Why I write all those college recommendation letters

It’s the time of year when students arrive at my office and ask if I will write them a college recommendation. I say, “Yes, I’ll be happy to write one for you.” Sometimes, I’ll thank them for asking in person.

There used to be more time to write recommendations. Students have to play every angle to get into a college of their choosing, so many apply early. That used to mean the recommendation needed to be done by Nov. 1. Some colleges these days — to beat the rush or get a jump on other schools or for some other calculated reason — set a date of Oct. 15. I completed one of those for a student applying to the University of Chicago and hit send. I spent the rest of the day getting the electronic parts of the others I must write ready to go. It’s all online.

It’s what teachers do. I’ve written hundreds and hundreds of college recommendations. My favorite college recommendation story goes back to the start of my career at a city school. A more experienced English teacher said he would write a recommendation for one of our top students. In a school with a dropout rate of 50%, it was wonderful to meet a student who was so smart and respectful and who, despite the failure of his school system and the lack of the safety net one might see for kids in suburban or private schools, might make it to get his degree, the first in his family to do so.

The English teacher handed the student, Ian, his recommendation. It read: “To Whom It May Concern: Ian doesn’t suck.” The two of them enjoyed the joke. The English teacher dug out the real recommendation from his briefcase.

One of the first recommendations I wrote was for a student who entered my class after escaping war in Eritrea. Writing for her, I felt I had better bring to the fore the advantages I’d experienced with my education. I don’t know if my recommendation did much for her — she was unstoppable academically because she had no choice. She returned years later to proudly tell me she earned her degree and was pretty sure her salary for her first job paid her a yearly amount higher than mine. We shared a chuckle at that. It was what teachers call in this game a professional highlight.

When I switched to teaching in a suburban school after a move to Ohio, the number of recommendations I wrote greatly increased. Teaching in the city school was brutal in ways, but teaching the children of parents who had planned their son’s acceptance to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from the time he was in third grade, that was its own brutality. Writing 30-plus recommendations over a month or two stretched me very thin. Weekends disappeared.