Graduate letter of recommendation. How to write a letter of recommendation to a student? Letter of recommendation to student (samples)

[Updated 09/2018]

What is important for the admissions committee of a foreign university when your grades, motivation letter and CV already reviewed? What will give them additional information about you to make an admission decision?

At this stage, the decisive role is often played letter of recommendation- a document that is not inferior in importance to a motivation letter, and, other things being equal, can tilt in your favor if the recommendation is correctly presented.

In my considerable experience of working with applicants for master’s programs abroad, I realized that in Russian universities there is no culture of preparing for students letter of recommendation or reference. In most cases, the teacher simply offers to sign the letter written by the student. And the student, who previously had to prepare a whole package of documents, must also write letters of recommendation for himself. And very few manage to avoid repetition, cliched phrases and too vague characteristics (because all the best goes into the motivation letter!).

Wherein, in the West, letters of recommendation are treated with great respect- both when writing (the teacher you contact for a recommendation will take it as an honor and will be ready to take the time to prepare a solid letter), and when reviewing (in addition to your personal presentation of your successes and achievements, it is important for the commission to receive an assessment from the outside) .

How important is a letter of recommendation in a set of documents?
For the admissions committee, recommendations are additional information about the applicant, which can confirm or supplement data from other documents. And this information is very important, because it is provided on behalf of those who saw you “at work.”

To help those who are currently enrolling in a master's program abroad, I have prepared a number of tips on drawing up recommendations. Use them and you can prepare a solid document that will complement your application for admission!

1. Selection of referents

Behind the scenes, the higher status from the referent, the more solid the letter of recommendation will look. The admissions committee of any university or scholarship fund will definitely pay attention to this.
But at the same time, a more important criterion is that How well does the referee really know you? and can assess your potential. If you choose between the dean of the faculty who did not teach you a single course, and the teacher who taught you a number of disciplines throughout all your years of study, choose the second one. Such a letter of recommendation looks much more respectable in the eyes of the admissions committee.
And of course, try to choose teacher in one of your key subjects or in the specialty for which you are going to enroll. Eg, common mistake applicants - take a recommendation from an English teacher. This is fundamentally wrong, since the commission wants to know not how well you have learned English (for this there is official confirmation through international language exams), but how much you have knowledge, skills and abilities relevant to the program. The only case when it is relevant to choose a language teacher as a referent is if you are enrolling in philology or a similar specialty.

As a result, if, when choosing a referent, you manage to combine all 3 conditions, as described above, then the letter of recommendation will be the most advantageous.

2.1 How to prepare text easier

If the teacher told you to prepare the text yourself, then the easiest way for you to do this will be to collecting opinions from outside. Even your classmates, friends, colleagues can help you with this - those who know you and can appreciate your potential and your personal qualities. Ask what, in their opinion, are your strengths, what would they emphasize when characterizing you? If it’s uncomfortable to ask this question directly, then do a small online survey (iQuestionnaire, SurveyMonkey, etc.) and simply send it to your friends, explaining why you need it. Once you have collected several opinions, you will already have a basis for your letters of recommendation.
Otherwise, if you rely only on your perception, then it will be difficult for you to prepare both your motivation letter and two recommendations at once. Even if this is successful, you can almost always understand that all documents were written by one person.

Make a plan, in which you outline what details you will include in each of the letters: in motivational essay, in both letters of recommendation. Of course, some information will overlap in all documents, but since it is assumed that all 3 letters were prepared from different persons, accordingly, the angles, method of presentation, expressions, etc. should be different. Having overall plan It will be easier for you to understand what to include in your own motivation letter and what to leave for each of the recommendations.

- Specific examples
A very common mistake in recommendations is to list all possible laudatory characteristics, separated by commas, without giving any examples (we very often see the following formulation in letters: “the student has proven himself to be capable, talented, hardworking, thoughtful, with high potential and leadership qualities”). This is the “dead” weight of the letter, which has almost no value in the eyes of the commission.
To bring these characteristics to life, it is necessary to bring specific examples in confirmation. If it is written that the student is goal-oriented, this needs to be explained; if the teacher believes that the student has leadership skills, needs to be proven; If he recommends continuing your studies in a master's program, you need to clarify why. Examples make the characteristics truly credible.

- Information about successes, achievements relevant to the selected program
The volume of a letter of recommendation is usually 1 page of text, so there is simply no room to list all the merits, successes and characteristics. That is why the text of the letter must be tailored to the requirements of the program.
If, for example, you are enrolling in finance, then special emphasis should be placed on analytical skills, the ability to work with numbers and analyze a large amount of information. Usually, the websites of the programs themselves indicate which qualities are primarily important for applicants.

- Characteristics of professional and personal qualities
The fact that you have well-developed analytical skills, you can absorb a huge amount of professional material, and have an excellent command of research methods, etc. - this is what interests the admissions committee in the first place. But, having received this information, the commission members want to know what kind of person is coming to them. This is a potential future representative and face of our university - how well does he fit our culture, the image of our university? Therefore, in letters of recommendation it is very important to indicate personal qualities - how well you can work in a team or individually, how developed are your communication skills... This information should logically complement your profile, and of course, should correlate with what you wrote in your motivation letter.

3.1 Allow more time than expected to prepare recommendations
(very often you will need to additionally either agree on the text with the teacher, who may be away, or wait for a signature and seal in the dean’s office for a whole week)

3.2 Check in advance in what form letters of recommendation are required to be provided to all universities where you are applying:
- in a free format or in a special form of the university of your choice,
— is it enough to upload a scan of the recommendations online or do you need to send the originals by mail,
— Is it possible to upload letters yourself or can only the teacher do this through his official university email.
It is better to find out all this in advance in order to immediately understand how many sets of documents to prepare and in what format, and agree with the teachers accordingly.

3.3 After you have fully prepared all the main documents (motivation letter, CV and recommendations), check how logically all the information is connected, whether there are any discrepancies or excessive repetition. This is a ‘reality check’ before sending a set of documents.

Comprehensive information on each document for admission (motivation letter, essay for business schools, letters of recommendation, resume), on how to choose a program and correctly prepare the entire application - in an online course from our experts

There are several cases when a student may need a letter of recommendation. Firstly, it is needed to complete an internship. Your supervisor or supervisor of the department writes it on a special form, outlining your achievements and personal qualities. Secondly, such letters are provided by universities that are involved in the placement of graduates after graduation. Let's look at the main features of a student letter of recommendation.

What do they indicate in the letter?

Deputy Vice-Rector for educational work, Doctor of Economics, Professor Platonov A.V. (date, signature)

2.
Student Vlasova M.N. studied at the Department of Higher Mathematics of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Moscow state university. During her studies, she actively participated in seminars, conferences and round tables. Prepared three reports and five articles on the topic thesis. On a personal level, she showed herself exclusively with positive side: executive, disciplined, takes any work she does seriously.
I consider it necessary to credit Vlasov M.N. to the department staff as a junior researcher or engineer.

Head of the Department of Higher Mathematics, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor K.G. Zhdanov

When a student's years of study are coming to an end, and receiving a diploma is already close, it is worth thinking about finding a decent job. A letter of recommendation from a teacher or other representative of the educational institution where the student studied will help speed up employment. A sample letter of recommendation can be downloaded below.

Employers are often afraid to hire young specialist without work experience, a student who does not apply their knowledge in practice. Only a diploma of education can tell about his qualities. Recommendations from the university will help a potential employer more clearly imagine professional quality and skills of the candidate for the vacant position.

A letter of recommendation from a teacher can also be useful to a student when transferring to another educational institution. Traditionally, this paper is popular when transferring to foreign institutions.

Recommendations are made by a person who is able to make an objective description of the student, give an analysis of his inclinations, abilities and prescribe recommendations in a specific direction, for example, a teacher, a supervisor.

The letter is a kind of characteristic, written in free form and reflecting the main qualities of a potential employee or student.

The document is drawn up in the form business letter. The address format is “student”, “you”, “colleague”. Artistic expressions are not used. Drawing up a letter on company letterhead will be an additional advantage for the recommended one.

The most difficult moment is right choice recommender. For a student, you should choose not just a teacher who gives a course of lectures and has seen him several times, but a person with whom the long work, and able to provide complete information about the student.

As a rule, you should start with the title. Next, the period of acquaintance between the recommender and the recommended is indicated.

• Full Name;
• place and period of study;
• acquired specialty;
• moral qualities;
• personal achievements (participation in olympiads, competitions, competitions);
• Availability of honorary diplomas received during studies.

Educational establishments As a rule, they require 1-2-3 letters of recommendation from students. Letters should contain contact information of the teacher, fellow student, or employer who is writing the letter, so that admissions officers can contact him and clarify some details if necessary.

It is important that the person writing the recommendation not only knows the applicant, but also teaches exactly the subject that directly relates to the chosen specialty. For example, if an application is submitted for a specialty in chemistry, and a recommendation is from a physical education teacher, then such a recommendation will have absolutely no value, since it will not be able to show the student’s knowledge in the chosen specialty.

It is better to write recommendations immediately to English language, but if this is not possible, then the translation from Russian should be done by a specialist, indicating his personal and contact information and with the seal of his institution. provide professional translation services.

It is better that all information provided is reliable, and the characteristics are supported by examples. Each letter of recommendation must complement the next one, then when reading them, the admissions committee will have the most favorable opinion about the student.

Practice online recommendations. They work in such a way that after reading letters of recommendation to the people who wrote them, links to a page with a ready-made login and password are sent to their email address, where they can fill out another recommendation. After logging in, they will be offered a two or three page form on which they will need to rate the merits of the contestant on a scale.

Example of a letter of recommendation from an employer for a student (in English)

RECOMMENDATION LETTER

This letter is issued to Student Name to confirm, that she has completed training practical work from 1/07/2013 until 25/08/2013 at Consulting Center Ltd in Moscow. Student Name has performed a wide range of assistant duties including practical services for organizations and individual entrepreneurs, looking for developing of their businesses. During her time spent with us, she gained experience in practical consulting activities, she has helped to conduct audit of management systems and learned methodologies of conducting analysis.

Student Name has done an excellent job and we wish her a good luck with her application and want to thank her once again for her contribution.

An example of a letter of recommendation from a mathematics teacher for a schoolchild (in Russian)

During two years of studying mathematics,Student Name He showed himself to be a conscientious and active student, he diligently completed his assignments. Receives with interest new material. I rate his knowledge as good to excellent today. Always strives for best results and working on bugs. Student Name He is a purposeful boy, I see in him a certain potential and interest in the subject. It was a pleasure to work with him and I wish Student Name all the best for the rest of your life.

An example of an excellent, detailed letter of recommendation from a teaching professor for a student (in English)

RECOMMENDATION LETTER

Dear Admission Committee,

I am writing this letter to give my highest possible recommendation for Student Name. I know Student Name through his work in my laboratory. Student Name first approached me two years ago about the possibility of practice in my laboratory for a summer. At our first meeting I described the general outline of the project he might work on. He asked good questions and appeared intelligent. He then went to the library and found many papers on the subject and read them carefully. He did this independently - I did not ask him to do this. I learned that he had done this at our second meeting, and I was quite impressed at his motivation and independence. Student Name obtained funding from a program at our University to work in the lab for a summer. During that summer, Student Name demonstrated the ability to work independently with great creativity and enthusiasm. He also put in many long hours. He worked as hard as my best graduate student. I teamed Student Name with another student to work on a project involving testing of patients having shoulder pathology. The project included recruiting patients, testing patients using biomechanical instrumentation, and data analysis. Student Name excelled in each one of these areas. His interpersonal skills were excellent. He “schmoozed” the clinical staff to facilitate recruitment of patients. He tested the patients professionally. Sometimes this testing required long days due to the extensive setup and calibration of equipment each morning before the clinic began operation. He stayed after the testing sessions to back up data, clean up the area, and start data processing programs to run overnight. He was usually the first one in the lab in the morning and the last to leave in the evening. The other student working with Student Name commented favorably about working with Student Name. He said Student Name got along well with everyone, pulled his own weight on the project, and had the ability to compromise with other team members. One incident illustrates this point. There is a staff member in an adjoining lab that is a rather prickly person who has had many problems with students in the past. Student Name had to interact with this staff person in order to get his project done. Student Name was able to find a common interest with this staff person, which was folk dancing, and build a rapport based on this mutual interest. At the end of the summer the staff person noted what a pleasure it was to work with Student Name. Student Name also volunteered to help others in the lab. One of the other students was doing a project on knee biomechanics, and it required harvesting knees from the University’s morgue. Student Name volunteered to help harvest the knees on several occasions. I asked the graduate student in charge of that project about Student Name, and he commented that Student Name has excellent dissection skills. I was especially taken by Student Name creative mind and independent work ethics. He continued to read the literature independently and generate interesting hypotheses. We met about every other week, and at several meetings he presented papers and information that was new to me. By the end of the summer he was introducing me to scientific papers that were directly relevant to his study that I hadn’t seen before. Student Name also showed remarkable problem solving ability. Our instrumentation system began having problems midway through his experiment. Student Name spent a full weekend troubleshooting the system. He discovered there was a loose wire in the A/D connection box. Student Name is going to be the first author on a manuscript that he is preparing for publication. He followed through on his promise to write the manuscript during his M2 year. Moreover, he handled the manuscript revisions and saw the manuscript through to publication. This illustrates his high level of motivation. In summary, Student Name is clearly the best student I have worked with in the last 10 years. I would very much like him match to our residency program. Even though I hope he stays here, I think he would be an outstanding asset to your program. I give him my highest recommendation.

Sincerely, Professor Name (Signature)

Example of a letter of recommendation for a university (in English) from a student

RECOMMENDATION LETTER

To Whom it May Concern

It is my pleasure to recommend Student Name for admission to at. I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley. I came to know Student Name when I was her Graduate Student Instructor for Philosophy (Ethical Relativism). The course comprised. Student Name distinguished herself by submitting an exceptionally well researched and interesting project on ethical practices in ancient Greece. I would rank her in the top 2% of students that I have taught in the past five years in respect of her writing ability and research skills. Overall, Student Name is highly intelligent and has good analytical skills. Her project on ethical practices in ancient Greece demonstrated her ability to come a detailed understanding of the ethical practices of another, very different, culture, and to analyze the consequences of those practices for contemporary ethical theories. She gave a particularly interesting discussion of the difficult practice of infanticide, and showed both sensitivity and detachment when discussing its ethical consequences. Her overall intelligence is also reflected in her grades for the course, which were by far the best in the class. Student Name has excellent communication skills. Her written work is both clear and concise, as well as interesting to read. She demonstrated her oral articulateness in the discussion sections that were an integral part of the course. Each discussion section focused on a particular ethical dilemma. Students were required to analyze morally problematic situations, and to develop and argue for their own ethical views with regard to the issue in question. Student Name was highly proficient in applying the course material in analyzing the problem situations. She always explained her views very concisely and gave supporting arguments that were both clear and persuasive. Student Name also demonstrated good teamwork skills in group assignments. At a personal level, Student Name is a well disciplined, industrial student with a pleasant personality. She went well beyond the course requirements in the quantity and quality of her project, putting in a lot of extra research and attending office hours every week. Throughout the course, Student Name demonstrated great perseverance and initiative. Not only was she interested in and motivated to learn the material, but she also put great work into assimilating it to her own experience and developing her own ideas about each ethical topic that we discussed. Student Name is unquestionably an exceptional candidate for graduate study in Ethics. Student Name work in Philosophy suggests that she would greatly benefit from the opportunities for intellectual development provided by a sustained period of graduate study. She has proven herself to have the perseverance, initiative, and intellectual creativity necessary to complete an advanced graduate degree. I would therefore highly recommend Student Name . If her performance in my class is a good indication of how she would perform as a graduate student, she would be an extremely positive asset to your program. If I can be of any further assistance, or provide you with any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

This document may be needed in the following cases: for an internship, admission to graduate school, a foreign university, etc.

It starts with the title of the document.

Then it is indicated for how long and in what capacity the recommender knew the student.

After this comes the assessment strengths, the student’s abilities, his successes during his studies. Here you can talk about his participation in Olympiads, various competitions, competitions, awards, certificates, places of honor, etc.

MTUCI student Inna Vladislavovna Anokhina

Student Anokhina I.V. graduated in 2013 from the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics, Department of Production Organization, Audit and Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Management.

During her studies, she established herself as a capable student, striving to constantly improve her level of knowledge. He is a laureate of the competition “Best student of Moscow technical university communications and computer science". She enjoyed respect and authority among the team. She actively participated in the social and cultural life of the university. Has a non-conflict nature, differs high level responsibility and hard work.

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