With deadlines for letters of recommendation rapidly approaching, teachers at DVHS are hard at work writing letters for their current and former students.
Some teachers have only recently received most of their recommendation requests, while others have been taking students’ requests since the beginning of the school year. Due to the sheer number of requests, almost every teacher has had to be selective when choosing which letters to write.
“I would say that, in total, I get about 15-20 students per year who ask for [recommendation] letters,” Annie Nguyen, an AP Environmental Science teacher, said. “I used to say yes to almost every request, but in more recent years, I’ve pulled back and set a limit at 15.”
Writing letters of recommendation isn’t part of a teacher’s job description, but because of how time-consuming it can be, teachers have considered how much of their personal time they’re willing to sacrifice.
“I generally try to set a limit of 30 for myself…because I don’t get paid to do them,” Justin Worley, who teaches AP English Literature and Sci Fi & Fantasy Literature, said. “So it’s all out of my personal time [and the] goodness of my heart, and I need to set boundaries.”
The process of writing recommendation letters is a difficult one for teachers at DVHS. They not only have to take the time to write the letters, but they also have to choose which students to write those letters for among the many who ask. To make the selection easier, many teachers accept requests on a first-come, first-serve basis, or have specific requirements that need to be fulfilled by their students before they can accept their requests.
“I would say that my policy is to ask as early as possible, just as a logistical thing. My policy generally is [that] I don’t write letters for seniors that I’m having in a class for the first time,” Nguyen explained. “Basically, you have to have been a junior in my class. I want to have a full year’s worth of scope of growth, of struggle, of challenges [and] overcoming that.”
Additionally, Nguyen highlighted that a student’s grade in the course generally isn’t the deciding factor when it comes to writing them a letter of recommendation.
“You don’t have to have had an A in my class, or even necessarily a B, but I really just want that you are the type of student who worked hard, tried hard and did everything you could to try and make your grade the best you could,” she said.
Along with valuing work ethic and effort, teachers mainly focus on students’ growth in their recommendation letters, highlighting what they learned and how they improved during their time in their class. Oftentimes, grades and scores take a backseat to noting a student’s progression and personal development.
“At Dougherty, we get so caught up in the numbers game and comparison game that you think you can only ask for rec letters in courses you got an A in, but that’s not necessarily the case, and not what I think a lot of teachers believe,” Worley said. “Honestly, the kid who walks in and gets 100% on everything for the whole year—did I really teach them? Is there anything I can say? Honestly, that letter’s kind of boring. Every story needs good conflict, and overcoming conflict, and that’s how you generate meaning. And so if there’s no conflict, then there’s not really much to write about.”
For many teachers, the most difficult part of writing recommendation letters is figuring out how to highlight the aspects of a student’s personality or character that help them stand out beyond what’s already seen on their transcript and the rest of their application . Due to the personal nature of the letters, teachers need to know the student they’re writing about well, and prefer to have anecdotal experiences to share.
“Obviously I have a general impression of the person, so I can say adjectives and stuff, but I want to have a few key moments I want to highlight,” Worley stated. “So, with as many students as I have, and reflecting on something a whole year ago, that sometimes can be challenging.”
Nguyen echoed similar sentiments when describing the students whose letters were the most straightforward to write.
“It’s the people who I know—what other activities they’re doing outside of class, what their interests were, which activities were really vibing with them at the time that we were doing them—so that I have something that I can speak to very specifically when I’m writing the letter of their experience in my class,” she said.
Because of the challenges that come with writing personalized letters for 15-30 students in a semester, some teachers have developed systems that help minimize their workload and increase efficiency.
“I have templates for different types of students. My first year or two, it was the same templates: one for a girl, one for a boy, because of the he/she distinction,” Johann Somerville, a US History and AP Research Teacher, and Model UN advisor, explained. “But by year four, having written so many, I have ones that are basically typecast for if I had a student in US [History] and Research, or US [History] and Model UN, just Model UN [or] just Research, with focuses on what they’re needing them geared towards.”
Letters of recommendation are highly individualized, and require teachers to devote their energy, care and time towards writing them. In return, most just want to be sincerely appreciated for their dedication.
“For the students who have asked their teachers for letters, please remember to thank them. I think the thing that had always broken my heart a little bit is if I write these letters for students—especially kids that I don’t have in my classes currently—and then I never hear from them again [for] the rest of the year,” Nguyen said. “Please take some time to thank your teacher, even just write them a card and update them at the end of the year: where you’re going to college, what schools you got into, what schools you didn’t get into, just so they can see some outcome from the effort they put into these letters.”
