Letters of recommendations for grad school - who reads them?

[marshwiggle]

How do you deal with a situation where Prof. X writes a 'tepid' rec for an applicant-- but then a look-see at the applicant's transcripts revealed he had one or more courses with X, and got As in all of them?

A student can get excellent grades and yet not have any intellectual curiosity.

I'd say it's similar to the fact that someone could be an excellent musician and never write a piece of music.

[smallcleanrat]

How do you deal with a situation where Prof. X writes a 'tepid' rec for an applicant-- but then a look-see at the applicant's transcripts revealed he had one or more courses with X, and got As in all of them?

A student can get excellent grades and yet not have any intellectual curiosity.

I'd say it's similar to the fact that someone could be an excellent musician and never write a piece of music.

I'm not sure I understand the analogy. I thought things like performance and composition were more or less separate career tracks.

And from music majors I've talked to, it seems as though some composition is required of them (in courses on theory, orchestration, etc...) even if they are not training to compose professionally.


It is possible for grades to reflect more than memorization. Term papers can require research, synthesis, and critical thinking skills. Exams can require students to interpret data, generate hypotheses, and design experiments.

That still leaves room for (honest) letters of recommendation which speak to a student's other qualities: how well do they take criticism and listen to advice, how well do they handle frustration when experiments aren't working (as Kron007 mentioned, the ability to troubleshoot is vital), do they take initiative or do they need frequent prodding and handholding, do they work well with others or are they kind of a jerk?

ETA: It's one thing to have the intellectual ability to plan a project and design experiments well on paper. But carrying out the actual research requires a level of sustained conscientiousness and meticulousness. Someone might be brilliant, but if they are sloppy or tend to cut corners when doing the actual labwork (such that they frequently have to redo botched experiments or produce unreliable data), that might be a good reason not to recommend them.

That's generally why students with an eye on grad school are encouraged to do undergrad research projects and/or take a couple of years after graduating to work as a research technician/assistant so they can 1) gain experience more directly relevant to real-world research and 2) form a working relationship with a prof that will allow them to write a reference speaking to their preparedness for grad school beyond what a prof who only knew them in the classroom could provide.

[kaysixteen]

How does a professor properly evaluate the 'intellectual curiosity' of a student, esp one who gets an A consistently, but may not be 'curious'?

If Prof. X says to student-- 'you should ask a prof for whom you TAd or otherwise had more interactions', that would be a defensible response.   If however Prof. X just does not care for student, no matter how many As student earned, well, not so much.   The research expectations would be grad students are nowadays expected to show, even in straight humanities fields like mine, are vastly greater than any Boomer or Gen Xer students had to deal with, and leave little if any room for the reality that some kids are 'late bloomers', and getting a wide/ broad liberal arts undergrad education is probably at least as important for the overall intellectual development of a would-be future college prof, esp in humanities, than churning out semi-impressive papers at age 20 ever would be.

[Ruralguy]

In some cases, we may actually be able to gauge a students intellectual curiosity. We guide them on projects, see them during office hours, and initiate conversations on various matters, and yet they stick to the specifics of the homework or whatever and that's it. They aren't evil, just limited in range. Yet I've known several students who did just about as well in terms of grade who would often engage on many types of topics. It doesn't necessarily just mean that they wrote papers, but it sometimes does. All in all, there are many dimensions to a student, and you may only be qualified to discuss grades, so go ahead and do so. But if you know more, say more.

[mleok]

I certainly have seen students who are narrowly fixated on grades, and doing well in the class, but have no interest in learning anyone out of intrinsic interest, that would not contribute to bettering their grade. Such students would not get the best possible letters from me, something which would be quite obvious if you read the letters I write for students who seem to be genuinely interested in learning.

[mamselle]

Part of the return demonstration of understanding in music theory is accepted/expected to be the capacity to compose, at least short phrases, or limited pieces, within described parameters which increase as theory knowledge increase.

Many of my youngest students, in particular, come to every lesson with fragments of compositions they've been playing with over the week in their heads--I have to work hard to keep encouraging that divergent productivity, which means the tones are becoming a speaking language to them, while still having some time to do the convergent work on scales, pieces, and other stuff that's 'supposed' to constitute their lessons.

Crafting communicative sounds out of spontaneously invented series of notes is the work of creativity; likewise in the visual arts, dance, and theater, a certain degree of productive work as well as the assimilation and performance of others' previous work, is expected for the fully-trained performer.

The difference is in the balance of focus within those elements.

It's not unlike the four-part subdivision of complete language teaching that's usually expected these days: Reading, Speaking Writing, and Hearing. 

M.

[quasihumanist]

I certainly have seen students who are narrowly fixated on grades, and doing well in the class, but have no interest in learning anyone out of intrinsic interest, that would not contribute to bettering their grade. Such students would not get the best possible letters from me, something which would be quite obvious if you read the letters I write for students who seem to be genuinely interested in learning.

One would hope that, over the course of an entire degree, students are assigned enough independent work that a lack of intrinsic motivation would show up and affect their grades in some classes.

Also, I think such students would do well in grad school if they so chose, but of course they're not going to so choose.

[Puget]

I certainly have seen students who are narrowly fixated on grades, and doing well in the class, but have no interest in learning anyone out of intrinsic interest, that would not contribute to bettering their grade. Such students would not get the best possible letters from me, something which would be quite obvious if you read the letters I write for students who seem to be genuinely interested in learning.

One would hope that, over the course of an entire degree, students are assigned enough independent work that a lack of intrinsic motivation would show up and affect their grades in some classes.

Also, I think such students would do well in grad school if they so chose, but of course they're not going to so choose.

Really? It takes a whole lot of intrinsic motivation to finish a PhD, let alone be a productive scientist. Students who are good at following the rules and getting good grades but aren't driven by curiosity and willing to take risks and fail (repeatedly), do not make good PhD students, at least not in my field.

[mamselle]

But even there, "risk" is defined differently.

A neighbor of ours, growing up in Ohio, was a math prof at OSU; his son was and still is a friend of my brothers.

His research consisted of sitting by their fireplace and doing proofs, longhand with a pencil, on pads and pads of paper.

The only perceptible "risk" he took was using yellow legal pads instead of white grid-ruled tablets like the rest of his department used--apparently they ribbed him about for 35 years or so...

He published, made a slight name for himself, and taught throughout his life, very calm and quiet on the surface, and who-knows-what mayhem going on in his braincells.

But to look at him, except for the 2 years he moved his family to India for a sabbatical/ teaching exchange program when the kids were in Jr. Hi., he was as steady and unflappable as a duck on water.

So, what constitutes 'risk,' may be the next question....

M.

[rac]

Read and write them. I do wish they were less over the top (the most useful info I collect from them is comparisons to other students they have placed in grad programs).

[Puget]

But even there, "risk" is defined differently.

A neighbor of ours, growing up in Ohio, was a math prof at OSU; his son was and still is a friend of my brothers.

His research consisted of sitting by their fireplace and doing proofs, longhand with a pencil, on pads and pads of paper.

The only perceptible "risk" he took was using yellow legal pads instead of white grid-ruled tablets like the rest of his department used--apparently they ribbed him about for 35 years or so...

He published, made a slight name for himself, and taught throughout his life, very calm and quiet on the surface, and who-knows-what mayhem going on in his braincells.

But to look at him, except for the 2 years he moved his family to India for a sabbatical/ teaching exchange program when the kids were in Jr. Hi., he was as steady and unflappable as a duck on water.

So, what constitutes 'risk,' may be the next question....

M.

I didn't mean physical risks. To do good science, you have to take the risk of failing, again and again. Often, things will not go according to plan. Often, your hypotheses will not be supported. Often, your papers and grants will be rejected. if you aren't willing to risk failure and aren't resilient to failure, you won't last long. A+ students who always need to be right, be in control, and know exactly what they are supposed to do make for very poor PhD students.

Your mathematician friend probably filled lots of notepads with failure in between the stuff that worked. Resilience to that is key.

[mamselle]

True.

I think there was some kerfuffle about a notepad that nearly got thrown out, too...

M.

[kaysixteen]

Random thoughts:

1) 20 is really young.   When I was just that age, I decided, at the beginning of my senior year, to pass on a planned but unrequired senior honors thesis at dear alma mater.   I just was not up for significant independent research at that time of my life.   I still today, however, regularly read scholarship related to the topic I was going to write on, which remains a high interest of mine and one I have incorporated into ancient history teaching I do.  But then, all I wanted to do as a senior was continue my language studies-- I was taking two or three languages a semester.   I got essentially an A average in major, graduated magna cum laude, and then went to an excellent MA program and wrote, two years later, a really pretty adequate MA thesis.   Of course later I went elsewhere and did complete a PhD, which in classics/ ancient history is nothing like the PI-led projects STEM students do-- very very independent.   I stand by my assessment that many students are late bloomers, and should be judged on their merits at the time, especially given the IMNSHO vastly overemphasized research expectations that for whatever stupid reasons have become normative for undergrads seeking PhD admission, and generally at the obvious expense to these students' broac-based well-rounded undergrad educations, especially outside of STEM.

2) Never having written a rec for a PhD applicant, what kinds of questions are asked of the referrers?   Does 'intellectual curiosity' come into play?

3) I would of course be interested in any suggestions as to how to evaluate students' intellectual curiosity, suggestions which of  course ought to be able to be adapted towards the goal of fostering that curiosity...?

4) Risk taking is another issue altogether, not really the same as curiosity.   I for one am just not a risk taker, never have been, for a variety of personal and background reasons, probably similar to the reasons why, in all those career aptitude tests I have taken over the years, 'sales' pretty much ranks dead last, as low as can be.   Not sure that this trait had anything to do with my fittedness to complete a PhD in classics, which I obviously did....?

[mleok]

I certainly have seen students who are narrowly fixated on grades, and doing well in the class, but have no interest in learning anyone out of intrinsic interest, that would not contribute to bettering their grade. Such students would not get the best possible letters from me, something which would be quite obvious if you read the letters I write for students who seem to be genuinely interested in learning.

One would hope that, over the course of an entire degree, students are assigned enough independent work that a lack of intrinsic motivation would show up and affect their grades in some classes.

Also, I think such students would do well in grad school if they so chose, but of course they're not going to so choose.

As a mathematician, you should know that there is a very big difference between working on hard problems where you are certain that a solution exists, vs. problems where the statement may be false. In a course, be it undergraduate or graduate, essentially all homeworks and exams are on problems where a solution exists.

[quasihumanist]

I certainly have seen students who are narrowly fixated on grades, and doing well in the class, but have no interest in learning anyone out of intrinsic interest, that would not contribute to bettering their grade. Such students would not get the best possible letters from me, something which would be quite obvious if you read the letters I write for students who seem to be genuinely interested in learning.

One would hope that, over the course of an entire degree, students are assigned enough independent work that a lack of intrinsic motivation would show up and affect their grades in some classes.

Also, I think such students would do well in grad school if they so chose, but of course they're not going to so choose.

As a mathematician, you should know that there is a very big difference between working on hard problems where you are certain that a solution exists, vs. problems where the statement may be false. In a course, be it undergraduate or graduate, essentially all homeworks and exams are on problems where a solution exists.

When it comes to motivation, I think we are starting to do a pretty good job of telling people that grad school is a bad idea, so people without intrinsic motivation won't go.

When we judge student's potential ability to work on hard problems where a solution might or might not exist, we must be judging it on some basis.  I think such assessment (most of which *is* linked to a course somewhere) should be part of the basis for a grade in some courses.  One of the reasons is because those who don't go to grad school are also hired for their ability to work on problems where the desired solution might not exist; it's not like that skill is only useful for those going on the graduate school.