Recommendation or reference letters are often required for higher education or job opportunities. If the teachers are provided with correct information about ourselves, like student ID, courses, semesters, etc. where they had the opportunity to observe or supervise us, it would be convenient for them to help us by providing a Letter of Recommendation (LoR). A teacher may have taught multiple students having the same full name! It is recommended to approach teachers at least one month before it is needed, sometimes even more.
This blog post is not just a heads-up for the related processes but also tries to provide a guideline for the students. It may be helpful for us so that we can start preparation in our freshmen years. Hopefully, by the time we graduate, we can confidently approach a teacher or supervisor as a potential recommender, insha'Allah!
Some teachers may prefer supplementary information as email attachments. Others may prefer that everything be in an online cloud drive folder, which is recommended. It could be Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. However, in addition to remembering to provide view access, we should ensure that it is downloadable by the teacher without requiring a login. We can verify this through the incognito or private browsing mode of the web browser.
The folder should be well organized. An example of such file organization or folder structure could be like this:
File 1) Transcript/grade sheet in PDF (ensure good picture quality)
File 2) Detailed CV with photo in a DOC or PDF file
File 3) Our official full name and other student Information in an editable DOC. This file may contain different segments, as suggested below:
3A) All of our university student ID numbers and email addresses, in case we had multiple student IDs and used multiple email addresses.
3B) Since which calendar year, semester, and month, the teacher or supervisor knows the student or supervisee?
3C) In which semesters er took which courses with the teacher, received what grade, and what was the teacher's role (theory or lab or research/project/RA/TA supervision/advisor)? How did we do in those courses, including teamwork, challenges, strengths, recovery, etc.?
3D) Highlight your study, teaching, and research related interactions/skills.
3E) A short summary of all co or extracurricular or voluntary/self-learning activities that we attended, participated in, organized, volunteered, etc. If we are from the Computer Science (CS) department or applying for CS or IT-related opportunities, it might be helpful to highlight the Computer Club, the CS department, or science and technology-related events.
3F) Mention our skills in leadership and networking, personal, intellectual, and interpersonal qualities, communication skills, academic and research abilities, our special administrative abilities, ability to complete a demanding academic program, time management skills, ability to handle pressure, failure, or rejection, etc. Provide examples where we demonstrated those skills and abilities as proof, where appropriate. Have we ever struggled in life? How have we managed or recovered, or are doing so?
3B) Since which calendar year, semester, and month, the teacher or supervisor knows the student or supervisee?
3C) In which semesters er took which courses with the teacher, received what grade, and what was the teacher's role (theory or lab or research/project/RA/TA supervision/advisor)? How did we do in those courses, including teamwork, challenges, strengths, recovery, etc.?
3D) Highlight your study, teaching, and research related interactions/skills.
3E) A short summary of all co or extracurricular or voluntary/self-learning activities that we attended, participated in, organized, volunteered, etc. If we are from the Computer Science (CS) department or applying for CS or IT-related opportunities, it might be helpful to highlight the Computer Club, the CS department, or science and technology-related events.
3F) Mention our skills in leadership and networking, personal, intellectual, and interpersonal qualities, communication skills, academic and research abilities, our special administrative abilities, ability to complete a demanding academic program, time management skills, ability to handle pressure, failure, or rejection, etc. Provide examples where we demonstrated those skills and abilities as proof, where appropriate. Have we ever struggled in life? How have we managed or recovered, or are doing so?
File 4) Institution Details:
In case we are applying to multiple institutions, for every university and program that we are applying to, we may wish to prepare and include a table or link to a spreadsheet containing the following columns:
- Name of the university and campus
- University and campus URLs
- What is our applicant or student ID?
- Session name
- Degree type (MS/PhD or B.Sc. in the case of credit transfer)
- Department and program name,
- Application Deadline
- Recommendation Letter Deadline
- Link to the application portal
- Sent the recommendation letter request to the teacher? (yes/no)
- Date we sent the recommendation letter request, or when should the teacher expect the email?
- Sender university email domain (e.g.. gradadmission.mars.standford.edu)
- Completed application from our side? (yes/no)
- Submission procedure (they will email the teacher directly or we as a student will upload PDF)
- Why do we think we are a match for that university? (It is recommended to apply to universities matching your profile, as well as higher level to be ambitious and lower level to be failsafe)
File 5) It might be helpful for the teacher if we could include an editable draft DOC containing a list of facts about your past interactions and exposure for the purpose of the detailed letter of recommendation (LOR) or job reference. Do NOT write/draft the letter itself. Boasting or inaccurate details might hamper negatively. Admissions committees are experienced enough to find inconsistencies in an applicant's profile. Moreover, admission is not everything; surviving a demanding program requires a lot of background preparation as well. So, prepare early in real life, not just in the letter. Universities or institutions would NOT like drafts prepared by applicants or any involvement during the submission process. So, let us not expect our teacher to cover all the areas mentioned in the list or even take help from our list at all. It could simply be skimmed by teachers' to cross-check if anything went missing in their version. While preparing this list, do NOT blindly copy LOR from others or internet samples to avoid adverse effects. Take ideas, learn the structure, but draft your own unique one to make it stand out to the teacher. If we are sending the draft to multiple teachers, it should be separate and unique for each teacher, personalizing it to the point how we interacted with that teacher and demonstrated performance or stood out. Ideally, it should be unique for each university as well. Highlight how we would be a match (good fit) for the selected universities and the selected programs/degrees. Additionally, may wish to highlight how we, our country, the university, the country it is located in, all would be mutually benefited in the short and the long.
Some examples of LOR:
- http://gsi.berkeley.edu/media/sample-recommendation-letter.pdf
- http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~plafourc/DIVERS/sample_letter.pdf
- https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/documents/equality/HHMI_WriteReference.pdf
- https://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472031887-appendixg.pdf
- https://www.pace.edu/career-services/sites/pace.edu.career-services/files/PDF/WritingLettersofRecommendation.pdf
Examples of job references or recommendations:
File 6) In an editable DOC, include a draft of our Statement of Purpose (SOP) or Statement of Interest (SOI), Letter of Intent (LoI), job cover letter, or motivation letter.
SOP:
Cover Letter or Job Motivation Letter:
For additional information,
We might wish to create one folder containing certifications, international exam results, independent projects or even how others who are studying/studied at the same university inspired you. If we wish to add additional information, we can create additional folders. So, our Google Drive will contain six files and one or more folders mentioned above.
For filling out the online forms, we might need the following details:
- Full name of the teacher, or the first name and last name separately.
- Current designation (please avoid remembering and look up the latest one)
- Official email address.
- Office Phone number
- Personal cell or mobile number
- Mailing address with post code and country
It might be helpful to notify and regularly follow up with the teacher using the email thread after applying to each university or company until we receive each one. Perhaps gentle reminders once a week followed by an in-person visit to confirm if anything else is needed.
No matter how curious we are to know what the teacher wrote about us, we may wish to waive our right to view the recommendation letter during your application. It may improve the quality of your application. Some institutions may not consider “not waiving the right to view or FERPA rights” positively as discussed by:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/zqrttn/is_not_waiving_ferpa_a_serious_issue/
- https://appsupport.commonapp.org/applicantsupport/s/article/What-is-the-FERPA-Waiver
- https://www.ivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/admissions-process/waiving-rights-on-the-college-application/
- https://blog.prepscholar.com/should-you-waive-right-to-review-letters-of-recommendation
- https://scholarships360.org/college-admissions/should-i-waive-ferpa/
In addition to using the same email thread instead of composing new emails every time, following some email etiquette may make a difference. For details, please read:
http://annajiat.blogspot.com/2021/07/dos-and-donts-of-academic-emails.html
While writing the drafts or even the email, please review our writing style with different tools. Some are listed at https://sites.google.com/site/annajiat/writing-style
Please see if we can try to notify the teacher of each job or university acceptance letter that you receive via this email thread. Teachers will be glad to see that their contribution made a difference in your life.
What questions do we have? Let's not hesitate. Email our teacher right away be it for queries or letter!
May Allah bless everyone with success and ease.
Jazak Allahu Khayran
