Tips for Getting an Outstanding Letter of Recommendation

We enjoy providing advice on this blog to assist potential applicants in their quest to gain acceptance to great graduate programs.  However, sometimes the best admissions advice comes directly from the universities themselves!  For example, the Graduate Student Recruitment Office at Purdue University recently sent out a helpful email about how to get a great letter of recommendation (LOR).

We often tell our clients that if they want to secure a great LOR, they should take a hands-on approach and support their recommendation provider as much as possible.  The information in italics below (written by personnel at Purdue University) supports this idea -- they give very clear advice about proactive steps an applicant might take:

Coach your recommendation providers. Try to select recommendation providers who can talk about various aspects of your potential and suggest to them what they could highlight. For example, a research advisor could talk about specific research skills while a professor could talk about your academic potential. This prevents you from having three generic recommendation letters. Most recommendation providers appreciate knowing what they should discuss in their letters.

Make the process as easy as possible. Provide your recommendation providers with:

•          a copy of your resume or curriculum vitae

•          a file that lists all of the institutions, program names, contact information, and application deadlines to which you are applying

•          a list of details they will need to answer specific questions about you

•          a friendly reminder of approaching deadlines

After reading this information one should clearly understand that it would be a mistake to simply hand the recommendation provider a form (or send them the recommendation system email) and send them off to write without any further discussion.  Professors teach hundreds of students and they get many LOR requests each year.  Therefore it is very difficult to expect them to: a) clearly remember everything you have done or every skill you have, and b) to spend a lot of time writing about these things.

The applicant who takes a passive approach will more likely have a generic LOR sent to the school by the provider.  And that won’t help your application very much will it?  Therefore we strongly advise that you get organized and plan a strategy far ahead.  If the recommendation is professional, analyze the LOR questions and then write down bullet points of projects you have worked on and the skills you have displayed at work that fit these questions. Then discuss your application strategy with the recommendation provider in depth.      

Here are a couple more pieces of advice regarding how to best manage the LOR process:

Give your recommender a clear timeline. Send the recommender a schedule with the schools you will apply to and the deadlines for each school.  Ask them to complete the LOR 4-6 weeks in advance.  If you feel they have forgotten you might send them a friendly reminder after two weeks, and one week in advance of the deadline.  It is always better to have everything finished earlier than later, so choose a deadline that helps everyone.

Remember to send a thank you note to all of your recommendation letter providers! A thank you letter gives you an open door to go back to them in the future with more personal updates and an excuse to stay in touch.  This isn’t the last time you’ll need your recommender’s help (probably) so be sure to maintain a positive relationship with them all throughout your graduate education.