June 4, 2004

If You Like This Student, Click Here

By VINCENT KIERNAN

More and more graduate schools seek admissions recommendations online; some professors love the process, others detest it

Roy Grow fondly remembers a bygone time, before the Web, when preparing graduate-school recommendations for his students was almost easy.

"We would have a letter on file," says Mr. Grow, a professor of international relations at Carleton College. When a student needed a recommendation, a secretary would revise the letter and mail it off. "We would send 8 or 10