How to Ask for a Recommendation

One of a professor's duties is to write recommendation letters for students, usually for fellowships or grad-school applications. This Web page is intended to make that task easier for me by outlining your own role in the process.

General Rules

There are a number of useful general principles for recommendations. Some will apply to anybody you ask to write a letter; others are personal preferences of mine:

• ASK IN ADVANCE. Writing a good letter takes more than a few minutes, so a busy person must plan ahead. If you ask for a letter less than 3 weeks before its due date, it might not get written in time.
• Ask whether I can write you a good letter, not whether I'm willing to write one. It's my job to write letters, so I'm essentially always willing (though in rare circumstances I might ask you to try to find somebody else because of workload issues). But I might not be able to write you a strong letter. That might not be personal; perhaps I don't know you well (such as having had you in only one class). You should choose references who explicitly say they can write you a strong letter.
• Up front, give a maximally complete list of who you want letters to go to. Usually, one letter can serve for all purposes, so that I can just write it once and send copies everywhere with only mail-merge changes. However, it's much easier to do that if I know right away what the letter is going to be for. In particular, if you're going to be applying separately for both grad school and fellowships, it helps to know that ahead of time. (Once the generic letter is written, though, it's very easy to send it to new places, so don't be shy about adding a last-minute application to your list.)
• Please sort the list by deadline date; in particular I need to know the earliest deadline because that's the one that drives the majority of the work.
• Give organized information. See below for an example of what I wish everybody would do. The better things are organized, the more time I'll have to actually write stuff.
• And in general, make it easy for me. I individualize every letter, which means I need to know:
  • The name of the department or program you're applying to.
  • Ideally, whom the letter should be addressed to (by default I'll write "To Whom It May Concern" but it's better to write "Dear Dr. Jones").
  • How/where to send the recommendation (e-mail address? Physical mailing address? Web site? Do I have to initiate things or will I get an e-mail?)
  • The mailing address of the program—even if the application is electronic, it's more businesslike to include a proper address. A mailing address is especially important if you're applying in a non-CS field. I have the addresses for most CS programs, but it takes a significant amount of time for me to look up the addresses of various math, physics, etc. departments.
• (Personal) Paper vs. electronic? Electronic recommendation sites used to be painfully clumsy, but that has changed. Electronic forms are now preferred in most cases. If you have a choice, pick the electronic option.
• (Personal) Do not give me envelopes and stamps, with one exception. I write letters on department letterhead, put them in department envelopes, and stick them in the outgoing bin to be stamped and mailed. If you give me a stamped and addressed envelope, I will trash it, which I hate because it wastes your money. The only exception is if I am supposed to return a sealed envelope to you for inclusion with the application and you won't be on campus. In that case, it helps if you give me a SASE big enough to hold the sealed recommendations so that I can mail them to you.
• Do give me deadlines and mailing addresses so that I can generate the envelopes on time. Tell me whether the deadline is "must mail by" or "must receive by." (Personal) I prefer the mailing addresses in electronic text form, one line per address line, just as they would appear on the envelope.
• (Personal) Bug me as the deadline approaches. It's easy to forget about somebody or to miss the deadline. Yes, I'm supposed to be a responsible person, and I try very hard to keep everything straight. But mistakes happen. If you remind me two weeks before, one week before, and two days before the deadline, I won't have an excuse for messing up. When I send the letters, I'll e-mail you just to get you off my back, and then you'll be sure I did it.
• Give me information about yourself. Even though I know you (and hopefully know you well!), I may forget a random detail that would make the letter far better. The more stuff I have, the more chances I'll write a great letter. You should include the following information at a minimum:
  1. How long I've known you (years and months)
  2. My relationship to you (instructor, advisor, research advisor, supervisor on staff, etc.)
  3. What courses you've taken from me, when you took them, and what grades you got
  4. What you did in your research or Clinic with me, if applicable
  5. Copies of any papers you wrote for me
  6. Your overall and major GPAs
  7. A draft of your personal statement
  8. A resume
  9. A "brag sheet" to remind me about special accomplishments and outside activities. Here's a sample of an excellent brag sheet
  10. A copy of your latest transcript
  11. Anything else you can think of that might help!
  I might not use some of that stuff, but at least you're giving me the opportunity to consider it. This is a time to be arrogant! :-)

Sample of the Ideal Packet

The best packet I ever got from a student looked like this. Note that it's sorted by due date so that I'll be sure to get everything done on time: