Jumping through hOOps

When I applied to graduate schools (a long time ago, and no, I didn't go), I was incensed by the fact that each school expected me to get three recommendations from former professors. I'd been out of college for seven years, and I didn't think my freshman year English seminar professor would remember me, nor would my junior year political science prof who'd had 400 people in class.

It's okay to get recommendations while you're still an undergrad if you're planning to apply to grad school right after graduation, but if you've been out of school for a while and gathering real-world experience, it's a terrible burden to put on both applicants and professors. Especially if you're applying to a lot of schools.

And now, I'm finding something else irksome - having to write the recommendations. Three people have asked me to write them recommendation letters for grad school in writing or journalism. I am *HAPPY* to do it, as they are all good people. But some of these schools required me to attach their own form to the recommendation letter. So I have had to continually check off things like whether the applicant is, as compared with others I've known:

Academically _in the top 1 percent, _in the top 5 percent, _ in the top 20 percent
Good-smelling _in the top 1 percent, _top 5 percent, _top 20 percent
Sexiness _in the top 1 percent, _top 5 percent, _top 47.8 percent

etc. If these people were applying to one school only, it wouldn't be so hard. But some are applying to 10+ schools. Which I guess these schools would like to discourage, but hey, you have to give people options, right? Especially when they need to compare financial aid offers, etc.

The other hard thing is writing recommendations for each person and having to dig up exactly when the person was hired, and other specifics. So I left those parts blank and e-mailed the letters to the applicants I'm writing letters for, so they could fill in the details. Then they e-mailed my letters back to me. You may say, "Well, then you're giving the applicants an unfair advantage because they see what you're writing," but I'm sure there are other applicants getting far bigger boosts out there. And they are competing with my applicants.

Anyway, maybe I'm just whining, but I wish grad schools would keep it simple when asking for letters of recommendation. Otherwise it's an unfair burden on the applicant, as well as the professional person he or she asks to recommend him or her.

I never realized how hard it was to bug my professors and bosses to take time to sit down and write me a rec - and I felt bad doing it as it was.