One of our goals at ProfHacker is trying to make plain and visible the often unspoken and undiscussed aspects of academic teaching, research, and service. While a PhD, MFA, MD, JD, or any other combination of highly educated letters typically requires several years of coursework, that coursework does not necessarily teach us everything that we will use on a daily basis. Teaching, fortunately, is no longer treated as a complete afterthought to one’s research, although it is still, to my mind, underemphasized in PhD programs (where my experience lies). Service, however, almost completely falls by the wayside as a subject for which graduate students are prepared. We have tackled service issues in the past (for example, see previous posts on mentoring for the first time, mentoring faculty, and mentoring via social media or Jason’s post on why meetings are terrible) and we will continue to do so in the future. Today, I want to kick off a new series focused on writing letters of recommendation.
Yes, the not-so-humble, everyone is above average recommendation letter. Even if you’re still a graduate student and you’ve taught only a few classes, you will likely be asked to provide some letters of recommendation for students. The difficulty is that if you’re a graduate student—or contingent faculty or even newly on the tenure track—you might not have read any letters of recommendation and therefore don’t know what should go into said document (apart from the recommendation, natch).
As a matter of fact, this is the position I find myself in at the moment. While I have occasionally written letters on behalf of students who wanted to apply to be resident assistant in a campus’s dorm, study abroad, or do summer internships, I have recently been asked by two students to write on their behalf as they are applying to graduate programs (a PhD in one case and an MLIS in another). And while I am consulting with colleagues, I also wanted to consult with the amazing ProfHacker readers.
We plan to have more posts in the future about writing letters of recommendation: in support of someone going on the academic job market, in support of a colleague’s tenure proposal, in support of a particular grant or project. For now, however, will you please share your thoughts about how to write an effective letter on behalf of an undergraduate who is applying to graduate school? There will be some differences based on discipline, naturally, but if you’re willing to share your discipline with us those specificities are worth including for readers within those fields.
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21 Responses to How Do You Write Effective Letters of Recommendation for Grad School Applicants?
natekreuter - December 14, 2010 at 11:15 am
I blogged on this very issue a couple months ago. Post is here: http://www.natekreuter.net/archives/477
kathryntomasek - December 14, 2010 at 11:52 am
Nate makes some excellent points.
It’s significant that Brian’s students are applying for different kinds of programs. Brian’s familiarity with DH will certainly be important for the student applying to the MLIS program, especially if it is one of the MLIS programs most focused on XML/TEI/EAD. (btw, I’m _so_ pleased with the way that DH has opened up student interest in library professions.)
Having been writing recommendation letters for twenty years now (gasp!), I’ve become interested in the question asked very specifically on _some_ forms: In the context of _all_ the students you have ever taught, where would you rank this student? The corollary question is, of course, based on what evidence?
And one more thing about grad school letters: Consider explaining to readers of your letter how you are qualified to recommend this student. If the student is applying to a grad program in your discipline, say that they took x number of courses at what level and with what results. If you are a historian and your former student is applying to an MSW program, explain how that student’s performance in your course might be related to the kinds of issues that will be important in that program. (See Nate’s discussion of his student who went into a pharmacy program.)
briancroxall - December 14, 2010 at 2:14 pm
@natekreuter Thanks very much for linking to your post. It’s got excellent advice and covers much of what I think new-in-their-career people will want to know about writing letters.
@kathryntomasek: Thanks for sharing the ideas of providing context for the assertions that one makes about a student. We all know that all letters of recommendation will recommend the student, so it’s helpful to be reminded that our recommendations will carry more weight if we provide evidence. In this sense, it’s very much like writing any argument.
ssaulvolk - December 14, 2010 at 4:24 pm
In my capacity as Director of Oberlin’s teaching and learning center (Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence, CTIE), I posted a video on the topic for use by our faculty. You can find it at:
http://vimeo.com/7008854
aeonelpis - December 14, 2010 at 4:30 pm
In addition to adapting to your audience, as I think everyone has already established, I would suggest: be specific. If you make a claim about the student’s intellectual curiosity, ground it with an example from your time working with the student. I often ask students if they have materials they would like to provide me to inform my letter-writing process to help with this. It’s much easier to build a case that a student is dedicated to her community if I can point to her long-standing service commitments in addition to my own experience of her work.
Quite a few programs provide a very specific list of qualifications. The LSAC (the Law School Admissions Council) thoroughly surveys letter-writers, and I have found that their list provides a nice set of topics (time management, maturity, communication skills, leadership, etc.) to consider when assessing a student’s potential for advanced study, regardless of her/his field.
pstambler - December 14, 2010 at 4:31 pm
As an older-timer, I’ve written recommendations for transfer students, study abroad programs, graduate programs, jobs, academic promotions. In each case, I ask the candidate to provide the CV and a letter (or notes) detailing what the candidate wants to do, what qualities have best prepared her, and what special academic and non-academic qualities she will bring to the new post or school. Then I can match my own impressions (or see that I cannot match them) of the candidate and write an intelligent letter that, most importantly, is about this singular, individual candidate. In this method there is no room for the boilerplate letter. It may take a little longer, but candidates appreciate the effort and, my experience tells me, so do the recipients. Rule of thumb: if you truly recommend the candidate, try–without ceding honesty–to write the letter you wish your most influential referee had written for you.
kthartman - December 14, 2010 at 4:35 pm
As a law school dean of admissions, I spend considerable time educating applicants about the importance of a strong letter and how to assist the recommendor. Perhaps these suggestions might be of benefit.
1. The student/alum should schedule an appointment to talk with the professor. Do not leave a phone message or send an e-mail with the request. Schedule the appointment weeks before the letter is due. Never wait until the last minute.
2. Prepare for the conversation. The student must always presume that the professor does not know as much about the student as the student thinks they know. Take a resume and recent work product from one of the professor’s classes to the meeting.
3. Ask the professor if they are comfortable writing a positive letter. Also, be able to articulate why they are interested in that program/career path, etc.
I stress to my applicants that it is their responsibility to provide all of the information the professor needs to write a letter – and gives them less of an excuse to procrastinate.
briancroxall - December 14, 2010 at 8:10 pm
@ssaulvolk: Thanks very much for linking to this video! I’m glad to see that your Center is actively involved in coaching your faculty through this process. I’ll have to poke around my own campus a bit more to see if there are resources that I’ve missed.
@aeonelpis: I’m glad to hear again that specificity is what’s required in these instances. It makes sense, but it is something that is easy to forget in the haze of writing for someone whom you don’t know as well as the person you normally write letters for (i.e., yourself). And I appreciate that list of qualities from LSAC.
@pstambler: I like your closing remarks. We all want to have glowing and wonderful recommendations written on behalf of our own work. Doing the same for our students should be paramount. And asking them for materials beyond their CV/resume is a great way to help us do that.
@kthartman: Thanks for sharing from your particular vantage point. While faculty members can be better educated about the process, I’ve also found that students aren’t often prepared with the things that I need in order to recommend them most effectively. I suppose we as faculty can do better to teach effective requesting in our advising, then.
ksledge - December 14, 2010 at 9:35 pm
I think about what skills and attributes are important for doing well in graduate school, and then I evaluate the student on those metrics. I also encourage students to send me a draft of their statements of purpose so that they can tell me what they want. Sometimes the prompt for the letter is clear as to what should be discussed. I make sure I always use examples rather than simple descriptions. The letter needs to have evidence, or else it sounds fake.
oh_richard - December 15, 2010 at 8:29 am
I sat on our department’s admissions commttee for two years and would offer this. If there is a form to fill out, review it before agreeing to write the letter. We’ve received letters and evaluation forms from applicants with “NA” (not able) checked by letter writers next to 5 or 6 of 10 areas of evaluation. Perhaps the applicant didn’t realize it, but this makes it appear as though the letter writer did not really know the applicant well. While 1 or 2 NA areas shouldn’t cause concern, responding that you a not able to rate someone on their ethical reasoning, maturity, and judgment for example really begs the question of your ability to recommend the student.
anon1972 - December 15, 2010 at 8:43 am
Just to chime in slightly against the grain for a minute — students often do supply me with their resumes when they ask for a letter, but unless there’s something on there that I already knew about and that is directly connected to my experience of the student, I don’t cite any of that information; not only is it already in the candidate’s CV and personal statement, but it looks (to my mind; YMMV) transparently phoney when a professor writes a letter extolling Candidate X’s sophisticated research skills, nuanced thinking, lucid prose, and years of volunteer work for the ASPCA. That last item obviously isn’t something the professor has seen firsthand, nor does it lie within the bounds of the student’s intellectual work, which is what the professor is qualified (in terms of both experience and expertise) to evaluate.
I use the limited space available to go into more detail about the kind of work the student does, and give examples of things (s)he did that specifically impressed me.
One other observation — it is much easier to write these letters within my own field or adjacent fields, where I know well what kind of person will thrive in the programs I’m recommending them to, and what kind of language my colleagues are looking for in the letter. Recommending students for unfamiliar fellowships or programs in more distant disciplines feels like much more of a shot in the dark.
hesterlfuller - December 15, 2010 at 9:23 am
From my doctoral advisor I picked up the practice of asking all who request letters to email me (1) the specifics of the job, program, award/scholarship they are applying for — including a NAMED recipient and the correct mailing address; (2) a statement that summarizes the qualities that the employer or selectionc ommittee say they are seeking, mapped against their self-report of qualities they possess, (3) things they are thinking *I* could say in support of their application, based on my personal experience of our relationship. Rarely do I hear back from those I *wouldn’t* write for, and the exercise itself seems to be valued (after the fact) by the students who do complete it.
jbechtold - December 15, 2010 at 9:27 am
For students who ask me to write a reference letter for them I ask that they fill out electronically a Reference Bio form with basic information on it about themselves… how long they have known me, in what contexts, grades they have received in my classes, notable assignments completed for me and grades, relevant work experience both within and outside the department, internships/practica/off-campus learning, etc. Then I have them email it to me and I have a file of all that info for whenever the student requests a reference be it currently or two years out after they have graduated. If they are not willing to do the work of filling out my form, I don’t feel obligated to write them a reference… no form… no reference…
demery1 - December 15, 2010 at 9:46 am
As a reader of hundreds of letters of recommendation, enthusiasm, clearly expressed, is the key. Signals like “I am delighted to write for Sandra Applicant” or “I am very pleased Sandra Applicant has taken our advice to apply.” are eye catchers. At the same time, writers can signal a lukewarm letter as well. “Sandra Applicant asked me to write for her. I serve on Sandra’s committee.” If the letter is for a good, not great student, or is written out of obligation, that can be helpful.
In many cases, asking “Why do you want to attend graduate school?” is the very best question one could ask. For students who don’t have a clear and reasonable answer, tell them to wait a year. It’s not as discouraging as saying “You’re walking into a world of hurt” but it has the same consequences.
Finally, I would make the controversial recommendation that faculty should not write letters of recommendation for Tier three or Tier four programs. Even with a completed degree, the pedigree bias of interview committees regarding graduate placement is quite naked in most interview teams.
tishaturk - December 15, 2010 at 10:08 am
Like others who’ve commented, I find it enormously helpful to ask potential recommendees to provide as much information as possible: copies of papers they’ve written for me; drafts of personal statements; brief narratives in which they tell me what they learned in my classes and remind me of particular discussion contributions, paper-writing breakthroughs, or outside-of-class conversations that they think show something important about their development as writers and thinkers.
One point that hasn’t yet been mentioned: I ask students to tell me how my recommendation letter fits in with the other recommendations they’ve asked for. Do they want me to emphasize their writing? their participation in discussion? their work in our campus writing center? their development over time? some combination of these things?
Of course I try to shed light on as many aspects of a student as I can, but in the interest of being specific, I find it’s useful to have a focus, and to be explicit about the focus; if my letter focuses on someone’s work as a writing tutor, I may also mention her leadership in classroom discussion or her terrific writing, but I usually do so briefly and note that Professor X will speak to these qualities in more detail. This coordinated effort has worked out very well for my recent recommendees.
briancroxall - December 15, 2010 at 10:54 am
Thank you, all, for the continued comments and thoughtful advice about this issue. I think that I will be summarizing your advice (and more as it comes in) in a follow-up post next week.
@oh_richard: Screening the details of the recommendation package/documents before agreeing to write on someone’s behalf is something I’ll be sure to adopt in the future.
@hesterlfuller: Asking students what they think we can say to help make their case seems very prudent. Not only does that give the recommender something to go on, but also requires the students to be thoughtful about their own application.
@jbechtold: Keeping all of these details for the future and in a form is a great idea! Thanks for sharing.
@demery1: Enthusiasm, check! And while I’ve never heard your advice about not recommending students to lower-tiered schools, it seems sound to me. Of course, there might be extenuating reasons why a particular region of the country and therefore school is the only viable match for a student.
@tishaturk: The idea of coordinating among the letter writing committee strikes me as very wise.
jabberwocky12 - December 15, 2010 at 11:00 am
A young student in my department is currently applying to grad schools. He asked his previous professors (at a different institution) to write letters of recommendation for him.
Each one told him that they didn’t have the time. But, they said, if he was prepared to write the letter himself, they would be happy to sign it. Needless to say, he has four glowing letters of recommendation.
For some people, this merely appears to be a game.
bekka_alice - December 15, 2010 at 11:29 am
I’d apply some of the things I know from acting as a reviewer of scholarship applications. A lot of them get tossed to the side for being generic – not addressing the specific needs and values of the scholarship, and not being clear about why this student in particular is worthy. You can write about how smart, funny and “outstanding” students are until the cows come home – I have a hundred others like that in the same application pack. But if I’m awarding a scholarship for leadership qualities, I don’t want to see “Bob is leadership material,” I want to see “Bob came up with the idea of creating a tutoring department tailored to address the X% dropout rate we were seeing in our languages department. On his own time, Bob volunteered to seek out and pair up suitable language practice partners and to guide vocabulary and conversational practice sessions for the participants. Bob’s leadership initiative led to a Y% improvement in our retention in this area.” It doesn’t have to have percentages but it does have to demonstrate what the earlier sentence just asserts. If I have a scholarship app with a four-page recital of glowing but unspecific praise, that personal opinion on the part of the writer is nice but can’t compete with a one-page application with three lines about admiration of a student and then bullet point listing of specific accomplishments with a two-sentence summary of how those accomplishments relate to the goals and values of the grant being awarded (or the school to which a student applies). How does this student match *us*?
If I’m a prestigious school focused on intensive research to cure cancer, I want to know if your student has participated in activities that would show a stronger candidacy related to my institution. I’ve done awards where it’s obvious that the person writing skimmed the standards document and stuck in a sentence that says “Bob cares about these standards” in the middle of an otherwise non-related letter – this has about the same effect as the freshman English essay that always starts with “Thomas Jefferson was a very important person” and then meanders around talking about the general condition of the day and age – it won’t compete with an essay that specifies the subject’s specific qualities that were important to the topic of the essay and elaborates on them. Doing it well doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but it does require some organizational focus and attention to the specific history of the student relevant to the qualities the reviewer is looking for.
robbie1 - December 15, 2010 at 11:43 am
The rating of graduate or professional school applicants as “average,” ” above average,” or designating a place in a predetermined set of percentiles (top 20%, top 10%), and reflecting and quantifying abilities and comparing performance with other students now (and over the length of my career,) are things the graduate school rating forms require in my references. I struggle to try to be fair to my student and the graduate school asking for such a ranking, but these are not designations I comfortably “fit” students into.
I ask each student to tell me “why” for each and every graduate school chosen and “where” you want your education to lead you? Like jbechtold and hesterlfuller I first require the student to do some thinking and sharing of information with me–a practice that does often result in withdrawal of requests from students who are marginal candidates for graduate school.
My recommendations share what I have observed about the student and his/her approach to learning, diligence with assignments, ability to do and articulate his/her original ideas, demonstration of intellectual and personal ethics regarding one’s own work and the contributions of others. I share, too, if I think the individual can be relied upon to adapt, relate and contribute well as a member of a graduate or professional school’s learning community.
allencar - December 15, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I have found this discussion to be enlightening and reassuring of the approach I have taken to writing letters of recommendation.
@jabberwocky12:I think perhaps you are being a bit harsh on the professors who asked the student to write a draft of the letter. While I have not done this, I know many who routinely supply a draft when requesting the letter of recommendation. I think this is a concise way to get people to 1) remind you of their strengths and how you know them 2)indicate how your knowledge supports the skill set the selection committee is looking for and 3)coordinate the recommendation letters so that each speaks to a different, complimentary skill set. The professors are under no obligation to sign the letter as written and I would hope they take the time to add their own personal “spin” to the information, or refuse to sign it if it is in conflict with their own impressions of the student. While the tactic would be better if accompanied by an explanation of what the students should be trying to convey in the series of recommendations, it does provide a starting place. I think it is very similar to the information @hesterlfuller recommended collecting, although it may be the actual letter format you find offensive.
I wholeheartedly agree with @demery1 and @oh_richard and would suggest that the person writing the recommendation may intentionally be raising those red flags. In the student selection activities of which I have been a part, those areas of less than enthusiastic recommendation or responses of “no comment” trigger further investigation which frequently reveals a student who is unsuited for the program.
As a faculty member of a program with a small cohort of students, I am frequently called upon to write letters of recommendation. One of the things I do to make writing recommendation letters easier is to keep a copy of all of the letters of recommendation I write. I can then pull up a completed letter for a student with similar traits to the student requesting the letter and change the examples supporting the various traits.
abcde1234 - December 15, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I’m dean for admission in a biomed PhD program. Nothing frustrates me and my committee more than trying to dissect a file from an applicant who may have lots of potential (good grades, good scores, some lab experience), but whose research statement and letters do not contain the kind of information we need to evaluate the applicant’s potential to succeed in a PhD program.
We want letters to give us confidence that the applicant has the potential for excellence in independent research, will perform well in challenging upper level courses, has strong oral and written communication skills, and has the temperament (drive, focus, persistence, resiliency, resourcefulness) to succeed in a multi-year program.
We also want to know if they can articulate why they want to get a PhD in bioscience, and why they want to come to our program.
We want to know how you know these things-give examples that illustrate that the applicant has these qualities.
We want to know how you know them-if you are their research adviser, your letter is THE most important letter in the file. A lukewarm or non-specific letter is a strike against the applicant. If you are not their research adviser, do you know them in a capacity that allows you to judge their research proficiency? If so, tell us about it. If not, make sure the applicant knows that they need to have letters from their adviser and preferably one other person who can evaluate their research proficiency. You can still write a helpful letter, just stick to what you can evaluate, and tell us up front what that is.
Who are you to judge? Seriously-tell us about you. Have you supervised undergrads who have gone on to do successful PhD’s, or at least been admitted to good programs? Have you supervised PhD students? If yes, tell us how this applicant compares. If you’re new at this and have not supervised PhD students or undergrads who became successful PhD students, compare this applicant with people you knew during your training. Does he or she think like them? Work as hard? Communicate as well? Show better or worse judgment? This information helps us weigh your letter in relation to other letters or elements in the file.
If there are problems with the applicant’s record, address them. We see their transcript. We know if they have a 2.8 GPA, or got a D in Genetics, or failed three classes sophomore spring. None of these are good things, but are not necessarily the kiss of death. A consistent poor performer will not get into a good PhD program (sadly, they still will get offers from some PhD program-but that is another topic). A person with a spotty performance record might get in, if there is enough in their record to ease concerns (got an MS and did better, worked in the field for a few years after undergrad). A largely good performance with a bad semester or bad course grade or two still has a decent shot. But if you can tell us something about that D in Genetics or why that sophomore spring was so bad, and, especially, how these low points are not reflective of the applicant’s true capabilities (again, we want examples!), we are much more likely to give the applicant the benefit of the doubt, than if you just ignore it and write a brief positive letter. Keep this in mind-in biomedical research (other fields too I am sure) failures come with the territory. Many of the top applicants have not had any experience with failure, but we take them based on their successful record and hope for the best. An applicant who has actually overcome failure and turned it around to do well is much less risky. If your guy or gal has that in their past, we want to hear about it.