How to write strong student reference letters in (much) less time

Plus one pop culture reference, one chocolate reference, and one whine about limited academic writing progress. See if you can spot them all!

Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here. 

Do you get asked to write a lot of student reference letters? As a political scientist, my students typically ask me to write reference letters to support their applications for law school, graduate school, law school, journalism school, law school, scholarship opportunities, and law school. Also: law school. 

Writing student reference letters is an important part of teaching and one that I take seriously. I want my students to receive scholarships and program acceptances (even to law school!). I want to do my part to help them to go out into the world and create the change I believe they are capable of creating. Reference letters - strong, personalized, detailed reference letters that help students achieve their objectives - matter.

The challenge, as I quickly found once I became a professor, is having the time to write them.

Reference letters are a more complicated task than I had anticipated. Sometimes the request would be from a current student I knew very well. In other cases, it would be from a student who did well in my class three, four, or even more years prior and I would struggle to remember their face from that long-ago class of 100+. In still other cases, the student would be one who performed poorly in my class and had established no relationship with me as the professor, leaving me wondering what they possibly thought I could write to be helpful to them.

Sorting out which student requests I would accept took time. Finding the relevant student details (classes they took with me, grades they received, etc.) took time. Writing the actual letters took time. Dealing with the logistics (letterhead, signatures, due dates, managing multiple letters for a single student applying to six different programs) took time. 

It all added up to a lot of … time.

Within my first year as a professor, I emailed thank you notes to faculty of years gone by who had written letters on my behalf. 

Within three years as a professor, it was clear I needed some kind of system.

And by my fifth year as a professor, I figured out a system that works for me. (Yes, it took me five years to sort it out. Until then I felt “too busy” to find ways to save time.) 

I have now had almost a decade and a half to refine my system. I am now much more efficient in completing student reference letters. This efficiency has not impacted effectiveness: my letters are as supportive of my students as they were when I spent four times as much time on them. 

If you struggle to manage student reference letters, or simply are interested in ideas for how to refine your own processes, today’s small thing to try immediately is for you. 

One Small Thing to Try Immediately: The Student Reference Letter Policy

This system is easy to set up and becomes increasingly faster over time.

1. Adopt a student reference letter policy that outlines everything you need to write a solid reference letter. Options, by degree of difficulty:

• Hard: write your own policy from scratch.

• Easier: take inspiration from policies you find online (some examples I found with a quick Google search: Sanchez; Koven).

• Easiest: copy my own student reference letter policy (just visit the Doc, click “make a copy” under File, and adapt as you see fit). 

Regardless of the option you choose, ensure that your policy requires students to provide you with (a) sufficient time and (b) a clear outline of information for the letter so that you don’t have to go digging for it yourself.

2. Inform students about your policy.

2a. Add the policy to your course learning management system (LMS). Send a course announcement to alert students. Here is some sample text:

Hi students,

At this time of year, many students are approaching faculty and instructors for reference letters for scholarships, program applications, and other opportunities. To ensure fairness to all students, including those who might feel shy in requesting reference letters from me, I have posted my student reference policy on our course Canvas page. Please take a look at it.

All the best,

Dr. Bosch

2b. When students request reference letters, send them a copy of your policy. Some more sample text:

Hi J. Edgar,

I am excited to hear that you are applying to law school. I am attaching my reference letter policy with instructions for your next steps.

All the best,

Dr. Bosch

3. Schedule time to get reference letters done. For me, reference letters are a Friday afternoon activity, as I am still in work mode but not up for big tasks.

4. Write the reference letters starting from a template structure. This gives you a starting base to work from, rather than a blank screen. Here is my template structure for a law or graduate school reference letter: 

• 1 paragraph on how I know the student (classes they took from me and when)

• 1-2 paragraphs on academic performance (grades, assignment types and performance, particular strengths demonstrated in class)

• 1-2 paragraphs on accomplishments or qualities relevant to the application (e.g., awards, extracurriculars, leadership, research skills)

• 1 paragraph on my assessment of their suitability for the program

Quickly fill in the template with the detailed information the student provided you. (Verify as needed with your class files.) Add your personal assessments and endorsements to complete the first draft.

5. Review your draft letter for unconscious bias. Research finds that recommendation letters often shortchange women by being shorter and using less effusive language, among other things. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe and Sora Kim found additional issues in their review of recommendation letters written for underrepresented scholars: “every statement was couched in language that “other”-ed them.”

Take steps to avoid these problems by consulting online tools to identify and address your own potential unconscious gender bias and unconscious racial bias.

6. Submit the letters and then email the students to let them know the submission is done. 

I used to spend a few hours writing a single reference letter. I recently completed a new (strong, detailed) reference letter in about 15 minutes. I hope this approach will help you find similar efficiencies of your own.

Do you use a reference letter policy or system of some sort? Please hit comment and let me know! And if you want further ideas on using systems for student-related matters, please see my previous newsletter on how to transform grade discussions from negotiation into learning.

Chipping Away: What I Have Been Up To

A quick update on some of my own activities since my last newsletter, since I have your attention:

• An essay I wrote about western Canada and Canadian federalism for the Institute for Public Policy was republished in their new ebook, A Resilient Federation? Policy Challenges for the New Decade. Inaugural Essay Series. If Canadian politics is your thing (everyone is into this topic, right?), please check it out.

• I recently learned that an edited volume in which I have a chapter, Open Federalism Revisited: Regional and Federal Dynamics in the Harper Era, is soon to be released. My chapter is on western Canada. (Notice a theme here?) My co-author and I wrote this chapter a number of years ago and I am pleased to see this work coming out.

• Speaking of writing: on Monday I spent two hours writing, only to end up with two paragraphs that essentially converted a pre-existing table of ideas into text. I tweeted my writing frustration as a GIF and invited others to do the same. The resulting tweets are pretty hilarious. Please join the GIF ‘conversation’ if you are on Twitter.

Until next time…

This is my 20th newsletter! If you have been with me since the beginning (all 12 of you!) or reading for a while, thank you for your continued readership. I do appreciate it.

If you are new(er) to Academia Made Easier, welcome. I hope to help make your work life a tiny bit easier and to give you something semi-enjoyable for your email inbox twice a month or so. Some past newsletters that you might find helpful include how to use strategic procrastination to spend less time on email and other low leverage tasks, how to quit promising time and energy you don’t have, and how (and why) to avoid burnout. 

Stay well, my colleagues. 

P.S. You read to the bottom! At this point in the term, reading anything to the end counts as an accomplishment. I think you should celebrate. I suggest chocolate.

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Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time on Twitter and binge-watching television, and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of University Affair’s Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.