First, talk to the professor about the letter. Ask if we would write you a letter of recommendation and tell us the deadline.
Second, please fill out this letter of recommendation release form and give a signed hard copy to the recommender.
Next, help us help you by giving us the items below. They’re not mandatory, but they’ll let us write you a stronger letter.
- A list of courses with your professor that includes when you took each course and any projects or presentations you did for that course.
- A transcript or list of courses and grades relevant to the program or job for which you’re applying.
- A list of co-curricular and extracurricular activities relevant to your application.
- A list of foreign and inter-cultural experiences, such as OCS, overseas or domestic volunteering, and homestays.
- A resume, if you have one.
- A draft of your application essay, if you have one, so we can better coordinate our letter to your expressed purposes.
- A brief description of what you think should be included in the letter. We won’t feel obligated to mention everything, but we can’t include it if we don’t know about it.
- Any materials needed to submit the recommendation letters. If you are applying to a graduate school that uses paper-based letters, be sure to provide us with the appropriate forms. For a job application, you might need to supply an email or postal address. If we need to send anything by postal mail, please supply addressed and stamped envelopes, too.
- A summary page listing all of the places you’d like us to send a letter, what we need to do, and when the deadlines are. Sorting these in order of deadline makes it easy for us to get the earliest ones out first.
- Finally, here’s your end of the bargain: After you’ve heard back, tell us how things turned out. This helps us know how to advise future students.
Thanks, and good luck!