How to Get Great Letters of Recommendation

Professors have more demands on their time than you can imagine. In order to permit a professor sufficient time to plan to write you a strong letter, you should ideally give them at least 4 weeks advance notice.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ask if that much time does not remain before your deadline. The Scholarship Office encourages students to ask for any letter that they might need (all they can say is no).

However, if you are planning applications, as you should be, then make sure you ask for letters at least 4 weeks in advance. The more time you give a professor, the stronger the letter is likely to be.

2) Be Strategic When You Choose Letter Writers

Ask yourself—who is in a position to write you a strong letter of recommendation?

Who has the most familiarity with your intellectual ability, your scientific and/or writing skills, your ability to lead and effectively complete projects, your degree of promise for the career path you’ve chosen.

3) How Well Must a Letter Writer Know Me?

Most students are aware that some professors are in a better position than others to write them a strong letter, but many students are confused about what kind of knowledge makes the letter strong.

It is definitely true that getting to know faculty members and developing a strong working rapport with them will benefit any student when it comes time to ask for letters. However, you don’t need to have had lunch with the professor or played chess with the professor in order for them to have the knowledge about your merit as a scholar/researcher/leader that they need to write a strong letter.

We recommend that students look over their transcripts and highlight courses in which they either earned high grades or managed to get to know the professor. Then ask yourself a series of questions. The closer you have worked with professor on academic pursuits, the better.

Did you either stand out in class with your verbal participation, or by setting the curve or earning one of the highest grades? Did you work in the professor’s lab or collaborate on some project? Did you take more than one course and earn high grades in both? Did you earn an A+?

If it so happens that you have developed a strong personal rapport with a professor, that’s great! You should definitely ask that professor for a letter. Because they like you as a person, they are even more inclined to write you a generous letter. But if you don’t know your professors personally, that’s okay, too, as long as you were a good student and you’ve done research or other work for them that gives them the material they need to make glowing remarks about you.

4) Prepare Your Letter Writer

You must make it as easy as possible for a professor to write you a strong letter. “Winning” letters of recommendation are crucial to your application because they make specific, distinguishing remarks about your academic performance and potential. This type of letter can make your application stand out in a large stack of competitive files.

You should prepare a package of materials for each letter writer, including the following things:

A) A letter of introduction

Explain exactly what you want them to do, with specific instructions about how to submit each letter, the destination of each (if they must be mailed, consider including self-addressed, stamped envelopes), and the deadline for each

B) A copy of your unofficial transcript

This is so the professor can see the range of your coursework, that you have consistently performed high, and that you have made the Dean’s List and/or the Chancellor’s List at UCR. Remember, the more material that you give them to make glowing remarks about you, the better.

The transcript will help the letter writer quantify your caliber as a student, which can lead to a statement such as: you are in the top 1% of students, top 5% of students, the best student in recent years, in their career, etc. This type of remark goes a long way to distinguish your record.

If you don’t think you can get remarks this strong, that’s okay, but you will still need need specific remarks, and you get those from C and D below.

C) Your résumé

you should work with the Scholarship Coordinator or another to revise your résumé to ensure that includes all of your academic, leadership, and service-related distinctions. Students often leave off impressive items. Presenting this to your letter writers helps them get a complete composite of your accomplishments and the range of your pursuits while in college. It may help them speak to some of the questions that are being asked of them on forms, like your leadership ability and your commitment to community.

D) Your research proposal

Many applications will ask the letter writer to attest to your ability to carry out the research you have proposed in your application. The writer cannot give the ringing endorsement that you need if they haven’t even seen the proposal. It’s best if they can speak about it in specific, so do your best to get a draft of it done early so you can show it to letter writers in advance.

E) Copies of your graded papers, lab reports, or assignments

Don’t give back the originals! Come to the Scholarship Office in 2316 Olmsted Hall and let us make copies for you to include in your packages. These are important because the letter writer can look back at his or her own remarks about your work. Especially if some time has passed, this will remind them of what they thought was great about your work, and enable them to write about it in specific in the letter of recommendation.

For assistance preparing these packages, contact the Scholarship Office:

Alicia Chavez
2316 Olmsted Hall
(951) 827-5323
alicia.chavez@ucr.edu