Back to Podcasts Home

508: What Colleges Want (Part 7B): Recommendation Letter Crash Courses for Counselors and Teachers

Show Notes

Today’s episode is all about writing letters of recommendation for teachers and counselors. Continuing our series on What Colleges Want, Tom Campbell (CEG’s Community Manager) is joined by Hanah Lim (CEG’s Director of Workshops and a former high school English teacher), where they provide their tips, tricks, and hacks to help you write more efficient and effective letters for your students.

Tom and Hanah discuss:

  • How long should letters be and what format works best? 

  • How do letters differ between counselors and teachers? 

  • What details might be helpful to include, and what should be avoided? 

  • How can teachers and counselors efficiently gather more information about their students to include in the letter?

We hope you enjoy the episode!

In case you missed it: Students and families, be sure to check out last week’s episode with Ayesha King to learn about what goes into a letter of recommendation, how they are evaluated by colleges, and who students should consider asking. 

Hanah Lim is the Director of Workshops at College Essay Guy and a former public high school English teacher. She oversees College Essay Guy’s essay and application workshop team and organizes speaking events and college application and essay workshops for students at schools and organizations in the US and around the world. She has presented college essay workshops to thousands of students across diverse settings, including community-based organizations, public, international, and independent schools. She also worked as a college consultant for students in Bangkok, Thailand, directed SAT prep centers in Irvine, California and worked with non-profit groups and as an AVID teacher and coordinator to help close the achievement gap. She holds a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Education from California State University of Long Beach.  Hanah finds joy in watching musicals, visiting Disney parks with her husband, and playing with her two cats.

Play-by-Play

  • 2:19 – Hanah and Tom share their school contexts for writing their letters of recommendation

  • 5:40 – How much weight do letters of recommendation hold in admission? 

  • 10:25 – What is the best practice for the length of a letter of recommendation for college? 

  • 10:57 – How should it be formatted? 

  • 14:03 – Should a letter be customized for each college?

  • 15:38 – What else is submitted with the student’s application from the high school?

    • 16:19 – What is covered in the school profile? 

    • 19:44 – What is covered in the counselor’s letter?

    • 25:25 – What is covered in the teacher’s letter?

  • 30:46 – How does the Supreme Court ruling on race-conscious admission affect letters of recommendation?

  • 36:29 – What generally might be not as helpful to include in the letter?

  • 40:38 – Hanah shares her process for writing letters of recommendation

  • 49:18 – Tom shares his process for writing letters of recommendation

  • 59:01 –  How to incorporate a student’s essay brainstorming work

  • 1:01:37 – How could generative AI be utilized in the recommendation writing process?

  • 1:07:08 – Closing thoughts

ResourceS

  • Continued Learning

Show transcript
Tom Campbell  0:00  
Tom.


Hey everyone, and welcome back to the college essay guide podcast Tom Campbell here. Former independent school college counselor and Pomona and Holy Cross admissions officer, current podcast co host and breakfast burrito addict. Speaking of nutrition, I'm excited to share some chicken nuggets of wisdom alongside my amazing colleague, Hannah Lim, a former public school English teacher and college essay guides, Director of workshops all about recommendation letters, specifically for counselors and teachers. While our last what colleges want, Episode focus on more on how admissions officers evaluate rec letters. Today's is a much more practical how to guide for school counselors and teachers to actually write the darn thing and ideally not have it consume every waking minute during your busy fall application season. Hannah and I will get into how your school's context and your caseload and capacity influence the way admissions officers evaluate your letters, how the three pillars of school advocacy, the school profile counselor letter and teacher letters can distinctly and harmoniously capture the full breadth of your students, awesomeness, best practices for counselors and teachers around writing recs, from length and formatting to content and style, a detailed walkthrough of our own letter writing processes. And we'll wrap things up with various exercises and tools, yes, including AI to make writing letters more efficient and maybe even more enjoyable. Alright, that last one may be a stretch, but hey, flexibility is key. Before we dive into the content, let's meet Hana. Hana lamb oversees college essay guy's essay and application workshop team, leveraging her background as an English teacher at her alma mater, Cerritos High School, Hannah developed our workshop curriculum to be interactive, engaging and collaborative, the ultimate Trinity in capturing Gen Z's attention every year, her and her team lead workshops for 1000s of students at community based organizations, public, international and independent schools all over the world, as well as professional developments for schools, CBOs and even districts. She's worked as a college consultant for students in Bangkok, Thailand, directed SAT prep centers in Irvine, California, and work with non profit groups and as an avid teacher and coordinator to help close the achievement gap, Hana finds joy in watching music halls, visiting Disney parks with her husband and playing with her two cats. We hope you enjoyed the episode.


Hanah Lim  2:19  
So when I was in high school, I never would have thought that I would come back to teach at my own school. I was definitely a wallflower at my school, even when I came back to teach there, I think some of the my colleagues now didn't even realize that they had me as a student, because I was so shy. Once I got into my teaching program, I felt like, gosh, I want to be that adult role model that I didn't have when I was a student. And so I had some really inspiring role models who are my English teachers that I really wanted to be like and really come back and work with. And so, yeah, it was amazing to get that opportunity. You know, growing up in the public schools, ever since, you know, I was young, I was used to 30 plus students being in every class, having 100 you know, almost 180 students per year was normal. It wasn't until, you know, I started working with colleges, a guy meeting so many different types of schools as a director of workshops that is like, whoa, your entire junior class was how many students I had a year, you know, like, it was really interesting to see the differences, and I was able to really just go with it, because that's all I knew. And so when I would get all these requests, because I wasn't just an English teacher, I taught junior English and I taught senior avid. And so AVID is a program that helps, like the middle students, who tend to like, fall between the cracks, oftentimes they're first gen students. And so that was a very college going, goal oriented class. And so I wrote a lot of letters, you know? So I got a lot of students coming back requesting letters from me. And so when I would get all these requests like how to write letters, and the expectations of these letters was not something that was taught in my teaching program. And so I learned a lot from you in validating that I've been steering my students on the right course, I guess. But yeah, lots of experiences, lots of trial and error in terms of, like, learning, like what the students know, what they don't know, and having to adjust to that. Sometimes they would ask me for a letter of rack, and I find out they're only applying to Cal States, and it's like, oh my goodness. Like, how can I prevent this in the future? So all these things, you know. So it was not the most favorite part of my job, because I think a lot of students think they're entitled to this. This is part of our job, when actually, when you ask us the night before, it's actually not part of our job, right?


Tom Campbell  4:47  
I love hearing about that kind of goal of wanting to go back and be a role model and kind of like provide some of the insight that you didn't have as part of your own student experience. My mom, you know, is an inner city public school teacher, and.


Speaker 1  5:00  
She taught for literally decades in the Springfield Public School System in Springfield, Massachusetts. So a lot of the challenges that you know we have in our education system that all of you you know, counselors and teachers tuning in, I know are very familiar with, and it impacts our various schools that we work at, in the communities that we work in very differently, something that I think in comparing our our both of our experiences in the schools that we've worked at. I was at that kind of contrast school, right? Where it is. It actually was a decently large school, for an independent school, the nuanced questions that students and families have, and you know, so many, especially the community I was working in, students who were all it wasn't an avid program, right? It was. It was a lot of students who are aiming for these highly selective, elite schools where, you know, in the spirit of the NACAC report, right, like and this podcast, how much do letters of recommendation weigh? The answer is, it depends, right? And you know, we've worked with students. Both of us have worked with students who are aiming for those highly rejective schools. And those are the schools where, you know, in this NACAC report, where the letter recommendations for teachers and counselors are around 10% of school of colleges mark them as considerably important. It's typically those more selective schools where these letters are are maybe used a little bit more immediately, use a little more substantially in the review process, but not to a degree that should make anyone, regardless of the school that you're coming from, feel pressured to like, write your kid into a college, because that's just not how it works, right? Hopefully, this podcast series and the NAT hack data and reports have clarified that rec letters are a component of many in the holistic review process, but that regardless if you are working at a Cerritos or a lakeside or somewhere in between there, right? You can only commit to what you can commit to based on your capacity, your time, the role that you have, and the multiple hats that you may be juggling. And know that the person in admissions This is, I say, like, one of the biggest, you know, teaching moments that I want to really drill home. And it's something that we talked about in the previous podcast episode with Aisha King, is the reality that it's very rare for a letter of rec to be this real big tipping point for a student's admission process. It's usually a point of consistency. It's usually a point of clarification. There's context that is provided, there's nuance that can be uncovered and unpacked a little more than if the letters were not present at all, but in general, they're usually communicating things that a student themselves have been revealing in their applications, in some way, shape or form, their activities, right? You know, the classes that they've taken. I'd love to hear a little bit from you, Hannah, about kind of that revelation when we kind of both were putting our so both Hannah and I, we co run a letter of recommendation professional development for different schools and community based organizations and when we were putting it together. But first of all, shout out for workshops and the professional development. They're awesome. And if you're curious, we can definitely share more in the show notes about getting signed up with you know, either myself, Rehana, or someone from our team going in and looking at your letters of recommendation and providing tips and guidance that's tailored to your school community. But anyway, I digress. One of the big revelations you shared with me was like looking at my sample letters that I was including in the PD, and then yours feeling a certain type of way. I don't want to reveal what it was. I'll let you talk. What was that like to see that comparison between letters and the style, I guess, you could say, or the type of information that was included at that, you know, more resourced, smaller, you know, student ratio, independent school versus a larger public high school. Yeah. I mean, definitely the first shocking part for me was the length, just seeing the font size even, because I know that even for my letters of rec, sometimes, if I didn't have that much to say about the student, I would literally increase the font size to make it, you know, the page get filled in and oh yeah. So I was literally thinking like, these public school kids don't have a chance if this is like, all the, I guess, the support and resources that the independent schools are providing. But I really felt a little bit more at ease when you put it into context in terms of like that these are looked at within the context of where these folks are coming from. I also was surprised with how it really didn't look like a template was being used, because a lot of these students are applying to the same schools like they couldn't. You couldn't use a template, but as a, you know, junior English teacher who have to grade, you know, over 100 essays and write these letters, it just wasn't sustainable for me to write a letter from scratch for every single student. And so, yeah, so at first I was a little surprised, but I think you put me at ease, just kind of when we started talking about it. Yeah, no, and definitely I'm glad you. I'm glad you feel that way. Of course, you know, hopefully any of you tuning in like that's a point that I really want to underscore, is that the bar, you know, for lack of a better word, is different for different high schools. We'll segue a little bit into understanding more of that school context and understanding kind of like, who's saying what when it comes to.


Tom Campbell  10:00  
To when the student's application is submitted, what else is coming along with it from the high school, and who ideally should be covering certain elements of who a student is, what the world that they're navigating, the environment that they're coming from, and anything that a college might need to know about that particular transition before we get into that, let's do some quick, rapid fire FAQs about best practices of letters of recommendation, both for teachers and counselors. So first things first, let's talk late in general, what's the best practice for the length of a letter recommendation for college?


Hanah Lim  10:31  
Yeah, ideally one to two pages is fine. Single spaced. Ideally, trying to keep it within one would be amazing. But if it does go into the second page, that's completely fine too. Don't feel like you're trying to cut it down. Personally, when mine used to go into the next page, I did mess with the margins a little bit and the font size and all those things, just because I just feel like I don't want to overwhelm the reader also second page. But your readers


Tom Campbell  10:56  
appreciate that. You know, from from experience, like I


Hanah Lim  11:00  
should say, because I just remember the times when I was working in test prep and running branches, like getting those really long resumes, it was like, just keep it one page, please. So I know too, yeah.


Tom Campbell  11:13  
But I also I love, you know, the point about kind of, like, if it does bleed over to the second page, it is fine. And I definitely want to underscore like you don't have the time as a teacher or counselor to be like editing substantially your own work. You know, I don't recommend, for example, maybe it seems a little hypocritical between students, like the drafting process is really important. You need to go from brainstorming to, you know, outlining to as a rec letter writer, you don't have time for that. You just got to get the words on the page and then move on to the next one. So I definitely want to underscore you. You can tweak with margins. You can feel compelled. You know, personally, if you want to really get it to that one page, that's definitely your prerogative, but do not feel like you have to if it goes to the second page. And what about formats? So, you know, there are mixed opinions about is it, do people in admissions prefer letters that are written in a more traditional narrative style, or maybe a bulleted style with different sections or themes that either the counselor or teacher is covering for every student? You know? Any tips around letterhead or kind of anything like that in terms of the actual presentation of the letter that's sent along?


Hanah Lim  12:18  
Yeah, in general, definitely having a formal letterhead and including your information somewhere. Personally, I put my email at the bottom where my I guess my exit is. I don't really have a signature because it was digital, but yeah, so I put that there. And even sometimes I would even wonder, like, okay, so how do we do the salutation? But yeah, a dear admissions committee is completely fine, and a lot of colleges have indicated that they appreciate bulleted style letters, and so that's also fine, too. I think something that we try to emphasize when we talk about, even in PDS, where we're trying to coach folks on how to help their students with their essays, is to remember that the admissions readers are reading everything very quickly, and they need to read them very quickly, and so they don't have time to scrutinize how you said something. And so they just want to get the information. So even if it's in a bulleted style, that works too. And so just make sure that they have, like, headers so the sections make sense. But if it's easier for you to just write a traditional narrative letter, that's totally fine too. I feel like, as an English teacher, I wouldn't be able to feel right about writing a bullet itself, but if you want to, that's totally fine. Yeah,


Tom Campbell  13:30  
right. Yeah, totally again. This is one of those areas where, like, it really depends on that personal preference and ease. Piece. For me, I tended to try and write my counselor letters with three particular themes, buckets with like bullets under them. So I would have headers that said academic and intellectual highlights, involvement in impact, and then character and context. You may or may not tell that I love alliteration, so involvement in impact, character and context. Apparently I missed the boat with academic and intellectual highlights. But you know, again, I had to keep moving the train along. And lastly, before we kind of get into that school advocacy piece of the podcast, and who is saying, what, whose job is, what the teacher or the counselor, what about these letters in terms of, like, customization, right? You know, how much should this letter be tailored to a particular college? Any advice for those tuning in on that question,


Hanah Lim  14:21  
yeah, just keep it, you know, non specific. It should be the same for each college. Don't mention specific ones. Every year, teachers and counselors mistakenly write the wrong school. So don't feel pressured to customize anything. They're all going to go to the same schools,


Tom Campbell  14:38  
you know, just for those tuning in who are like, Oh my God. Like, that's horrible. Like, the kids, you know, maybe they didn't get in because I wrote Stanford instead of Pomona. Happened every year, multiple times, both from the students and the teachers and the counselors. So everyone was equal opportunity, you know, to to blame. But I just want to put out here that, like, those are you. Really not situations that actually hurt a student. It's usually, I'll just be very frank, like, usually what will happen is, like, we'll highlight it and, like, send it on, like the team slack, like the reader, like all of my colleagues and stuff, and just be like, lol, like another one. And it's totally just the nature of reading hundreds of applications. But again, ideally, you don't do that. It's just not, you know, you don't want to be, you don't want to be the one put on blast in the admission Slack channel at the college that your students are applying to. So if anything, that's the the second hand embarrassment you want to avoid. But no, your students process will not heavily be infected. But just it's a good practice. Let's talk a little bit about the three pillars or tears or components, I guess you could say of school advocacy. And for most students who are applying to selective colleges, typically three distinct documents are sent along with their actual transcript, their grades and that academic background. It's usually the school profile, the counselor letter of recommendation, and one or two teacher letters of recommendation. I'd say that's kind of the common standard trio, I guess you could say for particularly the selective admission process. You know, there are some exceptions, right? If you have a student who's only applying to university of California schools, Cal States, there's a few other schools that don't actually require recommendation letters or ask for them. So the first thing, the first document that I think, is actually before we even get into rec letters, into rec letters, you know, and do's and don'ts about what content is helpful. Really want to spend a little bit of time talking about the school profile before even sitting down to write letters for your students for this coming cycle. Really want to encourage counselors, in particular, who are tuning in teachers. You don't have to worry as much about this. But counselors, it's really, I'd say, important to nail that school profile. And we do have a piece that we'll share in the show notes, which is how to update your school profile, post SCOTUS, post the Supreme Court decision, and just the type of information, particularly for those of you who are working in schools where there are a substantial amount of students who identify as first generation and or low income, underrepresented students of color. It's often really valuable for people in admissions to understand what the journey has been like for those students when it comes to the school environment, resources that they have available to them or don't have available to them. And so the school profile really is that document right, to give that macro level, it's the where. So you know, I like to say the school profile is the where the counselor letter is the who, describing who the student is, and then the teacher letter is the how, the how a student, kind of like, operates in a classroom, how the student lights up a space. That kind of insight, you know, that eyewitness account, that primary source, is definitely, I'd say, a teacher an advantage to having teacher letters as part of this trio. With that, with the school profile, it really is that broader where, where the students coming from. So who attends the school? These are definitely things to include in the profile. Who attends the school. So information about demographics, what is the broader culture and community like? So is it a school where extracurricular activities are really common? Or, you know, I had a colleague who used to read for schools in the Chicago area, and she said was very common for students to actually go home at the end of the day because they had longer commutes, and at night when it was dark out, actually, sometimes those would be dangerous commutes, especially if they're on foot, so staying late at night to work on plays or, you know, newspaper articles wasn't always as common for students coming from different schools. What is the college calling culture like? Right? So are students going widely to lots of different colleges or universities? Are they staying pretty close to home? Are they oftentimes going to four year colleges or two year colleges? What curriculum is available? AP honors, IB classes? How you know, are there limits to how many advanced classes students can take? Things like that? Definitely great to include. What does academic achievement look like? So what's like a high GPA for the that particular high school with that particular grading scale? Is it weighted or unweighted? Is there a grade distribution chart or kind of a scale that you can show for? Oh, this is typically the top students at our school. They typically have this range of GPAs. And then students in the middle, here's where they fall. And then lastly, just any particularities, things that kind of like in the school are like unique programs that you have. Like, some schools have things like Project Lead the Way, or they have a unique dual enrollment partnership, or students do, like, cool hands on internships, or kind of collaborations with local companies. Like, there really is a spectrum of what's offered in different high schools. So yeah, having that school profile really communicate the where is a is a big, big ask, or, I think, something that will the more you can kind of nail that out and have it be really comprehensive. This, usually it's like a two to two to three page, I'd say, single spaced PDF document. The more the letters of record going to be able to spend time discussing the student and really, kind of who they are, when you've kind of covered the basis of the broader environment they're coming from, through the school profile, and then switching gears right to the counselor letter that is really going to be, you know, The Who, so, who the student is in particular, in particular in that school environment. So are there no notable contrast between the student and the school? Community, so, oh, this student's different from the typical peers here, because they have to go home and care for their siblings after school. And in our school, that's not common, because, you know, most students don't have to do that. That would be an example of a contrast. That's helpful, because when we have the picture from the school profile of like the norm at the school, there's any ways a student defies that or their experience has been deviant from that, so, so helpful to know, because this is the chance to individually highlight the student. Another key element of the counselor letter are key details about the student's home and family life and any challenges they may have gone through related to that. Sometimes, when I've talked to teachers and counselors, they get a little worried about I don't know if this is like too personal to share, and something that Aisha and I talked a lot about in our previous episode was how actually these personal details really do help someone who's reading and evaluating a student's candidacy understand the whole picture and any barriers The student may have been facing. So we actually in our PD on this topic, we include an excerpt from a letter of rec that was shared by MIT on their website and their materials to help teachers and counselors best advocate for students. And the excerpt reads, Sonam is an outstanding young woman whose academic record may not fully reflect her ability. Her parents were divorced during her junior year, and for several years before that, her home situation had been in turmoil with a great deal of fighting between her parents. Her father has an alcohol problem, and Sonam certainly endured a great deal of emotional distress. The fact that she has been able to do as well as she has done, given the circumstances, says a lot about her. Now that the home situation has stabilized, her performance has improved, and I believe her senior year grades are a much better reflection of her ability. And MIT literally said on this point, you may wonder whether or not the above information is appropriate in this letter of evaluation, it is exclamation point. We appreciate anything that gives us insight and perspective into a student's performance and environment. Comments about problems that a student has experienced will help us understand the context in which they have accomplished whatever they have achieved. The extent to which they have dealt with these problems is useful to know as well. So again, really kind of giving the green light there for you as a counselor in that who letter to include these details. And of course, if a student tells you firsthand, hey, I'd rather you not you have the information you have. And it's up to you as a professional who's advocating to a student to only share what they have told you they feel comfortable sharing in a questionnaire or in conversations with you, but also being that resource to also let them know, Hey, I'm happy to keep this out of your letter. I do know, you know from experience that these are things and details that oftentimes people in admissions really do value, and really it's really helpful for them to know, but your comfort level is first and foremost. So I think it's totally appropriate to mention that to students, if that ever comes up. Another thing to include, you know, any counselor letter best rule of thumb is, how do the students academics compare to the others in the school? So this is a big area for the counselor to spend a little bit time and attention on, because again, if you're coming from a school where everyone has great inflation, especially at a lot of independent schools and private schools, has become really common. And people in admissions know that they're not naive. They understand when they can look at school history and see, oh, gee, the the average GPA at the school is now a 98 that means that, I mean, I literally, there are schools that I know of where you're in the bottom half of the school group if you have below an A average. So in that environment, right? Like, how is someone in admissions going to really know who the stars are and who's really shining? So that's where details in your letter to be able to let someone in admissions know. Oh, these are the courses that the student has taken at our high school. This course has a reputation for being one of the most challenging. Even details like, oh, this teacher is notorious for being a real harsh grader. You know how to, you know, I don't know if, I don't know if you ever received that comment, but those were definitely details that were super helpful to read, and it also takes the pressure off the student for having to, like, be like, hey, this teacher was really hard, because it sounds better when it's coming from coming from school. It sounds more, I guess, verifiable. So definitely any trends about the students course choices or performance, when it comes to grades and how that may compare to students in the environment, is definitely really helpful to know any areas of impact. This is a huge one, right? So has the student made any big, a big difference in the school community. Things outside of the school walls. Have they really committed to certain causes, certain things that really light them up, certain things that light a fire in them actually working on an exercise called fire starter right now? Spoiler alert, so areas of impact that a student has committed to also really great to include in the counselor letter and the last two are going to be, what are the students primary intellectual curiosities and their future goals? So if you have had, you know, insight from a student as a counselor, from you know, questionnaires they may have sent in or from meetings you've had with them, or any notes from their file, if you have comments from their advisors or homeroom teachers or other counselors or advocates in the school. It's great to be able to share a little bit about where the student is following right now, academically, kind of, what they're curious about, what they're thinking about, maybe possibly studying, or maybe what profession they're really called to right now, if they have any relevant experience connected to that, an internship, or they've done a Coursera course online to explore, you know, a topic that they really love, those are all, you know, great examples of the details to include in that counselor letter. And now, after me talking for, you know, 25 minutes straight, Hannah, let's talk a little bit about the third pillar of the school advocacy trio, which is that teacher letter. So I like to say it's the how. I don't know if you would agree with that, but


Hanah Lim  25:37  
absolutely so I remember when I would get these requests from students to write the letter. Oftentimes they would be told to give me their resume. And it was just really odd, because it's like, I can't speak on any of this other stuff that you've done outside the classroom, but I know how you were in my classroom, and so definitely when I would write the letters, I wanted to make sure that I was highlighting something about the student, making sure that, like, the purpose of the letter was to humanize the student for the reader. And so something that we talk about a lot in our PDS, or in our in our workshops, is that the application, the let's say the Common Application, or whatnot, is like the skeleton of the essay, that it's just kind of the bare bones, the numbers and all the achievements, but the letter is what not just the letter, but any type of writing, whether it's the essay or the letters, are the things that kind of give it more life and like flesh and a soul. And so I love that the teacher letter gives that opportunity to humanize the student a bit more. And so in my letters of recommendation, I would just think about, like, how am I almost like branding the student? And so it could be like the student's role in the classroom. So they could be like the challenger in the room, the intellect, the bridge builder. I had a student who really showcased intellectual curiosity. And so I know that, like my school, it was a pretty diverse school, but there were certain stereotypes of different, you know, like maybe Asian American students. I'm Asian American, so I can kind of speak on that a little bit more, where one of my students, you know, he was an Indian student who wanted to go into computer science, but man, I loved how much he loved poetry, and I loved how he would like show that in my classroom. And so I wanted to, yeah, just like, display those things. Even as English teachers and even as essay coaches, we say this to our students all the time, but the whole show not tell. And yet, like, a lot of like teacher letters, or counselor letters, are doing a lot of telling and not enough showing, I feel like, and so I feel like I'm giving the counselors a little bit of a break. I think the teacher letters could do a better job in showing how they do this. And I feel like the teacher letter actually honed in on that a bit more. And so any light bulb moments or passion projects would be wonderful to highlight any interesting connections between the class and the academic subject or any other areas. So like, for example, that one student I was mentioning, I have this letter here, and I even talk about how the context of how I knew him, and I said in the second line, I had the joy of teaching David not his real name in his ninth grade English class, but I've been in touch with him every year to discuss his poetry and engineering pursuits, right? And so I've said that he's a one of a kind student. And basically I also put that I can see how David not only took education seriously, but applied it to real life immediately. And so I gave all these different anecdotes and things, and I feel like the show, not top part, is so important and and even mentally, having in mind that you have a purpose in what you're trying to show about the student,


Tom Campbell  28:54  
such great advice. And I think especially like when you're in admissions and you're reading a letter from a teacher, and they can point to, Oh, we did this unit on, you know, beloved, and the student really connected to the material, because it helped them explore their black identity more like any times that you can kind of make connection between your class and material, and things that you worked on, and epiphanies that, like a student had connected to, that That's the kind of what I think when you were saying, like, the light bulb moments like, that's what I think of as those as a reader. Yeah,


Hanah Lim  29:27  
and just to give another example of showing it and not just telling the audience, here is that not only did he love poetry, but I actually received an email from a national poetry contest saying that he had entered a poem from a project that we had and was going to be published into a book. And I was so surprised by his initiative to actually do that on his own, that he actually did that for like three years in a row. Was telling me about the contest that I actually ended up having students enter the same contest. So his like impact, like really trickled down into some of my other students. And I. Actually was excited to write his letter, because even though I taught him in ninth grade, I kept in touch with him because he wanted to, need to be an advisor for one of his clubs. And then even though I was an English teacher, I didn't really feel drawn to doing it. But even though the club wasn't approved, he ended up being vice president of the other club that was too similar to his club, you know. And so it was like, I loved being able to, like, showcase these different anecdotes about my students and things, and that's just a glimpse of, like, the letter,


Tom Campbell  30:31  
yeah, and, and I think, you know, really being able to like, honor, like a student's identities and kind of how they see themselves. And you know, any kind of like detail that you have around that, you know, whether it's the counselor or the teacher, I think that that's so, so important, and it's actually, I'd say, even more pressing in today's current landscape. So, you know, regard you may be tuning into this podcast in 2040 and who knows what rec letters are gonna look like at that point. But you know, right now, a really big hot topic in the admissions profession, of course, is the Supreme Court decision on race conscious admission and the changes that colleges and universities now have to consider when they are thinking about who a student is and what they're contributing to the student campus, or what they're contributing to a campus when it comes to their lived experience and identity, and sometimes that has to do with their socioeconomic background, their gender, their sexual orientation class, but definitely race and ethnicity is a piece of that. But in today's landscape, there is a little bit more nuance as to how both teachers counsel or teachers counselors and students can really kind of contextualize and discuss, and you can write and share whatever you want. What is important to note, though, is that only certain pieces of information can be utilized and discussed when it comes to a student's race, race or ethnicity, when it's written in a certain way. And the Justice Department and the Department of Education have released a joint statement and guidance for schools and counselors and individuals supporting students who are applying to college around this point. So I just want to read an excerpt from that, which is universities may continue to embrace appropriate considerations through a holistic application review process and provide opportunities to assess how applicants individual backgrounds and attributes, including those related to their race, position them to contribute to campus in unique ways. For example, a university could consider an applicant's explanation of what it means to him to be the first black violinist in his City's Youth Orchestra. An institution could likewise consider a guidance counselor or other recommender description of how an applicant conquered her feelings of isolation as a Latina student at an overwhelmingly white high school to join the debate team. So this is literally included from guidance from these two Departments of Justice and Department of Ed, and they are green lighting recommendation letters from teachers and counselors as a primary source an area of information for an admissions officer when doing a, you know, holistic review evaluation of considering a student's race and ethnicity, and in particular, how their race or ethnicity or their identity in general, you know, can be connected to unique qualities or insights, or how it's influenced that particular student and the campus that they're about to contribute. So that's definitely something I really want to put out there as a best practice for you all as as counselors and teachers to think about. So, you know, if a student, you may want to consider writing about a student's race or ethnicity if it relates to any of the following things, so an involvement in an identity based activity, a group or organization. So if a student is active in a particular cultural club, or if they are, you know, leading I remember writing details about a student who did an assembly for the Latin Student Association, and kind of unpacking that, you know, being, you know, Hispanic or Latino, Latina is not a monolith. That was a big theme of the presentation that I wrote about. Oh, it's so amazing to see her, like on stage, like, really, just like sharing this information with such confidence and such pride, and really teaching our school community to be a lot more informed direct quotations from a student about their identity. So if they've shared, you know, in survey questions or questionnaires, you know, things about how their identity has impacted their school experience or their sense of self, it's great to you can even include that direct quotation, you know, in a letter of rec as well, and that's totally fair contextual comparison. So again, I kind of touched on this a little bit before, but you know, if their experience, oh, as a student who comes from a certain identity or background that's less represented in this community, sometimes they've voiced or share with me that they felt isolated, or they've had to really work hard to find community, and here's how they've done that. And maybe they, you know, are more involved with the resource center or club organization outside of school to foster that solidarity. That'd be another example, if they are choosing colleges on their list that are really intentionally rooted or connected to an identity, right? Like, oh, I have a student who's really looking for colleges that are on the campus pride index because they're an LGBTQ student and they're really. Looking for gender inclusive housing, and that's something that really is a big piece of them, feeling excited for this next step in their lives and feeling accepted for who they are. That's a great teacher to include to colleges, to give them a sense of like, hey, the student is really thinking about what's the best environment for them, and they're being very intentional about the colleges they're choosing and factoring that in. And lastly, you know, another thing that could potentially be something to include when it comes to a student's identity and a rec letter is connection to their I kind of mentioned this with the beloved example. But, you know, I've had students who wrote, you know, papers or projects in classes that were related to their identity in some way, their culture, and it helped them kind of come to an epiphany about their own academic interests, or the things that the populations that they want to commit to went in college and try to spark change for and advocate for. So, for example, writing a capstone paper on the US internment of Japanese Americans was a way that, you know, one student that I worked with talked about exploring her identity. So yeah, hopefully these kind of give anyone who's tuning in that green light. I know we're in a current era right now where this is a new ruling and people aren't really sure how much they can include when it comes to sensitive information that has become arguably more political in recent years. But definitely these are things that really do have a lot of value in the admission process. They are things that can really help students in this process as well. So anything that they've given you green light to share or have shared with you that you can communicate along through your letter writing would be so, so wonderful. Why don't we switch gears a little bit to and I'll have you take the mic first, just because I just did a lot of talking. What about some just quick do's and or quick don'ts, right? Let's maybe cover some things that just generally aren't always as helpful with Rec letters. The caveat here that I want to mention is, again, as we said, you don't need to be going back and doing a lot of editing of your essay or essays your rec letters, and generally, there's very little that you can share that would like really negatively impact a student's candidacy. So just want to put that out there. But these are some things that just in general, are always as helpful as some of the things we mentioned before. So for teachers, what would maybe some of those details be?


Hanah Lim  37:06  
Yeah, so something that may not be as helpful is including this, like global information that's likely already going to be covered in the counselor letter. And so whether they're extracurriculars, course load, or in some instances, it might even be family circumstances. And so I mentioned earlier that sometimes students would give me the resume, and you know, you don't have to mention all those different things, the fact that they're taking five AP classes or whatnot, that's already going to be on the transcript. And so it's not your, you know, your responsibility to talk about those things and but sometimes it just kind of depends, too, on the individual school, like, for example, on my letter request form, I do ask the students, was there anything going on in your life that may have affected your performance while you were in my class? And I would get students who would share some things that I had no idea about. And so I could have just talked about these, this great project that this student turned in, or how she was a great leader, but I had no idea. And this is from a real example that she was, she and her mom were pretty much couch, couch surfing the entire time, and I had no idea. Like, I never would have known that. And, you know, I didn't know if the counselor would know that information too, and so I say this acronym sometimes, but high school, at least public school, counselors are often bogged down with the STDs, the scheduling, testing and discipline that they don't really get to meet with the students who, you know, maybe super ambitious, and like, wanting to know their whole backstory. And so personally, I did include maybe, like a line or two about that context, if the student would let me know about that. So there's that. The other thing is, like a lengthy overview of your own class, and your subject material is not about you, it's about them. It's a letter of rec for them. So you don't have to include anything about your class, how


Tom Campbell  39:06  
big you're. Like, I went to this, you know, college, and I got my junior Like, I literally have read rec letters from teachers where there's a whole paragraph about their educational background, and, you know, the PhD theme. And I'm like, Cool.


Hanah Lim  39:20  
And you don't actually have to prove how good the student is at the content knowledge. The only time maybe you might want to address their academic, you know, ability in your class is if their grade doesn't reflect it, and if there's some kind of contextual information you want to share to put that grade into context. So yeah, you don't have to type the student up to talk about how great their grade is or anything, if it's already a great grade. Yeah, this,


Tom Campbell  39:45  
this is actually when I share this with people. They're often always surprised, but a lot of times I actually wouldn't even remember the subject that the teacher taught. When I'm, like, moving through the letters and the speed that I'm reading them, I'm really kind of looking for those nuggets of like, how they operate in the classroom. Um, and details and connections related to that. And sometimes that's, you know, you'll get a clue, like, oh, we were doing a unit on, you know, the French American war, is that even a war? So that, obviously, that's a history class, but that's really not, that really wasn't my primary focus as an admissions reader on, like, how good is the student at the subject that the teacher who's writing the letter is teaching that wasn't really a goal that I had, or a list of questions that I was like given as my as part of my review rubric. So that's definitely a great, a great point to put out there that it's it really isn't about their aptitude in that subject. And then let's kind of, kind of move towards the the final phase of this podcast episode, which is a little bit more about like the practical like, practical like from point A to point B. How do you get from a student coming to you and asking for a rec letter to actually completing the darn thing? Right? So I'll turn the mic over to you to talk a little bit about how you did that on the teaching side, and some you know, things that you use, questionnaires or workflows that were able to help make this process maybe not as laborious as it could be if you're writing something, for example, from scratch every time or or whatnot. So walk us through your your brilliant workflow,


Hanah Lim  41:14  
for sure. Um, so, something that I found to be extremely helpful was having a solid letter of recommendation request form, because, again, as I mentioned, I had almost 180 students a year, and I don't remember, like, what that particular student may have done or that one assignment that made them really shine. And so in my letter of rec form, basically, I would ask them a series of different questions. And this is a form that really evolved throughout the years, because sometimes students, as I mentioned earlier, would request a letter and then, like, not have schools that required letters. And so it was like, oh my goodness, I wrote this letter and it's not going anywhere. So the first thing I would ask them is like, you know, obviously their name, but also the application due date. So I knew when they needed to buy some basic information, even like, why did you choose me to write my letter? Write your letter of recommendation? Because sometimes I was like, why are you asking me when you did that straight on my class? And then so I would, I started including that, and then they would write like, oh, because I feel like you would write a good letter, and you do it on time, it's like, okay, I kind of get that, you know. But it was still like, and because I guess I was an English teacher specifically, and sometimes it was like, really nice. Some of the things they would say, you know, like, I feel like you got to know me a little bit better. And you know, some of the students, I was not surprised that they were asking me. So it was just kind of nice to see, like, the impact, you know, that I had made, or whatnot. And so I also included a section called that said, like, two to three projects or assignments you did in my class that you were proud of, and why? And that one was so, so helpful just to kind of get those, that was probably the most important question to help me get some of the anecdotes, because it would kind of jog my memory, actually, because it's, you know, just so many years of different students. And so it was really, really helpful, even if I just had them their previous year. It was so helpful. And so and then why they thought they were an outstanding student in my class. And then, as I mentioned before, too, what was going on in your personal life, and any other topics you might want me to address in the letter. Sometimes they would write certain things. I was like, I'm not going to address that. But address that, because it's not my responsibility, you know? So there were just a couple things there and then. So after getting that information, so as I mentioned, I did not write my letters completely from scratch. Of course, in the beginning I did, but what I eventually had were different templates for different types of students, because not only was I the English teacher and the AVID teacher, but I was also an El teacher for English language learners. And so I was also el coordinator. And so I had letters specifically for, like, my EL students, who would come to me, oftentimes, because they would have me, but they would have another English class. So sometimes I would have them twice. And so some of these students worked so, so so hard. And I wanted them to, like the schools, to see like that them working hard, like in my junior English class, it was actually specifically, for example, American literature. These students do not have, they're like, just learning American history now. So for them to learn some of these, like basic things was, like, even harder. So that a that they got was, like, they earned that grade. So I wanted to kind of, like, provide that context. So I had, like, an e, n, l letter template. I had one for my Abbott students, and then I had one for, like, my English students. And the way that I broke them up was, you know, my initial impressions on the student, maybe, like in the first paragraph and, like, kind of, I hate saying thesis, but, you know, basically like a quick preview of what they're about to read, and then I'll have like this, although, although some time has passed, here are several things that stay in my memory about the student, and it's often the the anecdotes that they told me about, like the the projects and things, you know, so I talk about that. And then talk about and then the next paragraph was about, like, why I'm impressed with the student. And then the next paragraph was about how the students stood out to me. And the last basic paragraph of, I'm certain the student will be so great at your institution, blah, blah, blah. And so I did give a series of probably generic adjectives at the end, because I did ask the students to also give me adjectives and things, but whenever they did give me words, I did try to compare them to other students. So like, yes, the student was, let's say, very ambitious, but she was ambitious in a class like, I don't know if other teachers experienced this, but my fifth period was always very difficult, because it was right before lunch, and some of these students who were in that class who were so eager to learn, it's I remember them because they were in like, a class for some reason, full of no offense to boys. But, you know teenage boys that they were like wonderful bikes again. Yeah, it just, I don't know why the it was not a balanced class, and every fifth period was like that for me. And just wanting to show that context of this was not a easy class, but they were still paying attention and doing great. So first it was the it was the letter recommendation request form. Also I did. I learned my lesson. I did not start writing the letter until I got that for my school. It was the common app request. So once I got the request, then I would write the letter, because there were too many times where I would like to write the letter and then not get the request. So then I wrote it for no reason. So suddenly that kind of stuff had happened a lot. So yeah. So I just, I think if you have a good form, it'll help you, and I believe we're gonna share it in the show notes. Ah,


Tom Campbell  46:39  
yeah. So Hannah was gracious enough to share the form that she would use with her students for you all, so you could definitely have access to that. It'll be a forced copy version of a Google Doc or all about that I College as the guy. So then you can tweak and customize it with questions that you feel are most relevant to your class, your community, and things that you want to know about your students. I also want to


Hanah Lim  46:58  
just point out on the form, I actually replicated that chart that is on the common app, letter of rec. This was more just to see the student, how the student would evaluate themselves. But remember, you actually don't have to use that chart at all. So and even for the what are the three words to describe your student? That's why I used to ask my students for the adjectives, but you could even say C letter. I did not do my rights to this, just letting you know that you don't actually have to use it at


Tom Campbell  47:29  
all. Yeah, that is a real good hack. So, you know, I don't know if this needs a specific mention in the show notes. Like I remember one time I did a session for counselors and I gave some like google doc hack at the end, about looking at suggested edits, like, if you if you suggest cuts in words on an essay, and you can see what it would look like with one click of a button if all those were all the people tuning in were like, this whole webinar for an hour was worth it for this one tip at the end. So you got to the end of this pot, or got to this point in the podcast, and you got this tip around not having to send in like the cover page that the common app can sometimes ask for students. If you are coming from a high school where you can send letters in through something like score or Naviance or Maya Learning, you can actually, as Hannah mentioned, you can write C letter for a lot of those free form parts of a form, or you can actually not even send it in at all. So all the letters that I wrote, I never filled out the common app form attached to it, or the chart of like, you know, fair, good, exceptional, more than exceptional one in a million. Because actually, even just like going through those as an admissions officer, even if it was like good in one category and everything else was excellent, you'd always be like, All right, well, why? Like, all right, well, why was it good? And it just would stand out to you as kind of like an unnecessary, like area of curiosity, or like a stumble as you're moving through the students file. So honestly, it's better to just, if you have the option, just keep it to what you're including in your own letter, and you have more control of the narrative there, versus having to use scales or evaluation tools that are defaulted in the common app. So we love the common app. It's made things very efficient for a lot of people, but if you can get around sending an icon page, I highly recommend it. I think it will make your life easier and your students as well. So interesting gears. I'll kind of just talk about my process a little bit, which is a little different, because again, I was a doing that counselor letter, so I'm covering the group whereas thought I was covering the how you remember our little tidbits from earlier. And of course, also, my school is a different environment, right? So just to fill you all in, I was, you know, onboarded as a college counselor at Lakeside in the summer, and I only met with most of my students in person for like, collectively, each student I probably had met with an hour maybe two, so I didn't really know them personally. I wasn't able to write on my the 38 students that I was writing letters for. I was starting work in August, and all but one of my students had early decision. Deadlines. They needed letters of recommendation by November 1. So my job was just get working. And so I kind of created this workflow for myself to be able to allow me to write letters that really do advocate for a student. And you know, for those of you who are tuning in, who are like, I don't know how to write a letter for a student that I don't really know, this section of the podcast is for you, because that really kind of was my job. My caseload was almost all students who were looking at selective colleges, right? So the culture of Lakeside is very much one that students and families are motivated to attend colleges and universities in that kind of realm. So definitely I did feel, as someone who used to work at one of those colleges that many of my students were targeting and really looking to go to I had a sense of kind of what types of details to include in these letters. And I also used to read letters from lay side too when I was the admissions officer at Pomona and would visit the high school. So I also knew the level of detail that I was used to reading from the school. So I had to maintain that same bar with my own work. So this process took me a matter of, you know, from August, September to October, November, I would, I'd say about for each student, I would spend about three and a half to five hours per letter. And what I did, in terms of, like, the breakdown of my workflow was in the beginning for 30 minutes or so, maybe 30 minutes to an hour, I would start with reading the student file, and I had a Google folder for each student that was passed on to me from the previous counselor with a parent questionnaire, all these questions that the students family, parents or guardians would fill out. Some were similar to what the student had sent in, but a lot of times, they provided more details about the family's wishes. Sometimes there was interesting tensions as well that I was able to voice in the letter about, oh, you know, this student's coming from a family where they're really looking for this, but the students goals are here. So, you know, they're really trying to navigate that gracefully. So I would put together all these comments and notes and highlights of things that stood out to me from the parent questionnaire, the student questionnaire, the students transcript, any trends or things I noticed about the classes that they took, maybe dips in their grades, so I could contextualize that a little bit in the academic section of my letter. I would look at junior like meeting notes from my my predecessor, and also, you know, make sure to take into consideration any of the things that they had touched on in their meetings. And then I had actual meetings with students where I could for that one hour or so that I had with them, I could ask additional questions that were still lingering for me, things that I still want to clarity around. So in the fall, meeting with students to kind of get that last All right, you're in front of me, tell me what I need to know to kind of, you know, advocate for you to the fullest and give me the most current update of your college process and goals. Because it may have been different from when you filled out that questionnaire, you know, in the winter of your junior year to fall of your senior year, right then I would move into the academic comments synthesizing phase. So at Lakeside, we had comments from teachers from different classes. So each semester, students would get a report that was sent home to families with like a paragraph for each class of like, here's how Jamie is doing in class. Like, here are some of the areas where she can improve. Or I'm really proud of her for really going out of her comfort zone with this project, because she took the lead on a group project. Then she doesn't usually do that. I would take quotes like that if I found them in these you know, I had pages of these comments for each student, and that would pull them and try to include those in my own counselor synthesis letter, especially when I I also would know what teachers the student was asking for the teacher letters. So I would try to use quotes from teachers that they weren't actually going to have a letter from because I knew that that quote and that content or that insight wouldn't be included otherwise. So also, as a counselor, right, it's good to know what teachers the student has asked them to have a record of that somewhere in Naviance score Meyer, learning whatever workflow you use. And then I would do all that compiling. I had kind of a letterhead with my little pretty name at the top and the logo and my contact information like Hannah mentioned. And then I would have those academic and intellectual highlight buckets, involvement and impact and context and character and kind of things about like the students personal life, and I would adjust those as needed. So for some students, I found myself being like, you know what? This is actually looking better as a narrative letter. I'm not going to do these bulleted sections. So some of the ones I wrote were narrative. It was just easier for me to do that. For certain students who had maybe a more unconventional story, the ratios of what I wanted to share were not equally academic involvement, you know, personal life. So I just used my own judgment and calibrated my letters accordingly to the student and what details I thought were most important. And then I would put together that narrative. And in terms of kind of my tips for you tuning in, in terms of like, how I felt, like my letters stood out, I guess, in the landscape. As someone who used to read a lot, that sounded that sounded really similar, I really leaned into my own personal voice a lot. But I really want to encourage you as a as a writer, not all of us identify as writers. I wouldn't say that I identify really as a writer. People are like, you do a great job, but it's not something that, like, kind of feeds my soul, and that, like, you know, is something that I love to. Do with my time all the time, but I do like kind of coming up with themes and ideas and points of comparison for students. So that was something that actually made the rec letter process fun for me. So one of the questions in our junior questionnaire that we would ask students was, if you compare yourself to a famous character from either fiction or real life, like, who would you compare yourself to and Hannah? I remember when I asked you this question, who did you say? It was I I know the answer, but I want you to share it with the


Hanah Lim  55:25  
well being the reluctant Disney adult. I said, I said, Belle, and I said, because she's not the most understood by her town. She loves to read and she wants more from this provincial life.


Tom Campbell  55:39  
Oh, what that one of my go to karaoke songs, I will not, you know, the final 10 minutes of me just going through the all the voices of Bell, good morning. Bell, okay, anyway, funny enough that you bring up Bell, because actually it was a letter about Bell, like, quote, unquote. It was actually a student whose name wasn't really Bell. She ended up rolling out Pomona, and was a student who I ended up advocating for pretty heavily. And I remember the college counselor shout out to the Bucha school in Seattle. They were the college counseling team there. Modeled this out, I think so, so beautifully. And it was something that, like when I saw it in the letters that I read in admissions, I was like, I want to write letters like that. I think they they really stood out in my memory, because they would start out with, I think it was like, you know, Erica is like Belle in the magical world. And here's, you know, how she, you know, kind of is similar to this particular character who's very well known. It gave me an immediate point of reference to be able to like, I know this, you know, quote, unquote, I know this girl, like, I know that type of dynamic from that association, and it's difficult, of course, right? Because the reader, you know, they're not always going to know every obscure character, and when we say the same things to students that we've worked with, like, if they're I'm not a huge Marvel person, you know, for example. So even though I went bounding as Thor, those of you who don't know bounding is like, dressing up in, like, everyday clothes, but like stylized, like the characters costume. I did that with Hannah, and is amazing. And it's something that we would tell students that we work with is like, you know, sometimes you don't want to always choose the most obscure references. And if you do, you want to give a little explanation of what that's like. So I would oftentimes, like, brand my students and kind of have them have some line or association with who they were. So, you know, one example of this was like the Leslie nope, the opening line for a student who I'm using a pseudonym here, Marie and one add all three words is pond views, very own Leslie note, a local politician known for her can do attitude, fierce loyalty and endearing idealism, which she backs up with action. This iconic character from NBC Parks and Rec is one of my absolute favorites, and so is Marie Leslie note may get her trademark energy from waffles, but Marie is more likely to be spotted with something bright and refreshing. Her signature at hibiscus tea. She's a rainbow infused space unicorn among the sea of neutrals and taupe in the pond view school halls. So really leaned into some descriptive writing there, and points of comparison right to, you know, distinguish the student that I'm writing for versus, kind of like the general environment. And then I kind of go on to some more specific anecdotes related to the students, actual goals and experiences. So she dazzles our community with her global awareness cultivated from spending her formative years in the UK and the Netherlands, and her unwavering, unwavering commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. She'll bring articles from the BBC and encourage faculty to full political and social issues into discussions these equal parts do or anything occur, just like Leslie, and she'll be on your campus. So again, this was kind of like an intro for each student that I would do, and what it does was help the person who's reading and trying to advocate for that student. Really have a sense for kind of who they are in the fabric of that high school, and have some kind of point of reference to be able to connect it back to when articulating that personality type and distinction to their colleagues in the admissions committee room. Another thing I think I wanted to mention too, just in terms of making the process more efficient for you. So kind of, we're going to wrap things up here with the podcast on some efficiency tools. One that I know is really big for me is really changing the questionnaire to be like more interesting, right? So a resource that we'll share in the show notes that I highly recommend you take a look at. If you're a counselor and you're in charge of putting together a questionnaire to gather information from students, and even if you're a teacher who's has your own, you know, kind of brag sheet or request form that you send out to students or provide to them to get you the information you need. We have this list called C, E, G's, 100 grade and interesting questions. And that's something that really has tons of questions on it that are like, they range from like, you know, what's something that you've never told someone to kind of some of those questions around, like, you know, your doppelganger, or they're really wide ranging, and can oftentimes provide students with just more critical thinking and reflection than the typical like, what are your activities? Right? That information is needed to this is not a this or that. It's a this. And. That, but that's something that I definitely recommend. Beefing up your questionnaire to include more questions that like, and maybe every year, you add like, you know, three new questions from this brave and interesting question list, just so that way you as a writer have new material to work with, and you fold it into your your compilation, your greatest hits, for your student as a for their counselor letter. And then lastly, I just want to close off with some efficiency tools. So I you know, we know you, maybe you may have listened to some of the advice that we said, and we're like, that's all well and good, but I do not have all the time to be compiling quotes and coming up with doppelgangers and my dreams for students. And we hear you, we get it. So a couple ways to minimize your work. One is Mahara. I don't know if you ever did this, but did students ever share their essay brainstorming work with you? No, but that


Hanah Lim  1:00:47  
would have been nice. Yeah, exactly.


Tom Campbell  1:00:49  
So that's something that you know a lot of times, especially if you are coming from a school that utilizes college essay guide resources, and the students are already doing brainstorming work, or maybe they do an amazing workshop with our workshops team and someone guides them through these exercises. They already have a Google Doc or a book or some document that has details that are oftentimes really helpful for someone who is writing the letter of advocacy for the student to know. So that's one thing, first and foremost, asking a student for to have access to their essay brainstorming work, especially if they use college exercises, gives you actually a lot of material that is, again, a little bit more different than this, just the typical formulaic What are your activities? What classes have you done, etc. The last efficiency tip I want to I want to touch on is, AI, so Hannah, you were writing letters before this was really available. But now that you're enlightened and we have these tools that are rapidly advancing, do you use


Speaker 2  1:01:47  
ARL in your work to make things more efficient? That's a very controversial question. I know I hear what I am that name of things with a spicy take. Well, you


Hanah Lim  1:01:56  
know, I am very apprehensive about AI, and personally, I will sometimes use it just to kind of enhance maybe something that I'm already thinking about, you know, like, I remember I showed you, like I was thinking, like, what is like? I was thinking about like a brainstorming exercise, and I wanted to think of, like, what is something that has a center but extends outside? And so I literally put that into chat GBT, and it gave me, you know, so that's kind of how I use AI. I'm kind of like, I have an idea, but I just want it to be more efficient in like, you know, showing me those things. So maybe it is a student who's like, maybe have certain traits and things, and you can't figure out what that fictional character is, then maybe you could ask AI to generate a list of characters for you. Personally, I just as an English teacher, you know, as still, it's still my identity as an English teacher. I just can't have the AI write the letter for me.


Tom Campbell  1:02:56  
Yeah, you know. And, and, hey, I, you know, I think you, you were there in the audience when we presented this material at super attack, it was a conference with folks from the Pacific Northwest, from Rocky Mountains, from the West Coast, who are high school counselors, independent counselors, CBO counselors. And I remember we were talking about AI and whether or not you'd feel comfortable using it as professional, as a teacher or counselor. And you know, one person was like, oh, it's, I think it's I think it's unethical, because we're telling students they can't use it for their materials. So no, we should be following and modeling that out. And then there was another counselor who got up, and I thought she brought up, she brought forward a very, really important point that I just want to voice here, which was, hey, you know, my job, I have a caseload of, you know, let's say, 80 students, and I don't have time to meet with them in the fall, because I have to, I have to build in time in my day to write all these letters for them. And if I could have a tool to help make this more efficient for me, for a piece of the process that I've seen the math, I know it's not this door swinging huge make or break thing for these students, if I can make that more efficient, and get these colleges what they're asking for, I'll have more time to actually meet with students and talk about the nuances of the colleges on their list and some of the financial aid programs or scholarships that they should be applying for, which really does make a huge difference in their future life. So the way that I think she put that of like, you know, being able to recalibrate your time by using certain efficiency tools, I think just really opened up a great food for thought, for you to think about and reflect as a listener of whether or not AI has a place in your school community, in your workflow to make your letter of rec process more efficient, so you can maybe prioritize other areas of your work that maybe fill your cup more, or that you know are really going to have a more long standing impact for a student. So when it comes to AI and using it again, personal decision, but we have lots of guidance that we share in the show notes for you on using something called prompt engineering to basically, kind of write into chatgpt have these qualities be reflected and have the letter be formatted in a certain way, and it will actually if you be. It a source information from a questionnaire using the problems kind of that will provide to you with brackets, and it will kind of replace, essentially, like, certain elements of the actual submitted form that a student sends into you, and have it kind of be first drafted into a written, formal letter format that gives you, you know, a baseline to start with as a counselor, to be able to tweak and modify and maybe change some of the details that you're like, Oh, it didn't really pull this part of the questionnaire that I think is really important. I'm going to slide that in here, but it just gives you it can maybe save a lot of time when it comes to having at least that first draft, that skeleton ready to go that you fill in with the flesh and the soul, to quote my lovely colleague. And then another tool that you know we are working on a college desk, a college desk, a guy that I just want to mention on this podcast is we do have a recommendation letter tool that is currently being finalized and drafted, so hopefully by the time this podcast gets released, it's either ready to go or in beta version, but hopefully especially by the next cycle that you apply, um, using a tool like that to be able to make your process more efficient is something I definitely recommend. And the last technology hack I will mention, too We'll also have in the show notes, is this system that I used to develop called the Save As form publisher. It's an add on to Google Sheets and and Google Forms, where, basically it will take the responses that a student sent into a questionnaire and put it into a Google doc format with, like your letterhead and the you know, if you have like bullets and buckets, like academic highlights, extracurricular highlights, it will kind of load all the responses and like the fonts and colors for your template into a doc ready to go. So that way, you have a whole folder of them on your Google Drive for each individual student with their name, you know, dash letter of recommendation. And it's not necessarily writing the letter for you. So I'd say it's like a free step to, like the full dark side of just like getting into AI, but it is using technology to at least give you saving, you know, that collective hours of kind of, like cutting and pasting everything and putting it in the formatting and all that, which does add up, it definitely can save you some time there too. So hopefully all the tools that we're providing will help make your life a little easier no matter what school environment you're coming from. Final Thoughts Auden, before we wrap up and release the audience to their their writing duties here. I mean


Hanah Lim  1:07:16  
counting up. You know, we talk about counting up and counting down. I think the letter of recommendation requests. Like, when students did request it, I just felt so honored to be part of the process, and it was such a wonderful way to reconnect with students. And yes, it's, you know, not the most exciting part of our job sometimes, but definitely seeing it as a privilege. Yeah,


Tom Campbell  1:07:38  
yeah. I think, like, you know, especially when even like reading back, like some of these quotes and things from old letters that I've written, it does make me feel it makes you feel satisfied when you know that, yes, I wasn't necessarily swinging doors open for a student with these letters, but to know that you're contributing to, you know, the way that someone on the other end in admissions is getting to know who they are in a very condensed time frame and using a very imperfect system. That's something that I think definitely when you take a step back and and lead into that counting up mentality, it really does give me those, those warm fuzzies that I love. Well, thank you again. So so much for joining me. Hannah, I know I know how busy you are because we work together, and how much is on your plate right now with scheduling workshops and hitting the ground running, with trying to serve hundreds of schools that we work with, but I'm glad that we're able to serve hundreds, maybe 1000s of listeners with some some practical and some timely advice for them. So thank you. Thank


Hanah Lim  1:08:30  
you for having me.


Tom Campbell  1:08:33  
Thanks so much as always, for tuning into this College Essay Guy podcast. Any of the resources Hannah and I mentioned on today's episode will be available at college. Sa guy.com/podcast in the show notes for this episode. All right, we'll see you on the next one. And as always, stay curious. You.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Listen On:

Explore CEG:

Matchlighters Scholars Program
Yup. Free 1-on-1 college application coaching for you. Apply today.

One-on-One College Essay & Admission Coaching

Online Video Courses

Free Webinars & Live Events
Check out the latest free live events from the CEG Team.

Check Out More Free Resources

Keep Listening

You don’t have to face college applications alone

Strong essays start with clarity and the right support. Our process helps you find your story, organize your ideas, and write something you’ll be proud to share.

Schedule a Call Today