How to Request a Recommendation Letter From a Professor
Whether for graduate school admission or that all-important first job, a professor's letter of recommendation can be invaluable. Here are some guidelines to follow for requesting (and getting) a good one.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Choose carefully the professor or professors you ask for recommendations. Beyond selecting someone who will write a favorable letter, keep in mind that recommendations from a department chair, a senior faculty member and professors in your major subject area are most impressive and relevant.
-
2
Seize the moment. If you really hit it off with a professor in your freshman year, ask for the recommendation letter at the close of the semester in which you took his or her class. By the time graduation rolls around, you may be little more than a face in the crowd.
-
-
3
Offer to write the letter and have your professor sign it. This not only saves the professor time, it allows you to include the information you want in the recommendation.
-
4
Follow up. We're all busy, but you are making a legitimate request, so don't be shy about a giving the professor a friendly reminder or two if you don't get the letter in a few weeks.
-
5
Make copies! Having to go back and request another letter because you lost it or ran out of copies of the original does not make a good impression.
-
1
More Like This
Comments
-
Nov 22, 2005
Go to the grad school website, to which you are applying, and download and print the recommendation forms provided. Mail the form, along with a stamped and addressed envelope, as a letter (less than 1000 words) talking about yourself. Refer to the recommendation form to see what your professor needs to know about you (they have hundreds of students) and include things that you do outside the classroom. Then have them seal and sign the envelope to ensure your school that you did not tamper with the letter. Either that or you have them mail it to the school as per request of the school. -
Nov 22, 2005
Go to the grad school website, to which you are applying, and download and print the recommendation forms provided. Mail the form, along with a stamped and addressed envelope, as a letter (less than 1000 words) talking about yourself. Refer to the recommendation form to see what your professor needs to know about you (they have hundreds of students) and include things that you do outside the classroom. Then have them seal and sign the envelope to ensure your school that you did not tamper with the letter. Either that or you have them mail it to the school as per request of the school.
