My cousin, a state dairy inspector, can look at a Holstein for one minute and accurately assess the cow’s age, health, and profitability. I have acquired a slightly different skill: I can look at a student for one second and tell if he or she is going to ask me for a letter of recommendation.  

I’ve gained the skill through experience. This fall has been filled with requests, mostly from my former AP Language and Composition. They smile nervously, make brief attempts at pleasantries. Then they broach the question,  always with the exact same phrasing: “So…I was wondering…”. They drag out the ellipses, most unable to even finish the question, as if they’re asking me for something outrageous, like a car loan or a kidney.      

To them, the prospect of writing an essay that outlines their strengths is a nightmarish task. As talented as my students are, they often struggle with identifying and writing meaningfully about what makes them unique and commendable. It’s tough as a teenager to be objective about yourself. It’s made more difficult now that they spend so much time using social media to set unrealistic expectations for themselves. For me, though, it’s (almost) never a problem to write positively about a former student. My answer to their requests is (almost) always an unequivocal yes — after which the student thanks me and leaves. I then add the student’s name to the spreadsheet of letter requests. 

After that, all that’s left is the writing of the letter. Like I said, it’s usually easy to think of reasons that make a student commendable. Sometimes, though, I get frustrated by the unknown aspect of writing letters of rec. When I write anything — an email, a text message, a blog post — I try to be mindful of my audience. What do I need to write to achieve my purpose? How do I get what I want? What will be the effect of my words? As I’ve worked my way through my spreadsheet of names this fall, I’ve been frustrated by the letter of rec’s effect, or rather the ambiguity of its effect. Compared to most forms of writing, they exist in a vacuum, read by an unresponsive audience. I’ll never know how closely my letter was read by an admissions officer — or if it was even read at all. I’ll never know how much a student’s acceptance or rejection is due to me. Sometimes it feels like shouting compliments into the void. It’s a selfish impulse, but I want to know how much my effort mattered. If anything, it could help give me direction in writing future letters.  

I received some guidance this week after speaking with Matt Kaberline, an English teacher at Freedom High School whose prior experience as an admissions officer for Regis College and University of Mary Washington gives him plenty of authority on the genre. We were both attending a professional development session on Turnitin this Thursday in Ashburn. During a break I asked him straight up how much a letter of rec really mattered.  

“It can make or break a student’s application,” he said. He described how admissions officers representing different regions often have to fight for their bubble candidates, students who aren’t an easy “yes” or “no”. The letters of rec were often a deciding factor in the final decision.  

So what makes an effective letter? Talking with Matt has helped guide my writing process. When I asked him what they really wanted from a letter of rec, he described it simply. “How different is this class when the student is there, and how different is it when the student is not there?” he said. For me this emphasized the value of identifying a student’s interpersonal skills and character, something that can’t be assessed from a GPA or SAT score. Sometimes I want to brag about how smart a student is, but as much as possible I need to consider their interaction with their peers and contributions to the class environment as well. A college has access to plenty of data in an application, but they rely on letters of rec (as well as the student’s own writing) for a clearer picture of who this student is and whether they would be a valuable addition. 

The good news is that most of my students are ambitious in their college choices, and while my letter may not factor at all into their acceptance to their safety school, it may play a role in the deliberation of their dream school. That’s incentive enough for me to stop worrying so much about my letter’s effect and simply focus on writing a clear and coherent portrait of what made my student stand out in my classroom.