MARGY

Managing Academic Recommendations Gratis Yay

Applicants on the academic job market spend thousands of dollars a year to have professional dossier services handle their confidential letters of recommendation. Some of this requires staff involvement: filling out forms, uploading to proprietary sites, etc. But a good deal of it is just sending emails. The only reason a middleperson is necessary is because the emails need to include a confidential attachment.

MARGY replaces that middleperson with a free automated system. Letter-writers upload letters to MARGY’s secure server; applicants tell the system where to email those letters. Confidentiality is maintained via a whitelist; the system will only send letters to email addresses that have been confirmed as being maintained by a relevant hiring entity.

Why the tortured acronym? The name is a tribute to Margy [hard ‘g’] DeLuca, the graduate secretary for the philosophy department at Bowling Green State University, who goes far above and beyond, personally handling alumni’s letters every year. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a Margy in their corner.