Empfehlungsschreiben im deutschen Hochschulsystem: Positionales Wettrüsten statt effizienten Signalings?

What is it about?

Letters of recommendation (LOR) increasingly gain importance in German higher education. At best, LORs can be interpreted as signals for greater suitability of students, e.g. for scholarships or Master’s programs. However, as the relationship between professors and students is becoming more and more anonymous in the current educational system, serious concerns arise about the informative value of LORs. If they do not contain information beyond the content provided by transcripts and curricula vitae, this could end up in an expensive positional arms race. This paper discusses LORs in the context of a principal-agent approach and empirically analyzes the data of 126 recommended students. The results reveal that especially high-performing students are more likely to be recommended. Furthermore, academic performance is closely related to extracurricular achievements. Therefore, LORs do not appear as a complementary and helpful instrument for differentiating among students.

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