It’s reference season. Job applications, grad school applications, scholarship applications… they all ask us to find someone respectable to vouch for us. I don’t know if I qualify as respectable, but I do receive a lot of requests for letters of recommendations.
What’s it take to get one? I have a few suggestions, followed by some sample letters that I’ve written for students recently (I recognize the risk, if these are any good I’m probably setting myself up for a deluge of requests. That’s cool).
Recommendable people:
- are deeply passionate about their field. I’m talking sold-out, lose-sleep-in-good-way, drank the kool-aid, on a freaking mission. It’s pretty easy for me to say positive things about people like that. If you don’t feel that way about your studies, we should talk. I’d love to help you find that passion.
- form a connection with me beyond the classroom. Maybe they interact with my content online. Maybe they drop by my office to ask a question or two. They usually have a suggestion on how I could improve as an educator, and the boldness to offer suggestions (which I promise will be well-received).
Bottom line: it’s a lot easier for me to write a letter for someone if I have a story to tell.
Digging the Well
I probably overuse this metaphor, but it’s a good one: the worst time to dig a well is when you realize you’re thirsty. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s too late, it truly isn’t. However, people who do the two things above are easy to write for. As someone who’s constantly too busy because he’s trying to impact as many people as possible, I appreciate when you make it easy to write about you.
Samples
Here are two letters I wrote recently. I’m sharing them so you can see the kind of impressions these people made. A word of warning: don’t mistake the things I mention about these people as out of reach. You have a unique amazingness, and when you do the two things above it helps me see it and write supportive, specific recommendations.
Sample 1:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to express my enthusiastic and unreserved support of [person’s] application for admission to the College of Engineering’s Graduate Program at [school]. [Person’s] passion, drive, and talent as a learner set him apart from his peers. I am certain that he will be successful in any program which values self-determination and independent thinking.
I met [person] in my Fluids course during the summer of 2017. Mid- to upper-level courses like Fluids represent a unique challenge in the compressed timeline of a 6-week summer course. [Person] demonstrated a grit and ability to learn complex topics quickly, positioning him near the top of a class which was filled with talented students. He engaged with the creative assignments in the course, which included a group project and a weekly blogging assignment. He used these two avenues to express his creativity and explore a number of topics that ignited his passion.
In addition to his technical acumen, [person] is an excellent leader – capable of building consensus among a team, breaking a large project down into manageable tasks, and motivating disengaged teammates. He demonstrated these abilities during his Senior Design project, which involved a blend of computational modeling and physical prototyping. The presentations and written reports that this group produced were of exemplary quality, and having worked with closely with the team I can say that [person] drove this work.
I have no doubt that [person] expressed his passion for leading social change in his other application materials. However, I would like to offer this as perhaps his greatest strength. [Person] and I have spent countless hours discussing the types of impact he hopes to have, and the motivation that these goals give him to gain the engineering skills found in a graduate education. He has the capability, but he also has the drive to see it through.
I’d like to close this letter as I began, with an unreserved recommendation for [person’s] admission to this program. He is an independent thinker who will be successful in his courses, but he’s also extremely coachable and able to take constructive feedback and incorporate it into his daily practice.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak well of this talented individual. He’s going to make a tremendous impact in this world, and I am certain that the education he’ll receive in your program will serve as a launching-off point. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you wish to discuss this exceptional person further.
Sincerely,
Sample 2:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to express my enthusiastic support of [person’s] application for the [Organization’s] Summer Internship Program. I’ve known [person] since January 2018, and have seen her dedication to studies along with her commitment to exploration which I believe position her as an outstanding candidate. I rarely give an unqualified recommendation, but [person] deserves one!
[Person] took my Introduction to Engineering Problem Solving course in the spring 2018 semester. In a course of 244 students, [person] stood out at the top. The class itself was designed to promote independent work along with a strong teamwork component. Students who were self-motivated excelled, while those who needed improvement in the areas of time management, breaking large projects into smaller tasks, and self-starting tended to struggle. [Person] excelled in these areas – and rose as a leader in her project group.
The course encouraged students to identify real-world problems which could be solved using software (the class involved developing smart phone apps). [Person’s] motivation was demonstrated when she appeared at my office after the FIRST DAY OF CLASS, project in mind. She’d identified an area that she believed was full of opportunity. Next, she reached out after a few weeks to show me the work she had done to refine her idea. She had interviewed potential customers, summarized her findings, and even created customer narratives to describe the types of people who would use her app. None of these tasks were assigned in the course – she simply did them because she was motivated to create something meaningful.
One of the most exciting things is that she continues to work on the app project, long after the course ended. She’s learned a lot, and also pulled together resources to support her efforts. She has since continued developing her technical acumen and is performing near the top of the class in my Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics course.
I believe that this experience is not an isolated event: [Person] is a self-starter who, when faced with a new situation beyond her experience creates a plan and executes. I rate the relevant skills for creative engineering work at the highest level – especially her ability to learn about a new topic on her own, figure out how it works and what others are doing, and then innovate.
Thank you for the opportunity to recommend this talented student. I look forward to hearing of her many successes, including at the [Organization’s] Summer Internship Program. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you wish to discuss this talented student in greater detail.
Sincerely,
Conclusion
You are unique, and uniquely talented. The trick is to find the places which need your particular brand of amazing, and then to find the people who can best support you in the pursuit of a position. I am honored to recommend my students, and thrilled to hear of their successes. The most important thing you can do in this area is to make a connection with the faculty you identify with, because we do get a large number of requests. The better we know you, the easier it is to write flattering (and honest) recommendations for you.
