LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

What are recommendations for?

Recommendations are meant to provide a third-person perspective on you as an individual. While your grades/scores are supposed to represent your intellectual capabilities and your essay allows you the opportunity of presenting your point of view, recommendations by those who know you give the university an independent assessment of your skills and qualities.

Unfortunately, a number of applications ask for elaborate recommendations that are frequently a burden on faculty and superiors. It's not uncommon to hear of faculty asking the student to write his/her own recommendation and then editing them for effect. This is even more likely to be the case in a work environment, where few would like to waste their time answering often absurd questions. 

In response to requests from visitors to our site, we've decided to provide some advice on how to make the most of your recommendations.

Here's what we, ..uh, recommend...

Please note that by no means do we endorse the practice of applicants writing their own recommendations. It put many students in a position they'd rather not be in. But the sad fact is that many applicants have little say in this matter. 

And even if you are fortunate enough to have people around you who are prepared to write up their own recommendations for you, there are certain aspects you could try to keep in mind. Hence this section should be useful for all applicants.
 

Selecting the right people

How to go about doing it

Writing the recommendation yourself