Best practices for letters of recommendation in CS As a college professor, I am often asked for letters of recommendation by my CS majors. I have templates, for whether the student is applying for grad school, for an internship, for a scholarship, etc. Each of my letters ends up being 1.5-2 pages. When I read letters, they are often much shorter, sometimes only a paragraph. I have no experience with CS jobs outside academia, and I'm starting to worry the letters I'm writing are too long (though I do have a good track record of students getting what they applied for). First question (with an eye towards CS internships or jobs especially):


  (1) How long are your letters of recommendation?


Another question is scalability. Each letter I write takes me about 1 hour, and the original templates took longer (probably 3-4 hours each). Every year, more and more students are asking me for letters, so I wonder if I should find a way to do it faster. Hence my 2nd question:


  (2) How long does it take you to write a letter of recommendation?
I write a paragraph saying who I am, and where and how long I have taught.  This is standard for all letters.

I write a brief second paragraph stating how long and in what capacities I have known the student.

I then answer these four questions from an old Columbia form. 

A.  Please tell us about the candidate's intellectual qualities and
academic work.  We are interested in the nature of his or her motivation for scholarship, breadth, and depth of intellectual interest, originality, and
capacity for growth.  Cite specific examples where appropriate.

B. What are your impressions of the candidate's character and maturity?
How do fellow students, teachers and you regard him as a person compared with
contemporaries?  Does the candidate show open--mindedness toward opinions,
values, and backgrounds different from his own?  Does he have any special
strengths, weaknesses or problems of which we should be aware?  We would
welcome any additional comments you think might be helpful to us.

C. What has been the candidate's most valuable contribution to your
class?  

D. Do you have any reason to doubt this student's integrity?

Lastly, I have a closing paragraph that looks like this:

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.  If you have questions,
please send me e-mail at XXXX@gmail.com; this account is entirely separate
from the school and you may communicate in complete confidence.  You may also call me at home in the evening at 919-XXX-XXXX.

My work phone and address appear in the head of the letter.