For high school counselors and teachers, how much work does writing recommendations for students applying to colleges create?
I think that varies depending on the quality of the effort. One HS counselor told me that the cut and paste counselor letters from his HS take about 15 minutes.
At my daughter’s private HS, counselors meet with students individually and together with their parents before reviewing information supplied by the student, their parents and two teachers to write detailed, thoughtful letters. My daughter’s counselor said each one takes several hours altogether, including the meetings.
The disparity in the rec letter process is a disadvantage, in my opinion, for students from underresourced high schools, especially for colleges with holistic review.
That is probably why the experimental use of recommendation letters at Berkeley is controversial in the context of UC’s general intent to be as accessible to the underprivileged as possible. If the quality of the recommendation letters reflects more the level of support that the student has, rather than the student’s own ability and motivation, the value of such becomes more questionable.
I will admit that it takes me a while to write a recommendation letter because I take my time and I try to put a lot of care into my letters. I tell my kids that “every sheet of paper speaks for you when you are not in the room to speak for yourself” and my letter should be no different. I feel that my letter is to fill in all of the blanks (they see grades from the transcript, I do get a copy of the teacher recommendations) to give a fuller picture of the kid and his/her environment. I have been fortunate because I have juniors and the majority of them, I will have been their counselor for their entire 4 years in high school (am interviewing students now to write letters at the end of they year and over the summer).
I give a brag sheet to both the parent and student. I interview the student to review the brag sheet and to ask follow up questions and ask the student what are they comfortable with me disclosing (including things that I may need for a non-custodial waiver letter/support a dependency override/write a letter supporting an unaccompanied minor, etc). I will do a follow-up call with parents if needed to seek clarification.
I also try to get some anecdotal feedback other teachers (we have grade team meetings every week where we talk about kids and I will admit that I have read teacher letters that did not do the kid any favors and gently recommended that they seek an additional letter).
You are a good counselor sybbie! Our counselors all have the students for four years (barring retirements or other absences) and make good use of brag sheets. I don’t think they see the official teacher recommendations, but they might. My recollection was that they had one short unofficial teacher recommendation in the spring my son picked the orchestra teacher. It was so underwhelming he knew he wouldn’t be using him for an extra recommendation. I only saw personally the orchestra teachers letter - he might have spent five minutes on it, but from what I heard of the other ones or can surmise given what they asked the students to produce so they could write a good one, I think they spent quite a bit of time on them.
The UC Berkeley rec letter issue was made even more controversial than originally intended when only some applicants were invited to submit them and others were not allowed to. I have been bothered for several years by the fact that Stanford applicants from some geographic areas are invited to interview with alums and other applicants are not. I feel that all applicants to a college should have the same opportunity to present information that might help their case for admission.