Ask after being an engaged student.

If you weren’t a good student, or if you were, but you didn’t get to know the instructor, you’re not going to get a good letter at the last minute. In other words, the first time you really have a conversation with us shouldn’t be the “may I have a letter of recommendation” conversation.

Think about balance in your letters.

If you work in a lab, don’t get both of your letters from your lab supervisors. Get one from someone who can talk about your work and another who can talk about you as a student, or some combination like that.

Ask carefully and politely.

Ask in person, if possible. If it’s not possible, apologize. I recommend a sentence with the words “comfortable” and “strong,” as in “Would you be comfortable writing me a strong letter?”

By saying “strong,” you’re asking for something beyond the form letter–and they’ll now know you know the difference.

If there is even a bit of hesitation, BACK OFF!

If they say they don’t have time, don’t argue or come up with time-management tips. If they say they don’t know you well enough, they aren’t asking to get to know you. If they say they can’t write you a strong letter, go ask someone else.

Definitely don’t show up at their house with your mom on a Saturday, demanding a letter, causing them to have to threaten to call the police since you won’t stop screaming about how they HAVE to write one.

(This happened to a colleague.)

Know when to ask.

We expect at least a month’s head-up for graduate school–those deadlines don’t sneak up on people. We’re more flexible with jobs and scholarships.

Get the words out.

I often have students in my office for a whole office hour, trying to build up the courage to ask me.

It’s so obvious.

But I pretend to be oblivious, as they ask about my cats and where I got that picture of Weird Al and how my Simpsons collection started.

When I say, “it’s been great, but I have to get to class,” they finally ask.

Why don’t I spare them asking? Because asking for help is important. I had to learn to do it–it was the hardest lesson. But every person you might ask for a letter had to ask for letters. It’s just part of the process.

Pro-tip: If you want to say something nice while you’re asking, ask first, then flatter.

When a student says, “Your class was my favorite. Can I have a letter?” I’m never sure whether the first sentence is true.

Take, for example, a card I got my from my son for mother’s day when he was about 7:

“You are lovely. Your hair is lovely. I’m sorry I set the carpet on fire.”

Those first two lines sort of get cancelled out because of the placement of the third.

It’s so much more convincing if you just flip the sentences: “May I have a letter of recommendation? I’m asking you because your class was my favorite.”

The next entry will be about what to do when we say yes.

Previous entries went over the basics, how to get mentors, things to avoid, and why our letters should address your problems.

FAQs

What if I don’t need the letter for a while?

Bring it up before you lose touch with them: “after taking a couple of years off to work, I’ll be applying to vet school. I might be back to ask you for a letter of recommendation then.”

What if the professor asks me to write the letter?

I know that some professors do this, but it’s insane. These letters are a genre. How are you supposed to know how the genre works? How are you supposed to know, from one school’s pov to another, what to say?

Some professors don’t use the letter they make you write. They say things like, “oh, I just wanted to know what you thought of yourself.”

Whether it’s laziness or mind games, I wouldn’t deal with those people.

What if the people who could write the best letter aren’t professors?

One of my students was recently told that all of his letters should come from tenure-track research professors.

But that wasn’t possible. Those professors only taught the big classes, and they didn’t allow undergraduates near enough to get to know them.

So one of his letters came from me, a lowly lecturer. We got him into one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

If you’re choosing between a form letter from a professor or a great letter from someone who’s not, don’t you want the great one?

So far, we’ve gone over the basics, how to get mentors, and the mistakes to avoid.

Today, let’s talk about the Letter of Rec superpower: addressing problems.

Few of us are perfect candidates–there was one class we bombed, one bad habit we haven’t conquered.

If a problem is so big that it will be visible to the job or the school you want, you have to address it.

How are you going to explain that terrible second year?

Or why you had to drop out and come back?

Or why you changed majors six times?

It’s actually best if we address it.

There was a term in college when I had pneumonia during the last weeks. If I’d had insurance, I would have been in the hospital. I don’t remember my mother having my brother say a final goodbye to me over the phone, but it apparently happened.

I do remember throwing up during one final and hallucinating in another.

I didn’t get straight “A”s that term, and I was worried about it.

John Degen was one of my letter writers–I’d taken three of his classes. He was the only teacher in the theatre department I had to study for–and I loved him for it.

He had me read the letter he wrote; he said he wanted me to proofread it.

That was bullshit–I realize now that he was finding an excuse to show me the letter so I would calm down.

In the letter, he talked about my illness. He mentioned how, despite my vomiting in the final, I did better than 92% of the class. I hadn’t know that.

I also didn’t know that my name had come up in a faculty meeting. The professors discussed who among them would go to my hometown for my funeral.

Because I was so clearly going to die.

“John,” I said. “Why did you all make me take my finals?”

“We thought you wanted to finish before you died.”

I was out of my mind with illness; they should have told me to go home.

Nevertheless, I knew I wasn’t going to have to mention my illness in my letters for grad school at all.

And that was a good thing. It would have sounded like an excuse if I mentioned it.

John made me sound heroic.

And that’s why you want mentors to write great letters for you. If we don’t know you, we can’t do this part of the letter.

Let me give two more examples, from letters I wrote.

I had a student who wanted to get a Masters in Public Health. She didn’t have the requisite GPA. But I knew her very well, and I went to bat for her. My only mention of what sank her GPA was in this paragraph (I’ve changed her name):

In our time together, I have gotten to know Jane very well. I know about the hardships she’s faced, including physical and mental abuse at home. I know how strong she’s been to overcome those hardships. Jane’s transcript will likely not be the strongest you’ll receive; however, I recommend Jane over anyone else I can think of for this program—she is dedicated to improving the health of those in at-risk populations. She understands the challenges they face in receiving care, in bridging the cultural and languages gaps between patients and doctors, and in making sustainable, long-term changes in lifestyle. Jane may have fumbled a bit in her undergraduate career, but I have every confidence that she will excel in this Master’s Program.

The program filed an appeal, asking for the university to waive the GPA requirement for her. And she has that Masters degree now.

Another student wanted to go med school. We had known each other for four years; he’d taken three classes from me. He was special. My favorite thing about him? When I would mark a mistake on his paper, he would not make the exact same mistake on the next paper. He would learn.

I was pleased when he asked me for a letter. I was less pleased when he came back a week later to tell me never mind, that he wasn’t going to med school, that he wasn’t good enough.

If I hadn’t really known him, I would have taken him at his word. I wouldn’t have known how wrong he was. And it would have been one more thing to cross off my long to-do list.

But he was wrong. So I yelled at him. And I ordered him to apply.

Later, he told me he was only in med school because I yelled at him.

If you don’t have mentors, who is going to give you a kick in the ass when you need it most?

I wrote him a great letter. In fact, I was worried the committee would see it as hyperbolic. And I was worried that he wouldn’t really explain in his own letter how amazing he was.

So I ended mine this way (name changed):

If this letter seems unduly glowing, it is because I hope to make up for John’s humility, which might prevent him from “selling” himself in his application. It is vital that this humility be respected, as it is another quality that makes both for an uncommonly good doctor and an uncommonly good person.

I give him my highest possible recommendation. 

He’s a doctor now. And sometimes he sends me facebook messages to check in with me and to ask if my doctors are treating me well.

I think he’s waiting for a moment when I’m letting a doctor not do his or her best, so he can give me a much needed kick in the ass to demand better.

Now that we’ve discussed the basics and how to get mentors, let’s talk about the mistakes students make:

Thinking that getting a good grade is enough.

Just because you got a good grade in my class doesn’t mean I like you. Assholes can do well on tests and essays. I’m not going to recommend that asshole, dooming the next person to being stuck with them for a while.

Conversely, I’ve had some students who didn’t get the highest grades get great letters–because I saw how much they worked, because we got to know each other.

Remember, too, that I’m not supposed to tell anyone your grade in the letter, so if I all know about you is that you got an A, but I have no further information to give, your letter will be a form letter.

Asking someone who can’t recommend you.

My friend Vanessa had a student ask her for a letter of recommendation after she caught him plagiarizing. He thought that because she hadn’t been mean to him in class–because she was a professional–that his transgression had been completely forgiven and forgotten (besides being sent to SJA).

Vanessa’s thought: but why in hell would I recommend a cheater?

I had a student ask me for a letter after failing my class. The student and I were friendly enough–she was failing because she wasn’t actually ready to be writing at the upper division writing level yet.

I was surprised when she asked me for a letter–while I could write about how generally cheerful she was, I didn’t have anything nice to say about her academic potential.

(I declined.)

The silliest example, though, comes from a total fuck up in my class. He was failing–his papers were awful, when he got around to turning them in, he failed all the reading quizzes, didn’t do the homework, and on the day he came to my office for a letter, he hadn’t been prepared for his class presentation.

He was floored when I said I couldn’t recommend him for our Washington program.

“I can’t recommend you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, based on my experience, you’re a terrible student. So I can’t tell other people that you’re a good one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If every time I ate at a restaurant, I got food poisoning, I would not recommend the restaurant to others. I can’t tell people that they want to work with you, based on my experience with you. Don’t you have a class in which you’re doing better? A teacher you have a better relationship with?”

“No.”

“Why did you ask me?”

“My roommate said to ask my English teacher because they write good.”

I didn’t correct his misapprehension that I was his “English” teacher, but I did get really snotty.

“I could write poetry about how you don’t do your work in my class. It would be beautiful. Is that what you want?”

Asking impolitely.

Don’t assume we owe you one. You are asking us for a favor.

Don’t ask over email, unless there’s no other way. For example, during this shut-down, I’ve had some email requests come in, but the students have been smart enough to apologize for having to ask me this way. Even then, it’s not enough to send a one-sentence email. You need to explain why, when, where, etc.

Don’t ask at the last minute. We expect at least a month’s notice.

There are exceptions, of course. Maybe you just discovered a scholarship or your other recommender died (I had to step in in a case like that.)

But you should know when your grad school application is due. Not asking for the letters until the week they’re due illustrates that you are not good at planning or time management and that you don’t respect our time. You’re not the only person wanting a letter–and they all tend to be due around the same time. If I know I have several due in the same week, I can make plans to get them done, but I don’t have the time or the will to add yours to the big pile if you ask late.

Being an annoying person.

This is different from being an asshole. And there are many ways to be annoying. Were you the student who, after your teacher said to the whole class that he couldn’t talk after class because he had to get across campus for another class, came up to him after every single class and said, “I know you gotta go, but . . .?”

Are you the student who argued about every little grade?

Are you the student who couldn’t seem to do any assignment on her own or who never read the syllabus before asking a question?

Are you the student who was always on his phone?

Are you the student who won’t take “no” for an answer about a letter?

Last year, a student emailed me for a letter request a week before the letter was due. We had never spoken. I told her I couldn’t write the letter, because I didn’t know her.

“Well, could we spend a few hours together this week then?”

Ummm . . . FUCK NO!

Not signing the privacy waiver.

Schools and programs ask you to sign a privacy waiver, meaning you won’t read the letter we write. The schools and jobs and programs want us to be honest.

If you don’t sign the privacy waiver, it’s a red flag.

Are you saying you don’t trust your letter writers? Your mentors? Why? What do they know about you?

Are you paranoid?

Are your letter writers afraid of you? Are they tired of you bugging them and so they’re just writing something to make you go away?

Yesterday, I added my story to our online picket page.

The University of California said, when this crisis started, that our jobs were safe until 6/30.

That’s when our yearly contracts are up.

We’re worried they’ll use this crisis to get rid of people with experience and replace them with brand new teachers who cost less.

And so we’re standing together today (and every day) to explain what a 6/30 layoff would mean.

For those of you outside of academia, know that someone who is laid off in the Summer will NOT be able to get hired to teach somewhere else in Fall. Our job searches take months–almost a year for the good ones. A tenure-track job starting in Fall 2020 had its call go out in October of 2019. The positions are filled.

And yes, we’re still working out of contract.

One of the biggest frustrations for me is how the university’s understanding of my job is so different from reality.

The university says I’m not teaching online, that I’m doing remote instruction (meaning fully synchronous courses).

My students would be surprised by that, since we’re asynchronous.

(We’re supposed to get paid more if we’re teaching online, which is why this semantic argument matters.)

The university says we don’t write letters of recommendation.

Just this week, I’ve been asked for four more.

The university says we don’t mentor.

Just this week, I’ve gotten eight emails thanking me for checking in on students. They say their professors are “less personal” with learning.

Just this week, I’ve gotten three emails from students of years past, telling me they’re thinking of me, that they’re grateful for me, that they’re wishing me health in this uncertain time.

Just this week, I’ve gotten four emails letting me know about the final graduate school choice I helped my mentees make.

Just this week, I’ve gotten confirmation that I’ve helped a student whose dissertation committee I was on get a tenure-track job.

Just this week, I’ve been asked to be the opener for the stand-up club’s Zoom show they’ve organized.

I’m used to the university insisting that my research doesn’t count, since I’m teaching faculty.

But damn if I don’t want them to fucking recognize the great teaching we do.

If you want a good letter of recommendation, you need to get to know us.

As I mentioned in the last post, this shows you can build the mentoring relationships you’ll need to be successful.

How do you start?

Come to office hours.

I don’t count talking to me right after (or before) class–I’m trying to get the room ready for the next person, and then I have to head to my next appointment or class. You do not have my full attention, and I might be annoyed with you but not showing it.

If you don’t come to office hours, though, I’ll just be grading papers. I could be talking to you, which I generally like doing a lot more.

Not sure how to start? Ask us about ourselves! Everyone’s a bit of a narcissist. Ask how we decided on the right graduate program, how we balanced academics with extracurriculars, etc. The person you’re talking to should turn those questions back to you–and then you’re learning about each other.

Seek additional work or knowledge.

One of my favorite students talked to me a lot; I recommended a book for him as our course ended. I didn’t expect to see him again, since most students disappear. But he read the book over break and came back to office hours to talk about it.

We built a great relationship over the four years he was at Davis, and he ended up with one of my very best letters.

Many years ago, I had the supervisor of engineering at Genentech come to my class. This happened during the Q&A:

Student: How do you know when you want to give someone a promotion?

Supervisor: Okay. You come to work on time every day and do a great job. Am I going to promote you?

Student: Yes!

Supervisor: Um, no. That’s how you keep your job. If you want me to notice you, do something worth noticing. I promote the people who want to get better at their job, the people who are curious. The person who comes to me and says, “hey, there’s only one guy who is trained to calibrate that machine, but it often breaks when he’s not here. Can I learn how to do it?” is going to get noticed.

Talk to us about independent studies. Ask for further ideas–books to read, podcasts to listen to.

One important note: there are definitely students who go to office hours too much. They seem unable to read instructions or to work without someone looking over their shoulder. They get huffy when we point out they’ve been talking to us about every word of their essay for an hour while there’s a line of ten other students out the door.

This is not impressive. And we know that behavior will not be rewarded in graduate school or the work force, so we won’t be able to recommend you.

If you’re looking for actual mentors, you may need to do the following:

See us outside of office hours.

Not everyone who writes a letter for you will also be a mentor; mentoring is the next level. A mentor should:

• be interested in more than just your letter
• be willing to give you advice and guidance
• be able to give you a helpful kick in the ass when you need it
• be knowledgeable enough about you to know what you most need to hear when you’re stressed, to offer opportunities that you need, etc.

Lots of students get letters from me every year.

Not every student has me forward job opportunities to them.

Not every student has me help them with their letters and scholarship applications.

Not every student gets invited to a meal with a visiting author because I happen to know that’s their favorite author in the whole wide world.

Not every student gets taken to a Comic Con as my assistant so I can introduce them to publishing contacts for their art career.

Not every student maintains a relationship well into graduate school, with me helping them on that first super challenging assignment.

Those relationships take time and effort, and it’s up to you to start them.

Harry Potter readers know that in the British system, students have to wait for teachers to notice them and hope they’ll be chosen to come up for a butterbeer.

In America, you have to come to us. At UCD, they even have a fund you can use. If you want to have a pizza with me and your small group as we go over your grant application, you can apply for that pizza money. If you want to have coffee with me at the Coho so we can talk without twenty students waiting outside my door, you can apply for that coffee money to treat me as a thank you.

Remember, you don’t want the form letter that someone hasn’t even proofread:

I write to recommend John Doe for your graduate program. John was a student in my Advanced Composition course three years ago. . . . Jane is hardworking and intelligent.

You want us to be able to talk about you, to fight for you:

I give my highest possible recommendation for John Doe. John has taken two advanced writing courses from me in the last two years. He has also served as my intern on x, doing y. . . . John’s work in securing a grant for patients in the z clinic will benefit their lives for many years. . . . You want John in your program; out of all of my Health Science Writing students, he is the one I would want as my physician in the future.

http://studentaffairs.ucdavis.edu/students/dean-witter/

In some of my classes, like the health science writing class, we practice writing statements of purpose for grad school. In one class, I mentioned that they needed to make sure the letters of recommendation were also strong.

Questions and answers about that filled the rest of the period. The students gave me feedback that the detour we took was exceptionally helpful.

In my classes now, I set aside a day they’re turning in a paper to have this talk.

And now I’m reproducing it here.

The Basics

There are several types of letters:

• Bad
• Meh
• Good
• Great!

I won’t write a bad letter. And I don’t know anyone who relishes doing so. But sometimes a student hounds a teacher after several polite refusals, and the teacher says: Fine. I will tell that school EXACTLY what I think of you.

Meh letters are form letters. They say you’re smart and hardworking, like everyone going to grad school should be. There are no details about you. Everyone reading it knows it’s a form letter. It doesn’t help you.

Good letters make it seem like we actually know you and that we actually recommend you. They talk about you.

Every once in a while, we write a great letter. We go beyond praising you. We make it clear that they’re idiots if they don’t want you, because everyone should want you. These are rare. They are saved for those we’re close to, for those whom we know have struggled, for those who are truly exceptional.

WHAT THEY DON’T ASK:

• What was the student’s grade in the class?
• Was s/he/they on time to class?
• Did s/he/they come to all (or most) classes?
• Did s/he/they complete the work?

First, your grade is on the transcript. Second, they assume that if we’re recommending you, you did the minimum.

Note: if you brag on your statement or resume about being on time, that’s a red flag. It’s not a skill. It doesn’t make you special. If you think it’s worth mentioning, we know you have a very low bar for yourself.

It’s like saying, “I always showed up to class dressed!”

WHAT DO THE SCHOOLS WANT TO KNOW?

They want to know what kind of person you are, whether we enjoyed working with you, whether they might enjoy working with you. This is about your strengths and weaknesses and personality.

First, they ask us:

• How long have you known the student?
• In what capacity have you known the student?
• How well do you know the student?

If I click “not very well,” I’ve just killed this recommendation. I’m admitting that I have no ethos (credibility) here.

If your recommenders say they don’t know you, there are two possible red flags.

1. Maybe you didn’t ask someone who actually knows you, because people who know you learn you’re a selfish asshole.
2. Maybe you never got to know any of us, which means you won’t succeed in graduate school. You can’t hide in the back of a room in a six-person class. If you can’t talk to us, how will you put your committee together? How will you find your mentors? If you can’t find two people in undergrad who can check “fairly well,” then grad school is not for you.

Second, they ask us to rank you. Often it’s this:

Rank the student against all the students you’ve taught:

• Top 1%
• Top 5%
• Top 10%
• Top 20 %
• Not in the top 20%

The next bubble sheet:

Rate the student in terms of:

• leadership
• oral communication
• written communication
• ability to work in a group
• problem solving
• ethics
• ability to work independently
• responsibility
• creativity
• interpersonal skills
• research ability
• intelligence
• critical thinking

Yes, every teacher, not just your writing teacher, is asked whether you can write well.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

We need to know you.

The next post will talk about how to make that happen.

Yesterday, I had my upper-division students watch a talk I do for my lower-division ones.

(This recording is from when I gave it to the EOP students a couple of years ago: https://video.ucdavis.edu/media/2015-08-28_STEP_Karma-Waltonen.mp4/0_rd2ugqus.)

I thought it would be a good way for my students to learn more about me, my energy/vibe, and expectations.

My students’ responses have confirmed what I’ve suspected for a long time:

It’s not just lower division students who need a “welcome to college” talk.

I asked the students to tell me what surprised them. Here are the top three answers:

1. Many didn’t think we cared if they weren’t paying attention or if they were doing something distracting in class.
2. Some were surprised that their peers are so rude and casual in emails. Others were surprised we think they’re sometimes rude and too casual in emails.
3. A bunch of them thought it was fine to email us for a letter of rec after never having spoken to us at all.

Maybe your students need to hear my talk too.

It was bumpy, not surprisingly.

All of my students nodded vigorously last week when I said they would have to read all of the instructions carefully.

But the students who were careless and unprepared before are still careless and unprepared now.

There is one advantage–in my intro to lit class, we’re hearing from people who have never spoken in class before, which is awesome.

Some students say they miss class, of course. Some have said they like the screen capture video I made because they got to hear my voice.

One student wrote to me this morning just to say he missed coming to class because it was an oasis for him, a good distraction from the rest of life.

Everyone’s favorite thing so far? A video of one of their TAs fighting a plastic spoon.

Los Rios, where I’m teaching two semester-length classes, has moved their courses online indefinitely. Davis is also online for the rest of the quarter.

Today will be spent figuring out how to make next week’s classes work (in addition to the other work that was already on the schedule).

The chaos has upped my workload and my “I have to be on the computer” time exponentially. I’m already feeling the strain on my spine.

Frankly, I’m worried about losing my ability to take care of myself under these circumstances. It’s too easy to get lost in tinkering with a syllabus or in grading. And there’s no forced break where I have to walk to class and teach for a few hours, standing up and walking around. (I realize how perverse it sounds to say teaching is a break.)

So if any of you want to send me a message every once in a while, telling me to take a walk around the block or to go pet a cat, it would be welcome.