing the letters and not using some slop machine like Copilot or ChatGPT, and given how much I harp on AI, students probably trust me more for this as a result. Finally, I love hearing about the successes (e.g., the schools that students get into, the scholarships they win, etc.).

Be More Like Johns Hopkins

That last reason is bold because the one thing that kind of sucks about letter writing is that I basically never get to hear what happened. Like, I have no clue if my letters are any good because I never hear back about how things turned out from students.

To be honest, I don’t really fault students for this. For one, it might feel like bragging, so students might not want to gloat. Also, I suspect that students just forget. In this time of transition, it’s just hard to remember to go back and share the news with folks.

On the other hand, I definitely fault departments, colleges, and universities. You can already notify students that they’ve been accepted. Why not their letter writers?

I wouldn’t have even imagined that this was a possibility if it wasn’t for Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering. Earlier today, I received an email from them that said:

Hello Jeremy, 

Thank you for recommending [REDACTED] to Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering. We are grateful for the support and encouragement you provided as they applied for their master’s degree, and are pleased they were admitted to our program. 

We appreciate your confidence in WSE and the time you took to support [REDACTED] throughout the process.

Thank you again for your recommendation and for all and you do to support your students. We’ve attached our current programming brochure, which provides an overview of the programs and opportunities we offer at Johns Hopkins Engineering.

We hope it’s a helpful resource as you work with your students, and we look forward to the opportunity to connect with more students you recommend in the future. 

Sincerely, 

Johns Hopkins University
Whiting School of Engineering Graduate Admissions

How cool is that? And, they even turn it into a little marketing opportunity for themselves. I just don’t get why more universities wouldn’t do this.

How You Can Make Your Professor’s Day

The last thing I’ll say is that while I don’t often expect students to follow up on their successes (or failures), I absolutely love it when they do. Recently, I’ve started explicitly asking students to tell me how things are going, and it’s a huge boost to my quality of life.

While I’m not going to ask students to do this, I will say that I’ve also received a few nice gifts over the years too. Most recently, one my students built me a little Lego minifigure of myself and put it in a shadowbox with a really nice note. It’s probably one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever received.

In other words, if you have a professor that wrote you a good letter, I highly recommend that you follow up with them on how things turned out. If you want to go the extra mile, small gifts are nice but not required. An email is more than enough.

Anyway, all I really wanted to talk about today was how I write a lot of letters and how I rarely see the outcome. It was a really nice surprise when this came through. I hope more schools start to do this. In the meantime, I’m sure you’d love to hear more about what it’s like to be an educator, so here are some related posts:

• Computer Science Career Advice in 2026? Your Guess Is as Good as Mine
• The Nightmare Before Grad School Application Deadlines
• Recapping My First In-Person Academic Conference

Likewise, you might want to help grow the site. If not, no big deal! Take care.