Unsolicited Advice to Female Students Urgently Seeking Letters of Recommendation

• If you took a course with me five years ago, and
• If you have a very common name like "Jill" or "Sarah," and
• If since taking a course with me five years ago you got married, and
• If you neither kept nor hyphenated your maiden name,
• Then I suggest you not request a letter of recommendation via a non-university account in which you never reveal the name I would know you by, because
• If you need the letter urgently as urgently as you say, forcing me to spend half-an-hour digging through my student records for a name which never appears in them is counterproductive.

Comments

[Jake]

Aww...

Well it was only a half hour of digging. It could have been a four hour extravaganza coupled with nerve-wracking tension.

[SEK]

I admit: I gave up, emailed her back and asked who she was. I did the whole, "Well, you know, I've taught a lot of students, but you know how you can't remember who your eighth grade science teacher was, well multiply that by a factor of twenty" shtick. That's when I learned she'd married in the interim. Soon as she told me her maiden name, it clicked. The funny thing is, she sent me her papers with my comments on them, and I actually think she deserved a higher grade than the one I'd given her. I was really, really critical of what was clearly an excellent paper.

[Justin]

There's always the cruel joke that you should include a note about the student lacking common sense in the recommendation.

Of course, I can't advocate that since I'd have been given letters that described criminal levels of procrastination.

[John B.]

I've been in your position before, too: in one case, the student making the request even told me, "I know you'll write me a great letter!" and I'm thinking, Now, who are you again? Professionally and personally embarrassing, I assure you.

I've gotten requests for recommendations from people with gender-neutral names, too; fortunately, I've (so far) remembered who they are, but the day is surely coming . . .

And: Happy New Year, sir.