Will Your Letters of Recommendation Impress Admissions?

Letters of recommendation play a vital role in a student’s successful college or grad school admissions journey. Small yet mighty, these letters provide insight on a student’s academic strengths and potential contributions to their campus or program. When asked what he’s looking for when reviewing a letter of recommendation as part of graduate admissions at Brown University, Dr. Michael Satlow revealed he looks for three things: confirmation, context and insight.

Let’s break down how you can ensure your letters of recommendation offer:

Clear confirmation that you’re a stellar candidate.
Strong context that backs what you’ve done so far.
Keen insight into who you are as a person, as a scholar and as a unique contributor to their program.

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LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION: COLLEGE APPLCANTS

At Top Tier Admissions, we encourage our students to ask two junior year teachers to write their recommendations before leaving for summer vacation. It’s a courtesy to give teachers the summer months to write their letters of recommendation; August and September are prime writing times.

HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

1. Excel in class. Ideally, you actively and frequently participate in class, are responsive, earn top grades in the class, and commit to extra learning and engagement outside of class time.

2. Make sure your teacher is enthusiastic about you and your plans for college. Engage in a dialogue –tell them WHY you want to go to college, where you’d like to study, what you’d like to study, how you plan to excel, etc. Note: This is not a 2-minute conversation before or after class on a Friday. Build a relationship with your teachers!

3. Respect their time. Understand that most teachers balance between 10-50 requests for letters of recommendations every spring and they aren’t obligated to say yes to every request.

4. When you request your letters of recommendation, have typed, organized, proofed supplementary materials prepared and ready to give to your teacher IF they agree.

A condensed activity sheet, resume, and/or list of awards, etc. Include your contact information.
Letter of recommendation forms/websites/addresses/deadlines for each college.
A list of the colleges you are targeting, your academic focus, your plan for approaching the admissions process (early decision, types of colleges), etc.

TTA Top Tip: Engage with your teacher during this process. Take the time to ask them about their own college and graduate school pathways. Most educators like chatting about themselves and their pathway to teaching, so use that to your advantage. Every teacher you have went to college and grad school—ask them where, what major, what city. Gain not just their letter, but their buy-in.

LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION: GRADUATE SCHOOL

For college students or working professionals applying to graduate school, law school, medical school or MBA programs, the request for letters of recommendation is similar to the above, with a few tweaks.

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ENROLL NOW

In recent years, there’s been a growing trend where faculty members or supervisors request a “pre-written letter” written by the student that they can simply e-sign. Ideally, as the applicant you don’t even see this letter but if you ARE told you must write your own or you’ve secured someone to write your recommendation letter for you, remember the goal of the grad school recommendation letter: highlighting your key skills, leadership traits, projects and research opportunities led, and unique qualifications held.

LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION: CLOSING THE LOOP

Whether you’re a college applicant or a grad school applicant, writing a letter of recommendation is a time-consuming personal favor to you, so it warrants a handwritten thank you note. Deliver this after your applications are submitted, with a promise to follow up with your results.

Then, send a second thank you email to your recommender(s) when you accept an offer of admission. Show your gratitude for what they did to help you get to this point and allow them to share in your celebration!

TTA Top Tip: My students typically save the offer of admissions email from the college or graduate school and share that along with a sincere thank you to their recommenders.

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Dr. Kristen Willmott

Senior Private Counselor & Graduate School Admissions Director at Top Tier Admissions

A former Admissions and Financial Aid Officer for Harvard University, Kristen brings over 20 years of experience working in higher education. Kristen has a PhD in Education with a concentration in Higher Education, an M.S. in Business Management, and a B.A. in English. Her PhD dissertation won the International Susan B. Anthony Institute Dissertation Award. In her role at Harvard, Kristen oversaw admissions for 17 departments and was also responsible for distributing funding from the National Science Foundation Fellowships Program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Student Research Fellowship Program. Kristen previously worked as a substitute K-12 teacher, as adjunct faculty at three universities in MA and NY, and as an educational researcher. Kristen recently published a book (Information Age Publishing) on faculty and tenure in academia which Stanford University Libraries featured on their recommended "Gender and Education Books" list. Kristen has written for Entrepreneur Magazine and published in journals such as the Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs and the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences Journal. Kristen has also been featured in and interviewed for publications such as U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Examiner, Yahoo News, and Business Insider.

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