Timeline for Intent behind Recommendation Letter requirement?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 23, 2014 at 4:54 | vote | accept | 299792458 | ||
| Oct 23, 2014 at 4:48 | answer | added | Anonymous Mathematician | timeline score: 5 | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 21:43 | answer | added | David Hill | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 20:04 | comment | added | 299792458 | I think this comment is a fairly decent effort towards suggesting the futility of having such a requirement, especially since the possibility of situation no. 2 can't be ruled out! | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 19:25 | comment | added | 299792458 | @NateEldredge - I like your sentence no. 1 and it commutes with the answer below. However (minor nitpick), I don't think it is fair to call it "evidence", in the spirit of xLeitix's comments, which are also (exactly) the spirit behind my question. It may be intended as an evidence from the recommender's side, but it can't really be deemed an evidence if you don't trust the guy's judgement. I think you take this into account when you write "subjective". | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 19:18 | comment | added | 299792458 | @xLeitix - (reg. comment no. 2 in particular) I'm glad you got my point precisely! When you don't know the guy who's writing the letter, you can't be sure about his "impartial"ity/motivation/interest. Then why bother about this formality at all? That was exactly what I intended to ask. Thanks :) | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 8:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackAcademia/status/524832693616644096 | ||
| Oct 22, 2014 at 7:49 | answer | added | BrenBarn | timeline score: 10 | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 6:24 | comment | added | xLeitix | @NateEldredge Also, surely, an opinion from someone who is clearly not impartial and has presumably much more the interest of the applicant than the interest of the school in mind is not necessarily better than no information. | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 6:23 | comment | added | xLeitix | @NateEldredge I think the question is still fair (and something that puzzles me as well) - why would an university care about what a prof. entirely unknown to them on the other side of the planet says about a student, no matter how fuzzy or concrete the information is? I "get" recommendations when everybody knows each other, or when the school actively approaches a prof. to rate an applicant, but if both of that is untrue I also kinda fail to see the value. | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 5:57 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | Surely an opinion from someone you don't know is better than no information at all. Also, a really good letter will not just state the writer's opinion ("I think Jane Smith is awesome") but provide evidence, even if subjective evidence ("Jane Smith wrote an awesome paper in my class that showed a deep understanding of X, Y and Z"). | |
| Oct 22, 2014 at 5:40 | history | asked | 299792458 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |