
Asking for a letter of recommendation - joeyespo
http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-recommendation-letter/
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alttag
Good advice. I particularly liked "[W]hat you should ask is, 'Would you be
comfortable writing me a _strong_ letter of recommendation?'"

I picked up another trick when I applied for doctoral programs: as the
requestor, prepare sample letter for the writer. You can highlight things
she/he may have forgotten or only known cursorily. The writer is under no
obligation to use the sample, but (as a writer of such letters for students)
it makes the writing process go much faster. (Although, yes, undergraduate
students are inclined to be a bit hyperbolic in their self-descriptions.)

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imurray
_as the requestor, prepare sample letter for the writer_

A slightly less presumptuous version of this strategy is to provide a bullet
list of things they may like to include in a letter. When I'm writing letters
I usually ask students for such a list. I wouldn't really want them to draft
the whole letter.

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scott_s
Some do, though. Not in my case, but some other professors in my old
department asked one of my fellow students to provide a letter. They
presumably edited it, but they definitely wanted it as a starting point.

I agree it can be an odd thing if the professor does not request it, so it's
probably best to only do it on request.

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bronxbomber92
Great article, and very relevant to what I'm going through right now!

I'm a sophomore undergraduate currently looking to transfer, and I need two
letter of recommendations. However, I feel uncomfortable approaching my
professors since I don't have strong relationships with any of them. I find it
hard since I only have a year under my belt, not allowing me much chance to
get to know a professor. And since I have strong grades I haven't had the need
to see professors during after-hours, limiting my interaction with them
further.

Do you have any suggestions? Will professors understand my situation, and be
willing to write a strong letter of recommendation based on my grades, class
participation, and strong resume?

Again, thanks for writing this post! Wonderful blog :)

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mattmight
If you've had good class participation and you can provide your resume in
condensed, bullet-point form, you should be able to get decent or good (but
not great) recommendations.

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bronxbomber92
Thanks for the quick response! I've got one more if you don't mind. This is a
question that should definitely be asked on a school by school basis, but I'd
be curious to know if it is a common occurrence as well (from your experience
as a professor). I have a fair more amount of experience as a software
engineer in industry than as a student; is it common for prospective students
to ask schools the permission to substitute a letter of recommendation from a
professor for a letter from a manager or boss?

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mattmight
It depends on what you're applying for.

For undergrad transfers or a terminal masters applicant, industry recs are
generally OK.

For a Ph.D. student, not much more than one industry rec would be commonly
permissible, unless they're from an industrial research lab.

For a Ph.D. student, a good industry rec will focus on character, strong work
ethic and specific examples of problem-solving ability. Industrial assessment
of research potential tends to be mentally damped by the reviewer unless the
recommender has a Ph.D.

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ibagrak
Excellent advice from Matt as usual.

The memories of stressing out over the grad school letters are still vivid
after some 8 years. But I did my homework (research with two of the letter
writers and TA-ship with the other), and it paid off.

I do remember one episode when a recommendation letter was due at midnight,
and I've been emailing reminders to this professor up to the hour the
submission was due. He eventually replied saying that his plane was late, and
he wouldn't be able to submit until 1am.

It was for a national science foundation fellowship, which I got, so I suppose
the late submission was accepted in the end. Fun times.

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gwern
This sort of advice always makes me sad. So to get a great letter, you need
to, at least a year in advance, do independent publishable research with the
professor? I try to imagine what sort of undergraduate, say, could do this -
one who already earned his degree in the area, I guess... (Reminds me of the
high school advice for getting into great colleges, which boil down to 'be a
good college student before getting into, you know, an actual college, so you
have awesome stuff to put on you resume'.)

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mattmight
The short answer is yes, you need to do this to get _great_ letters.

Strong and frequent participation, interaction and enthusiasm for the subject
in class should get you a "good" letter--or at least more than the "She got an
A in my compilers class" letter.

You need to do this because you are competing with other students that do
this.

What I find upsetting is that so many students have no idea what their
competition is up to. And, by the time they find out, it's way too late.

When I read grad school admissions packets, I'm blown away by what some
undergraduates have done.

That's one of the reasons I wrote this blog post -- to take the blinders off.
Hopefully it reaches some freshman, sophomores and juniors in college and a
few high school students too.

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edandersen
In the working world, most "letters of recommendation" are produced under
duress - as in "I will resign without you having to fire me (with the bad
morale this will produce) if you write me a glowing letter of recommendation".
An A-player will always be happy to arrange references since they are able to
and rarely leave on bad terms.

For acedemia, what is wrong with a standard glowing reference?

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sardonicbryan
This post seems geared toward applying to grad schools, many of which receive
hundreds of applications. Having to contact hundreds to thousands of
references would probably overwhelm most admissions committees. Remember, for
grad school, admissions are typically handled by the department, which has
fewer people to deal with this stuff.

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Hitchhiker
This is a magnificent site overall in terms of content.. even the other
articles. Thank you for posting. Much appreciated.

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mattmight
Thanks for the kind words!

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wittgenstein
Matt, What would you suggest I do in this case:

I graduated in May 2009 and have been working in the industry for 2 years. I
worked with a professor for my senior project. I recently emailed said
professor asking for a letter of recommendation, and I received no response.
It's very hard for me to know whether he ignored the email because he was not
enthusiastic about writing the letter, or because he forgot / did not receive
it / whatever. What do you think is the best course of action here? Wait for a
week and then send another email? What if he doesn't reply again?

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mattmight
Resend after a week, with the first email below.

If that fails, try again a week later with a fresh email.

Lots of profs (myself included) have a crushing inbox overload. We expect to
be re-emailed with critical stuff.

Never take radio silence as a sign of malice when it comes to email. Doubly so
with profs.

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zura
What about the situation when professor asks you to write the letter yourself
and he will sign it later? Is it a common case in the academic world?

Another case: when it's been a several years after you last contacted your
professor or adviser. I would feel somewhat uncomfortable to ask for a letter
of recommendation.

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mattmight
Writing your own letter happens, but usually in academia, the prof will
request a .txt file to modify/strip the adverbs.

If it's been a few years, update the prof on things you've done since then,
how what you learned in their course helped in your job, etc.

