39 replies to this topic

[Janomaly]

So it's taken me a few years to decide on applying to grad school again. I'm really excited about applying and getting another chance at continuing my education. During my undergrad, I was a full time student and worked part time as well, so I didn't get the chance to 'know' my professors well enough for recommendation letters. I decided I to ask my previous professors anyway, with the hopes of them wanting to help me. One of my professors gladly agreed to help as long as I could provide supplementary material to help her write a strong letter. Astonishingly, one of my other favorite professors (not so favorite anymore) wrote back to me and simply said, "Yes, I can write a letter, but since I do not know you, it will be a short one."

I was stunned. Isn't your job supposed to be helping students?? Obviously you don't know me because you teach 1,000+ students a year and I graduated 3 years ago. I don't even think I should have him write a letter if that's his attitude towards writing the letter, but I am not sure how to respond. Since most of my undergrad courses were taught by grad students, I'll have to search for the few other professors I took courses with for letters if I decide not have this prof write me one.

I need advice. This is ridiculous.

[Eigen]

No, their job isn't really helping students, although that is a (small) component of it.And in this case, they'd have to balance helping you (a former student) with their time and commitments to current students.

I'd say he was really quite honest and up front, and that's a great thing to be told. Lots of faculty would have just said "yes" and then written a short letter since they didn't really remember you that well.

In my opinion, it depends on how letters are handled by the schools you're applying for. He said he'd write one, he's a professor, and he didn't say it would be a weak one- just a short one. I'd see who else you can get, and keep him on your backburner. Alternately, some schools allow you to submit letters and "rank" them, such that they only look at your top 3 ranked letters, but you could submit more. Then you could go ahead and ask him, but rank him 4th- then if you get 3 better letters, his doesn't get reviewed and if you don't, you still have what you need.

[Janomaly]

Thanks Eigen for your your input. I still think that helping students should be a major component of a professor's job considering the tuition that students pay and the salaries professors receive, but you're right, I should probably consider his letter to be a backburner lettter. I still don't know how to respond to his one line email though.

[Eigen]

As an aside, from what I recall the average % of professors pay that comes from tuition is about 7%. That includes all class time, course preparation, office hours, grading, etc. Also, I think you're gravely overestimating the average salary of most professors...

Edited by Eigen, 09 January 2012 - 09:28 PM.

[emmm]

Do you live anywhere near your old school? The professor might be willing to meet with you and get to know you a bit better/hear what you've been doing since graduation. This could help him write a more personal letter.

[jeenyus]

I think that you could view this in a positive light. He was honest with you and told you straight up that it wouldn't be a long letter, meaning he doesn't really know you (or remember you) and that he can't speak to your abilities as much as a strong letter would. I think that means to ask someone else and that you shouldn't take it personally.

[Janomaly]

Thanks for the advice. I guess I can respond with a "Thank you, but no thank you." I really don't want to add another risk factor to my applications and end up not going to grad school because I enlisted a professor who didn't write a strong letter. I guess the LOR search has to continue until I find the right people. And yes, in my original request, I did say I was willing to meet with him and provide additional information on my academic and career goals, but I guess he did not care for that.

To Eigen, if you take a look at this article, the median salary of a professor in Texas is reported to be over $106,000. Regardless of what % of that salary comes from tuition, I still believe it should be a professor's job to be helpful. When I worked as Education Director at the Boys & Girls Club, I understood that it was my role to help students, not just tout about facts and teach programs. I didn't lower my willingness to help students just because I knew that the club's membership fees (which were only $25 a kid) weren't going directly to my salary or because my work schedule had a ridiculous amount of other things to do. I even went out of my way to help college interns who weren't offering even a penny to my salary. I guess I am wrong when I assume that other educators would want to do the same, however, this is just my stance.

[fuzzylogician]

That estimate seems exaggerated to me. Besides, professors are not obligated to write letters for every student who asks them for one - that's well within their rights. In this case the professor didn't even say no, just that he doesn't know you and therefore will not be able to write a long letter. That sounds more than fair, it's a very honest and helpful response that will prevent future heartache and allow you to look for better options. I don't know what you expect from someone who doesn't remember you and who you did not take the time to get to know while you were in school (your reasons may be legitimate but that's still the reality). He can write about your grades and maybe paper you submit but not much beyond that. If you have better options, he is doing you a favor. If not, he will still write the letter.

Edited by fuzzylogician, 09 January 2012 - 10:41 PM.

[Eigen]

And if you also look at that article, they are including medical and law school professors in with the rest, something that *significantly* increases the median salary, especially due to the fact that they are payed for two roles- one clinical, and the other educational. The article notes that for some doctors, more than 70% of their pay is for their clinical duties, although the article still counts that when averaging "faculty" salaries. If you take a look at this data, also from Texas, you will see that very few schools rise up high enough to meet that average. Not that I'm disputing the article, but I think there's also a good chance they left schools out when they calculated that data (in fact, they used 12 of the highest paying institutions of the 44 in Texas). From the CHE data (which is considered to be very reliable) you see that the average for a full professor is around 90k, an associate around 70k, an assistant around 61k, and an instructor around 48k.

It's also worth noting that both sets of statistics involve averaging a variety of fields, something that's quite misleading. Engineering faculty (for example) make a *lot* more than humanities faculty of the same level, due to competition with industry.

I'd also argue that your role as the Education Director was very, very different than that of a tenured or TT professor- your role was to help students. That's not the stated role of a faculty member, although it does number among some of their side jobs, so to speak. I'll also note that you were the one who pushed to define the amount of "help" a faculty member should give based on the correlation between student tuition and faculty salary.

Edited by Eigen, 09 January 2012 - 10:40 PM.

[ktel]

You're not just asking him to help you. You're asking him to recommend you, which involves his reputation. Take his honest reply as something helpful to you. You can now decide what to do with it.

[Janomaly]

Yes, Eigen, the article I shared with you does have salaries from medical professors that increased their data's median to 106,000, but from the data you cited, the average salary for a male professor at my alumni was 109,000, also inflated from salaries in various fields.

Regardless, my opinion about the educator's role is my own personal belief and yes, I do still believe that educators should help students, not just teach.

Reputation at stake or not, every professor has their job because their previous professors helped them in the past. If my own previous professors don't want to extend the same support because I didn't spend all of my after class hours with them, then my applications won't ever meet grad school criteria, regardless of my academic achievements, work experience, or professional potential. I can't change the past, I can only present who I am today and yes, ask for help. And that is what is frustrating.

[ktel]

Reputation at stake or not, every professor has their job because their previous professors helped them in the past. If my own previous professors don't want to extend the same support because I didn't spend all of my after class hours with them, then my applications won't ever meet grad school criteria, regardless of my academic achievements, work experience, or professional potential. I can't change the past, I can only present who I am today and yes, ask for help. And that is what is frustrating.

I have previously been in situations where I've had difficulty getting references during the transition from high school to university, but there's nobody to blame but yourself. I understand your frustration but your posts sound very self-centered, like it's the professor's responsibility to ensure he does everything you want.

Edited by ktel, 09 January 2012 - 11:49 PM.

[fuzzylogician]

Sorry, I think you are expecting too much. The professor's reputation is at stake, and it is important. For his recommendation to carry any weight with admissions committees, he must only recommend those who he thinks are deserving, not just anyone. Otherwise his letter will be useless to you and to all other applicants. You are equating "help" with "recommend" but it's really not the same. This person is telling you in a nice way that he can't strongly endorse your candidacy because he doesn't know you. You didn't have to spend "all of your after class hours" with him but it appears that you simply didn't make a memorable impression. Maybe it's noone's fault, but that's the reality. I think it's absurd to ask someone who doesn't know you to recommend you. That's very different from giving advice or helping with school work. You can (and should) send extra materials to this professor so he can write a better letter but the bottom line is that your relationship is new and very limited. He hasn't seen you work, he doesn't remember you from class, he can only judge you based on whatever written material you give him. That, understandably, does not a strong letter make.

[Eigen]

I would say less than the divide coming down to an opinion about the educators role, I think the difference of opinion is whether a faculty member at a PhD granting institution should be more properly labeled as an "educator" or a "researcher", or some of both.

You also seem to be implying that they should "help" you by writing you a letter of recommendation even if they do not remember you/would not recommend you. Letters of recommendation are supposed to be personal recommendations from that faculty member, if they don't really remember you, how are they supposed to write one? I understand you're in a sticky situation, but that's not really something that places the professor at fault.

You imply that your previous professors aren't extending you the same support they were extending, but that's not exactly the case. Chances are, those faculty had people write them letters of recommendation who distinctly remembered them and could speak to their abilities. You are, on the other hand, asking for them to write you a letter when they don't remember you and can't clearly speak to your abilities. You aren't asking them for something they actually can help with. You're asking them to recommend someone when they have no personal knowledge of you. It's also worth adding that he *did* offer to help, by agreeing to write you a letter.

I think the barbed assumption that they're only writing for people who spent all of their after class hours with is a bit over the top. That said, recommendations from professors who have little to no out of class knowledge of the student don't carry very much weight with a committee either- if the professor is only writing a recommendation based on the materials you gave them, then they aren't telling the admissions committee anything about you that they don't already know. Admissions committees want to hear from faculty who worked with the student- in research labs, on departmental or university committees, who they did independent studies for, etc. That gives them a perspective on the students capability from a peer, through that peers personal knowledge and assessment.

Also, based on salaries, it's worth noting that the average Psych faculty member at UNT made 72k last year, with salaries in the department going as low as 25k, with 70% making less than 80k, and 20% making less than 40k per year (this from the same Tribune article you linked). It's also worth noting that while the average at the university is 106k, only 3 faculty in the psychology department make that much or more.

Edited by Eigen, 10 January 2012 - 12:04 AM.

[isobel_a]

The only compromise would involve you offering to give this professor a portfolio of your work from either his/her class, or from your entire undergraduate career, in order to help them write something more constructive...

Even then, that's asking a lot of this person's time and effort for little personal reward...

[Sigaba]

Regardless, my opinion about the educator's role is my own personal belief and yes, I do still believe that educators should help students, not just teach.

How is this professor not helping you?

The person in question agreed to write you a LoR and told you that it would be a short letter. In short, based upon the information provided in the OP, the professor has performed the primary obligation of an educator by providing you with information so you can make an informed decision about what you want to do next.

More generally, IMO you should reassess the guidance you've received from Eigen, ktel, fuzzylogician. They are giving you valuable insights into graduate school. That is, the importance of managing one's own expectations and learning how to cope with situations as they are--rather than how one thinks they ought to be.

[Loimographia]

I once had a professor refuse me a letter of recommendation -- on the grounds that he hadn't seen any major research from me, and didn't feel he could recommend me as a student without it. I had taken two classes with him, received A's in both, and I was one of those obnoxious students who would take up his entire office hour (not that there was much competition for his time, since he intimidated a lot of students). In the end, without his letter that year, I was ultimately forced to take an additional year off to put together my applications (but once he'd supervised my senior thesis, he was happy to write me the letter) and yeah, I was a little bitter about it. But you know what? It was a fair point. He didn't know my abilities, and a professor can't, and shouldn't, vouch for abilities they haven't seen first-hand. It's tantamount to lying.

So I understand that you're thinking, "But I'm brilliant, and I ooze intellectual potential, why shouldn't he write me a letter?" and I can understand you might feel resentful that part of your success in this application is entirely in the hands of someone else. But, it seems to me that you're thinking of these letters in the wrong way: your thinking of them as a hurdle to jump through in order to get into graduate school, when it helps to think of them more as ways for the adcoms to learn more about you as a person. And if this professor doesn't know you well enough to be able to honestly vouch for you, then nothing he tells the adcom is actually going to help you anyways. It's not that he won't help you, it's that he simply can't. And yes, he might have asked for examples of your work, but in the end those won't make up for his unfamiliarity with you as a whole. It's very likely that if he's a popular professor, he has dozens or more students asking him for letters, and that there's just not enough hours in the day for him to fulfill both his research obligations AND write letters for all the students asking him for letters, and that he's opted to triage his letter writing favors to students whom he can vouch for wholeheartedly. It sucks, I know, but it's just life.

You mention that what frustrates you is that you can't change the past and make yourself magically spend more time getting to know your professors, but you CAN make an effort to find others who might be willing to vouch for your intellectual abilities: bosses are often a good resource (indeed, many schools mention that if you've been out of school for a while, they accept non-academic references). Or perhaps try to find time to audit a course at a local university and get to know the professor there (timing can be difficult with working full time, I know, but it doesn't have to be a death sentence if you can finagle things in your favor). I'm sure others might have ideas as well. If one professor's admission that he doesn't know you well enough to write a letter is enough to close the doors to grad school for you, then I think that there's probably more missing than just that one person's endorsement.

[Janomaly]

Thanks for all of the input. Some of you have gotten the idea that I am self-centered and demanding or feel entitled for amazing LORs. That couldn't be further from the truth. It's been rough pioneering my path towards grad school and some of these responses are discouraging but I do appreciate the feedback.

I'm really thankful for Loimographia's note on this. It's true, I've got to find the best route for me to get into grad school, so best regards to all of you who are in the same boat. Let's aim to sail and not sink.

[Sigaba]

Can you contact some of the graduate students who taught you as an undergraduate? Maybe if you refresh their memories of you and your work, they'll be able to write you LoRs.

[Armadilla]

I think refusing a LOR is tough but very honest. In contrast, I know some people who do not refuse to write a LOR, but then in the actual letter they put some ambiguous phrases that imply a) that they either do not know the candidate that well to assess her skills the candidate is ok and the school could actually find someone better/a better fit. And since everybody in the academia knows how to read between the lines, the candidate gets sorted out.