Evaluation and the Culture of Secrecy

By LEONARD CASSUTO

Last week I got a letter from a student requesting a law-school recommendation. The student had received a respectable B in my class two years ago, but she was no star of the show. I did what I always do in such situations: I suggested that she might get a stronger letter from a professor who had given her a higher grade. I said that I could write the letter, but it would be different from the letter I'd write for an A student.

Many students disappear after that caveat, but some