Brainstorming solutions to the letters of recommendation burden

Teachers, counselors and administrators attended a lunchtime meeting in English teacher Natasha Ritchie’s classroom last month to brainstorm ways to lessen the burden of letters of recommendation on teachers.

Assistant principal Brian Safine said approximately 20 staff members attended the meeting, during which they pitched their ideas on how to ease the process of writing letters of recommendation, especially for teachers of juniors, who receive dozens of requests each fall from seniors applying to private universities.

Ritchie, who had to write 24 letters by Nov. 1 and an additional seven letters by Dec. 1 for this year’s applications, said junior teachers are being pressed by deadlines, as there was a sharp increase in the number of students applying early.

“One of the biggest problems we’re facing right now is the sheer number of students that are applying early, so the deadlines are hitting us much harder,” Ritchie said. “I don’t really want to have to keep cutting the number down that I do. I want to be able to write for students, but I can’t really keep up at the same rate that I’m doing it, so something has to change.”

In addition to the trend of more early applicants, certain teachers are being hit harder than others for letter requests because they teach freshman or sophomore classes in addition to junior classes.

Chemistry Honors and AP teacher Kathy Nakamatsu said teaching students for two years is both a “plus and a minus.”

“Students who I had in Honors and AP I get to know pretty well because I’ve had [them] for two years. That makes it a little bit easier to write [their] letters,” Nakamatsu said. “On the other hand, I get asked more, probably because I have people for two years.”

On top of grading schoolwork, preparing lessons and making tests, Nakamatsu said that writing letters of recommendation can be a time-consuming activity.

“I spent a lot of time outside of school [writing letters],” Nakamatsu said. “So I think that’s what students don’t know, that we’re not doing it during our prep. We can’t do it during our prep periods, we’re doing other stuff.” 

Another factor affecting the burden is the increased number of letter of recommendation requests for summer internship applications, meaning it is no longer just a first-semester obligation. In fact, Algebra II Honors and Calculus BC AP teacher Audrey Warmuth said she wrote close to 30 letters for summer programs last year. 

With the stress of early applications and summer program requests, several possible solutions were mentioned at the lunch meeting to help lessen the letter-writing burden.

One proposed solution is to spread the letters among more sophomore and senior teachers in order to reduce the number of letters that junior teachers have to write, Nakamatsu said.

However, Ritchie pointed out some complications with spreading the burden to senior and sophomore teachers.

“If a teacher teaches ninth and 12th grade, and a student’s applying early, then can the student really get to know the teacher again in two months?” Ritchie said. “I think as a junior teacher I can provide a stronger letter than perhaps a freshman teacher could because students have evolved in so many ways.”

Another step proposed at the meeting was to make the process of uploading letters to Naviance smoother and less confusing.  The tool currently has many inefficiencies that require unnecessary effort and extra time on the teachers’ part.

“There’s no sort of way for me to quickly look to see if anything is actually completed [on Naviance],” Algebra II Honors and Calculus BC AP teacher Audrey Warmuth said.  “Somehow the tool doesn’t help you manage it well.”

In addition to improving Naviance, another suggestion to help write letters is a new plan for allotted letter-writing days.  

Warmuth said she would like to try having allotted days at the end of the school year to write letters, while the students are still fresh in teachers’ minds. However, she said there are only so many letters a teacher can write on any given day.

“It’s hard to write a lot of letters in one day because you have to focus on the one student and then you have to switch your mind over to someone else to write a good letter,” Warmuth said.  

The solutions proposed at the meeting have laid the foundation for administrative plans to resolve the issue. Safine said the school will try to persuade senior and sophomore teachers to write more letters in the future.

“Moving forward, we plan to communicate both to staff and students that it is absolutely acceptable for senior [and sophomore] teachers to write letters of recommendation,” Safine said. “We’ve said that in the past, but maybe we need to remind folks that this is something that really helps with the balance of letters.” 

Additionally, Safine said the school will work with the guidance department to simplify the logistics of uploading and submitting the letters to colleges.

Despite the burden of writing so many letters in so little time, Ritchie said she understands the importance of writing letters of recommendation and therefore enjoys writing them.

“I want to write [recommendation letters] because I don’t want a student to just be represented by their grade or their GPA,” Ritchie said. “I think the anecdotal evidence that comes from a letter can be really valuable.”

While teachers enjoy writing letters of recommendation for their students, they would still like to see some changes to make the process easier.

“There’s no perfect solution,” Ritchie said. “So I think we can come up with a project menu of things that could help the teachers.  That in my opinion is the best way to approach it.”