For Faculty: Writing Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation are an important and required component of a student’s application to graduate school and/or employment. The application process has become increasingly competitive, and a persuasive recommendation letter can have a significant impact on an individual’s candidacy. Your letters are essential to the admissions or employment process. However, in order to be credible, they should be written on University stationary with the recommender's signature and title.
- The Basics
- What to Include
- What to Avoid
- Writing recommendations for medical school applicants (pdf)
- Writing recommendations for law school applicants (pdf)
The Basics
- Think carefully about how well you know the student who is requesting a recommendation letter. Do you know him/her well enough to write an endorsement? If for any reason you do not feel that you can write positively on a student’s behalf, be honest with him/her and decline to write the letter.
- We advise students to give recommenders information about their academic pursuits, employment history, extracurricular activities, and community service. A writing sample from a course assignment may also be useful in evaluating the individual’s language skills. Ask for this material if it is not provided.
- Sit down with the student and discuss his/her interests and motivations for entering graduate school or the work arena.
back to top
What to Include
An author’s personal style influences the format for his/her letters. However, many writers follow a composition similar to the following:
- Express your pleasure at having the opportunity to recommend the applicant.
- Indicate how long and in what capacity you have known the applicant.
- Note that you would recommend this student specifically for the program of study at graduate school OR for employment.
- Explore how this applicant compares in intellectual ability to other students you have encountered this year or in previous years. This is important, as it can be difficult for admissions committees to interpret your enthusiasm for the student without a standard for comparison.
- Evaluate the student’s potential in the area specified by the person asking for the recommendation. Has this student demonstrated an interest in the specified area? Do they strike you as someone who will be effective in that area? Discuss the student’s coursework, including the nature of the course(s), difficulty of coursework/major, grades received, notable work assignments, etc. This may be a good opportunity to reflect on the student’s academic ability, including attention to detail, capacity for hard work and commitment, foreign language skills, organizational ability, originality, observational abilities, and resourcefulness.
- Discuss a few of the student’s strengths that you know well and wish to highlight. The following are suggested areas that may be of particular interest to admission offices or potential employers:
- Language and communication skills. This is the area of most interest to admissions committees, including clear and effective oral and written expression, and the ability to read and listen carefully and effectively. What kinds of written assignments were required in a course? Did the class size allow for significant student participation?
- Intellectual ability, such as capacity for critical thinking and the ability to understand, analyze, and synthesize information, deductive, inductive, and analogous reasoning ability, intellectual curiosity, and problem-solving skills.
- Interpersonal skills, including ability to collaborate and get along with peers, response to criticism, leadership, and attitude toward supervision.
- Personal qualities, such as maturity, responsibility, creativity, ability to handle stress, persistence, demonstrated judgment, motivation, self-awareness, and initiative.
- Extracurricular activities, including depth of involvement and achievements.
- Special attributes, assets, or circumstances. Have you observed any special talents in this student not previously mentioned? Are there any extenuating circumstances that might have negatively impacted their application? If you have served as an advisor to this student and can help to explain a poor semester or other anomaly on the transcript, do not hesitate to do so.
You may wish to conclude your letter with a reaffirmation of your endorsement of the student’s application and an offer to answer follow-up questions.
back to top
What to Avoid
- Don’t speculate. Be as specific and factual as possible. Give concrete examples to illustrate your characterizations of the student. Base your statements on observations and information obtained through direct contact with the student or their school record.
- Avoid discussing an individual’s race, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, citizenship status, or marital status. Also avoid commenting on a student’s appearance, family background, health, or other personal circumstances unless they are immediately relative to their application.
- Students should not be asked to write their own letters of recommendation. In addition, if another person assists you in writing the letter, the pronoun “we”should be used throughout the letter and it should be co-signed. This pertains especially to situations where teaching assistants are writing letters. We advise students to request letters signed by both professor and TA, although in certain situations a letter from only a TA is acceptable to medical schools.
