Written July 25, 2019
When applying to fellowships, graduate programs or anything requiring a letter of recommendation (LOR), students often make the mistake of leaving the LOR process as an afterthought. In reality, given a competitive pool of applicants, a LOR that is simply okay or good enough could do damage to an otherwise strong application. It is well worth while for students to dedicate time and energy to the LOR process to ensure a strong group of letters for a given application.
Here are four key steps students are encouraged to take.
Strategically choose letter writers as a cohesive group
Support the writing process by providing needed information in one place
Follow up with reminders before the deadline
Follow up with results and thank you note
In what follows, I will detail each of these components.
Strategically choose letter writers as a cohesive group (avoid getting multiple identical letters)
When you sit down to determine who you would like to ask to write your LOR, base this off of the key themes of your essays. Each of your LOR should provide perspective on one of the points you hope to get across in your essays. For example, if one of your key themes is that you are passionate about particle physics research and have made significant research contributions, then one of your letters should highlight this. But you do not want all of your letters to focus on this one theme (unless there are multiple areas of research you wish to highlight).
So, your first step in determining who to ask to write your letters of recommendation is to make a list of 2-3 focus points and choose people who can speak with detail about each of them. Note: there can be value in having one letter from someone who can give a more holistic view of your narrative from a long term more broad perspective, but it is important to have a purpose/strategy for each letter.
Support the writing process by providing all needed information in one place
This is where the work comes in on the part of the student. Each faculty member, house dean or any potential letter writer deals with a large number of students and most likely has received multiple requests for LOR. The process of sitting down to write a strong LOR for a student takes time and your goal as the student is to make this process as easy as possible for your writers. The person who has the most information about the student and the fellowship/program is the student. So, when requesting a LOR, students should include the following:
An official request:
Ask the person if they can confidently write a strong letter for you and give them the opportunity to decline (this is best done in person but can be done via email). Ask the person to specifically write a letter for whatever fellowships/programs you want them to. For example, be specific that you are requesting a letter for both the Rhodes and the Marshall if that is the case.
In order to put the letter in context, provide a complete list of recommendation writers with a short note about what each will focus on.
This list should include the requested writer. This will help the writer understand the complete application strategy and fill in gaps where needed.
Example statement:
To put my letter in context, here is the complete list of my recommendation writers (including you) for graduate fellowships -
Prof. Okeleye- My first research project which included traveling to CERN, Has followed my academic trajectory- I took her first year seminar introduction to particle physics and recently took her upper level Computational Physics course.
Dr. Johnson and Dr. Gonzalez (joint letter)- They instructed my second research project at Brookhaven National Laboratory
Prof. Sims- Advising my senior thesis, Took his advanced course in Applied Electromagnetics.
Dr. Jones- Vice President for Academic Development, Diversity and Inclusion, I have worked closely with her on my activism advocating for underrepresented minorities in science at the University.
Information on the fellowship/program/opportunity.
What: provide 2-3 sentences explaining what the fellowship/program/opportunity is.
Deadline: state the date the LOR is due.
Letter access: specify how the writer will submit the letter (website portal, email, etc). (If this is a graduate school application requesting for multiple letters, this can be a table with 3 columns: school/program, Deadline/submission instruction, and a note about your program of interest e.g. condensed matter theory).
What they are looking for: state briefly in one sentence what the fellowship/program is looking for in successful applicants.
What am I focusing on in my application: state briefly in one sentence your application focus.
Important factors for you to highlight: provide a description of what this specific letter would ideally get across to the application committee.
Resume/CV and draft of Statement of Purpose or equivalent
(some applications have multiple essays, attach a draft of the most useful essay)
All of this makes up your ''packet'' that should all be sent in one email so that the letter writer has all of this information in one place when they sit down to write. For humanities and social sciences, some professors/writers appreciate having a physical copy of this ''packet''. Consider printing out all of this information and giving the person an envelope with all of the ''packet'' components.
Follow up with reminders before the deadline
Make sure to do your research on your letter writer as some faculty have instructions for the timeline of requesting letters of recommendation on their website. Some people require a minimum of 3-4 weeks to write a LOR and others have their own requirements. Make sure to look into this.
Once you have made an official request for the person to write the letter, follow up with the person throughout the process. It would be a mistake to send this one email and assume all of your work is done and your letter will be submitted on time with no problems. Once your “packet” has been sent out, now the student’s job is the manage the writers by following up regularly. If a person does not respond to your request email, try to reach out in person. Once a person has accepted the task of writing the letter, follow up 1-2 weeks later.
Be considerate when sending reminder emails by not sending them too frequently. Also frame them as follow up emails. For example, ask the writer if there is any more information you can provide to make the process go smoothly. Or ask if they have any questions or suggestions for you based on all the information you have provided. Continue to follow up and keep in regular communication until you receive confirmation that the letter has been submitted.
Follow up with results and thank you note
Many students forget this step. Once application results start to come in, it has been weeks or months since you have been in contact with your letter writers. Hence, this makes it easy to forget the final follow up step. Let each writer know the results of your application even if it was unsuccessful. You can send a short sincere thank you note along with this follow up email. My personal preference includes providing hand written thank you notes to letter writers who have provided multiple LOR for me over the course of a few years. Of course, hand written notes are optional and based on your relationship to your writers and also your style.
What is important is that you update them on the results of their hard work and thank them for helping you through the process.
Good luck!
In freedom,
Jamelle Watson-Daniels