I’ll vouch for an aspiring academic who has talent—but only after The Talk.

By David P. Deavel

Feb. 22, 2018 6:57 p.m. ET

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It’s spring semester, and students will soon be asking professors like me to recommend them for scholarships, jobs and graduate programs. It can be difficult to write letters of recommendation for students who have mixed records or are applying for seemingly ill-suited jobs. But the hardest cases are the outstanding students who want to get their doctorates and become professors.

These star students have given me plenty of memorable anecdotes—the key to successful recommendation letters. They have aced difficult exams, written original papers, asked clever questions, and started meaningful classroom conversations. I can easily vouch for their talents. But before I agree to recommend them for a grad program, we have to have The Talk. It usually goes something like this:

“You say you want to go to graduate school, get a Ph.D., and become a professor?”

“Yes!”

“Don’t!”

“Right. Wait, what?”

“OK, you really want a Ph.D.?”

“Um . . . yes.”

“OK, I will write this letter for you under the following three conditions: First, you will not go to any program that wants to charge you tuition. Ideally, you will be offered some sort of assistantship so that you won’t have to look for other jobs to make money. Then you also can put on your CV that you’ve been a teaching or research assistant.

“Second, you will go with the goal of being the best and most productive graduate student in your class. This means that you will have to start presenting at academic conferences and publishing articles as soon as possible. You will apply for fellowships and grants. You will finish your doctorate as quickly as you can and try to get some teaching experience.

The Hardest Letter of Recommendation

PHOTO: ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES

“And third, you will go understanding that even if you do all this, you still quite likely will not become a professor and will have to do something else for work.”

The students often think I’m joking, but anybody in or around higher education knows the score. What clouds the future of academia is a perfect storm: too many doctorates and too few jobs, shrinking undergraduate enrollment, the increasing use of adjuncts, technological disruption.

Yet students continue to go to grad school. It isn’t only the foolish optimism of youth. It isn’t that they’re particularly susceptible to romantic visions of academic life—tweed, pipe and spire. They’re simply in love with searching out truth.

I recently received a Facebook message from an alumna of my school’s master’s program in Catholic studies. A successful shipping company engineer, she wants a doctorate “because a deep intellectual engagement with the theology and history of the Faith is something that truly enriches my own faith.” She already has heard The Talk in various settings and explained that she also plans to study data administration as a career backstop. She thinks it is “no exaggeration to say that I feel called to make this move.”

She hasn’t asked yet, but in this case I’ll be happy to write a letter.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3901596&forum_id=2#35469547)