Manually Adding a Reference Letter

Jane Bilezikian

We received a student reference letter in hard copy form. Although the student submitted the reference's email address and name, the reference never logged into BAM. We would like to associate the reference letter with the student application and wondering if others have had this issue. I have an ideas, but I am not sure if it is advisable:

My idea is to assume the reference user role and manually type in the contents of the paper reference letter.

If anyone has an opinion or other advice, I appreciate your feedback. I hate to penalize the student and I do not want to inconvenience the reviewers.

Thanks. Jane Bilezikian Wheaton College (IL)

Eileen Bastien

@Jane Bilezikian That is exactly what I would do. I look forward to hearing from others for alternative options.

Michael Elliott

@Jane Bilezikian - Hi, If you assume the reference user role you should be able to manually upload the letter of recommendation to the student application. I have done this in the past where I will save the letter of recommendation to a folder on my computer then I can upload the file for the reference provider. You should not have to manually type in the letter from the reference provider account. Hope this helps!

Kaitlyn Venta

@Jane Bilezikian I usually become the reference and enter the letter, but you can also make an administrator question file upload question, scan the reference, and upload the hard copy form. It will be in a different format than other letters but its option.

Stephanie Lamphere

@Jane Bilezikian I become the reference user and manually enter it, this happens quite frequently. Since they switched to the Blackbaud ID authentication, external users find the process cumbersome and inconvenient. So rather than have no reference, I will enter it for them. It's a heavier lift for me, but not worth trying to convince people to set up a whole ID for something they will use once.

Lori Tatsch

@Jane Bilezikian When you become the reference you can upload their copy of the recommendation. You must first save the file to your computer.

Ann Schubert

@Jane Bilezikian, we have also added an Administrator Question to load reference letters that the author would like to stay confidential and not shared with the student. I use this field if a reference e-mails me their letter even if they do not ask for it to be confidential.