Reference Letters
I am honored to be asked for reference letters. The more experience I have had with someone who wants letters, the better. For undergraduates, this means having completed two classes at the 200/300 level or one class at the 400 level. For graduates this means having completed one class or a collegial working relationship on some other kind of research project.
You want letters from professors in whose courses you did very well. If you did significantly better in other professors' courses, you should consider soliciting letters from them first. For admission to graduate programs, you will ordinarily need letters from professors in whose courses you received a B+ / 3.5 or better. The better the grade you earned in my course(s), the stronger the letter I can write.
For me to prepare a reference letter I need the following items seven days before the deadline:
- A description of what you are applying for.
- The full name and address of a person I should send the letter to. If you know the name and title of the person to send the letter to, addressing your letter to that person will show that you've done your research, and your letter will be much more warmly received than if it is just addressed "To Whom It May Concern" or "Dear Committee Members".
- A curriculum vita.
- A 500-word draft letter that you write as if you were writing the reference letter for yourself. I won’t use all of your words, but this will help me see what you want emphasized in your letter. There is a rough relationship between the strategic thinking you put into this draft letter and the quality of the letter I produce. Make the first paragraph about how we met, how long we've known each other, and what class or research project we did together. Make the second paragraph a more detailed discussion of the class or research project we did together: the topics we covered, research questions we addressed, particularly challenging assignments, theories discussed, methods we used, or important findings and conclusions. Use the third paragraph to highlight your particular contribution to the class, your role in the project, or the important findings and conclusions you in particular made in your essays. Use the fourth and final paragraph to highlight a few things that might be particularly relevant to the person receiving the letter, but only cover aspects of your life and experience that I would reasonably know about.
- If there any forms to be filled out, you must fill them out. I will not fill out forms with blank or incomplete personal information.