One of Berkeley High School’s signature features is the variety of small learning communities. Each small school has their own class requirements, teachers, and culture. One of the distinctive features of Berkeley International High School, BHS’s second largest small school, is their letter of recommendation process.
Letters of recommendation are written by teachers, coaches, or any mentor to paint a clear image of a student’s skills or character. They can be used to help students apply for any position or opportunity, but are often associated with (and essential to) the college application process. A quality letter of recommendation can set a student apart from other applicants and effectively convey character traits to an admissions committee in a way GPA and test scores cannot. For these reasons, letters of recommendation are in high demand for juniors and seniors thinking about college.
The conventional way to get a letter of recommendation—and the way most small schools do it—is to ask teacher of a class one did well in for a letter in a meeting or over email. It’s then completely within that teachers’s discretion whether they write one or not. In contrast, BIHS prefers a more structured approach. BIHS senior Maya Gearen, who recently went through the process, said “you are kinda guided through the whole thing.”
As a prerequisite step, all BIHS juniors are instructed to not ask for letters of recommendation during the end of junior year. Karl Kaku, a former BIHS English teacher for over 10 years, recalls students asking last spring and stated, “In March, students started asking me for letters of rec, so I had to ask them to wait.” Instead, the BIHS letters of rec procedure begins in the fall of senior year with an in class presentation giving students instructions on the whole process’s timeline. In this presentation, students are instructed to fill out a google form listing their top two choices of BIHS humanities teachers who they would like to get their letter from. Additionally, students are not supposed to say which of the two teachers they list is their top choice. The reasoning behind the google form is that it allows teachers to know roughly how many students are planning on asking them, and gives them a chance to decide how many letters they have the capacity to write.
Also discussed in the presentation are etiquette guidelines for proper ways to ask a teacher for a letter. Gearen summarized them stating, “We were supposed to email our top choice of teacher and ask to set up a meeting, we were not supposed to ask for the letter in the email itself.” Gearen thought this was a little funky at first but after reflection she understood the reasoning behind this guideline, saying, “it really is a big time commitment for teachers, and there’s like this expectation that they have to do it. It’s important for students to show that they know that, by asking in the most respectful way possible.” In the same vein, Kaku commented that it takes him between 45 minutes to over an hour to write a letter of recommendation.
Gearen also repeated some etiquette advice for the actual asking of a letter, once at your scheduled meeting saying, “you basically say what you liked about their class and share about what schools you are applying to and then ask for a letter of recommendation.” Teachers then agree to write a letter or decline due to capacity issues. Of course if one's first choice don’t end up working out, they repeat these steps on their second.
So what are the strengths and weaknesses of this system? For starters, the google form gives teachers an important heads up on what they might be asked to do. In comparison, teachers in AC or any other small school don’t know how many students are planning on asking until the requests actually come in. Secondly, the guided nature of the system and in-class reminders force all students to complete the process at the same time. This helps to promote equality, an opinion heavily stated by Kaku, Gearen, and Addison Fonseca, a BIHS counselor. Kaku said, “Not all families can afford a private counselor that tells them hey, “you need to ask your teachers for this.” He described the formal “Letter of Rec Week” as, “evening the playing field.” Gearen reiterated this, “IB is more equitable because you are basically promised a letter by at least one teacher, even if they're not the ones you put in the form.”
One con of the system as brought up by Carmen Cassidy-Soto, a BIHS senior, is that students being told to wait to ask IB humanities teachers yet still expected to ask all STEM teachers early junior year spring is extremely confusing for students. Cassido-Soto explained, “People will forget that asking teachers in the fall only applies to IB, and when they ask STEM or any non-IB teachers, these teachers have already reached their quota. Fonseca, tried to combat this perspective by adding an additional pro to asking teachers for letters of recommendation in the fall stating, “ I actually like challenging that kind of like urgency that students feel, because a lot of students do end up really connecting with their senior year teacher and asking too early cuts that opportunity off.” Fonseca continued to point out that senior year teachers in general write fewer letters of rec which leaves more time and energy for the letters they do write.
Fonseca also attempted to trace back the anxiety students feel around BIHS’s letter of recommendation process to the stress of applying to colleges in general stating, “I think that that's just a product of how the college application process is like. It's really anxiety provoking, and it does kind of bring out this, like every, every man for themselves kind of thing and like that.”
Ultimately, although the BIHS system is not perfect, it creates a more equitable opportunity for students and helps disperse the work amongst teachers. Cassidy-Soto summed it up best saying, “Even though parts of the process are confusing, I would still prefer it —BIHS’s way as compared to the free for all way.”