Letters of Recommendation

To complete your application, you will need to obtain 2-3 letters of recommendation from faculty members who know you well. Here are some tips:

1) It will benefit your application (and your recommendation letter) to stand out (in a positive way) to the faculty you ask to write your letters. Try to find faculty who know you as a student as well as a leader, a researcher, etc.

2) Talk with faculty early! Remember that you are not the only person applying to graduate programs along this same timeline, and faculty are also involved in teaching, research, and administrative activities during the semester. If you haven’t talked with faculty members about your plans to apply to grad school this fall, talk to them now! If you wait to the last minute, the faculty member who knows you best might not have enough time to write a recommendation letter.

3) The best recommendation letters come from situations in which faculty know you from class and another setting (research, committee membership, department activities, etc). Talk with faculty who you have had for more than one class, as well as faculty that you have both had in class and work(ed) with on research. If faculty have not gotten to know you outside of the classroom setting, you still have time to sign up for research credits or to get involved in the department in some format this fall.

4) Your letter writers will likely need copies of your personal statements, lists of faculty members for the sites, transcript, and your CV/resume in order to write a well-developed recommendation letter. So get started writing those now! If you are working in a lab with a faculty member who has agreed to write you a letter of recommendation, you should give them information on when you started in the lab and a reminder of the projects you have been involved in since you started. As a general rule, you want the faculty member to be in the best mood and have readily available all relevant materials when your letter is being written. In addition, your writers will be appreciative if, for those letters that need to be mailed, you provide envelopes that are already addressed and stamped.

5) You should ask faculty members if they can write you a “strong” letter of recommendation. This allows faculty to say no. This is to your benefit as a mediocre letter will tarnish a good application.

 

Please see this example of what to include in your packet for letter writers. In addition, here is an example of an Excel spreadsheet to provide your letter writers, indicating how letters should be submitted and to where.