What's up with college recommendation letters being so lame?
I'm not talking about the content; I'm talking about the format.
Thinking about this as I'm working on the letter of a student who's written an occasionally brilliant blog in class over the last two years. I'm considering the irony of trying to express in a paragraph ultimately to be printed out on a sheet of paper what it is that I find so compelling about her blogging.
It doesn't have to be like this.
If I can handle relatively complex tasks such as managing my bank account and submitting grades online, I sure as heck ought to be able to submit a letter of recommendation online.
A letter full of links to succinct examples of what it is that I'm trying to describe in my blathering prose. A letter including screenshots of projects, audio of class presentations illustrating what I mean when I say that the student has an 'accessible manner of explaining complex ideas to her peers', snippets of Twitter conversations we've had in class demonstrating the student's leadership capacity and capacity for asking probing questions.
Stuff that doesn't fit on paper.
So what say ye, college admissions officers? Ready to enter the 21st century?
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