References and Recommendation Letters

If you have taken a course with me (and you passed), I am happy to serve as a reference and/or to write you a recommendation letter. (The one exception is high school students who have taken my online course who seek recommendation letters for college applications. See below.) For those who are not familiar with the US usage of these terms:

A reference is when you provide someone else with my name and contact information — generally just my e-mail (dave.kane@gmail.com) and/or phone number (646-644-3626). Sometimes they want an address (30 Washington Street, Newton, MA 02458) or my title (Researcher, Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education). They may or may not contact me. If they do, I will say nice things about you. Students will sometimes need a reference when renting an apartment or applying for a job. Even if you have not taken a class with me, I am happy to serve as a reference as long as I know you.
A recommendation — or, more commonly, recommendation letter — is when I write a letter about you to someone else and then send them the letter. This is most commonly needed when you apply to fellowships or to graduate school. Some internships/jobs want a recommendation letter but, mostly, they just want a reference.

You hereby have permission to use me as a reference. You do not need to to ask me first. Just, each time you use my name, send me an e-mail, reminding me who you are, and noting the organization/purpose of the reference. If they ever contact me (and, most times, they won’t), I will confirm that you are/were an excellent student of high moral character.

You may ask me for a recommendation letter, but that process requires much more work on your part.

E-mail me to ask. I may want to speak with you. We can coordinate via e-mail. Or I may decide that I know you well enough that a meeting is not necessary. I reserve the right to try and talk you out of law or business school.
Once we confirm that I am writing you a letter, send me a follow up e-mail with a bullet list of many, many specifics about what we have done together. What course(s) have you taken? When did you take it? What did you do your final project on? And so on. The more details you give me, the better your letter will be. Do not rely on me to remember your work.
Be as complete and straightforward as possible, even if you think your grade for the course was bad or your final project unimpressive. I will use my judgment to craft the letter to maximize your chances of getting the position.
The most important part of this e-mail is your description of your final project. Write a full paragraph or two, with complete sentences and flowing prose. Do not count on me to remember anything.
If you have worked with me as a teaching fellow or researcher, include details about that. These are just more bullet points, but they should include detailed explanations. Don’t assume that I will remember what TFs do! Instead, tell me what you did. Tell me how you ran your breakout rooms. Describe the process of having one student share their screen and another student “drive.” And so on. More details mean a better letter.
The bullet points should be in the temporal order. Always provide dates, even if they are approximate. Month/year is enough. First, you would describe what you did in my class as a student. Then, what you did as a TF or researcher.
Also, in that same e-mail, include information about what you are applying for and any other background on you. Everything that I need is in this (second) e-mail. But this material is separate from the bullet list of what I will include in the letter. That bullet list is only about what we did together. Colleges don’t want my opinion of your high school grades or test scores.
Keep an eye on whether or not the organization has received my letter. If they haven’t received it by a week before the due date, send me a polite reminder. If we are one day away, send me a desperate e-mail. It is your responsibility to keep track of whether or not I have submitted the letter.
After you receive confirmation that I have sent the letter, you should (obviously!) send me a brief e-mail thank you.

And that is it! (But note that I will update this post over time.) I am always happy to help out my students, however I can.

Except in unusual circumstances, I do not write recommendation letters for high school students applying to college. The main reason is that colleges do not care about the opinions of anyone other than your high school teachers. So, you are much better off with a letter from a teacher than one from me, or from any other non-teacher. Why, you ask? Colleges have learned that people like me have no incentive to tell the truth. Why wouldn’t I claim in every recommendation letter that “Student X is a genius! She is the smartest person I have ever met” and so on? The answer, sadly, is that I have no reason to be truthful and every reason to exaggerate. After all, I will probably never write another recommendation letter to this college again.

The same reasoning does not apply to high school teachers. They are engaged in a repeated game vis-à-vis colleges. They can’t make outrageous claims this year because they want the colleges to take their recommendation letters seriously next year, and the year after that, and so on.

However, if you have volunteered as either a TF or a researcher, then I will write a college recommendation letter for you, if you really want me to.

How can you thank me? Easy! First, tell people about my class. Second, make a calendar entry right now for exactly 10 years from today: “E-mail Preceptor at dave.kane@gmail.com to thank him for that recommendation letter and let him know how I am doing.” Good teachers love hearing from their students, especially many years later.