Readers React:  Bashing Berkeley on recommendation letters

To the editor: As UC Berkeley is studying the importance, efficacy and impact of letters of reference from a teacher and a mentor on undergraduate admissions, I come down firmly on a “no!” (“Cal asking for letters of reference,” Oct. 4)

Some potential problems: Not all teachers/mentors will want to write these letters, and not all teachers/

mentors write well. How will the content of the letters be weighed? And what about the hyperbolic gushing that will populate these letters?

Will a teacher of Advanced Placement classes end up writing different letters for each student, or resort to a form letter? And if only one student in that class is admitted, will other students, or their parents, sue the teacher because the teacher refused to write a letter or offered only faint praise?

As a retired high school teacher and university professor in teacher education, the request for letters of reference becomes overwhelming, and the thought that each applicant would require two is not only daunting to the teachers/mentors who must write them, it must be viewed as a horrid task for admissions officers as well.

Juli Quinn, Seal Beach

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To the editor: The proposal is a bad idea that must be stopped before it spreads to other UC campuses.

To ensure fairness, applications must be evaluated based on the accomplishment of the student, not of his or her teachers. Students who are extroverts will have an edge over their introverted peers, as they would probably have more high-quality interactions with their teachers.

On the positive side, this policy would encourage the teachers to learn more about their students beyond the grades and the homework turned in.

But overall, the pros do not warrant the potential inequities that could contaminate the process.

Lawrence Cheung, Pasadena

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To the editor: I applied to a well-ranked private university’s graduate school that required letters of recommendation, and I was accepted.

Looking back, I think the process favored those who had connections and wealth. If you are one of many students in a public school, you probably have few opportunities to have the kind of meaningful relationship with a teacher or professor that would generate such a letter.

Faculty may not feel they have the paid time or skills to write such letters.

I worry it would be the proverbial “It is not what you know but who you know.”

Lisa Dieckmann, Los Angeles

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To the editor: I read this article and wondered what would have happened to me in this situation.

I did not have the resources to go to college immediately after high school. I moved away from home and worked for two years, until I could find an evening and weekend job that would support me. So I would have had to try to reestablish contact with a teacher and counselor (I never saw a counselor at my school — that only happened if you were in trouble).

How would the letters of recommendation be handled then? Would a letter from my employer(s) have been accepted?

Not everybody goes to college immediately; in fact, I think more people should be encouraged not to go just because they are middle or upper class and it’s expected. Go to college when you know it’s what you want.

Mark Rice, Palm Springs

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