What should a recommendation letter look like

Other times, your recommender will keep the letter confidential. In this case, the best thing you can do is ask a teacher who has a reputation for writing well and putting effort into her letters. If you hear someone uses a form letter for everyone and just plugs students' names in, then avoid that person at all costs!

Practically speaking, English teachers often get slammed with recommendation letter requests in the fall of senior year, because they're generally good writers. If you'd benefit from a letter from your English teacher, make sure to ask her early and talk to her about your ideas for your letter.

Ask a recommender who can write well and will put in the time and effort to craft a thoughtful, error-free letter. Ask your counselor for advice, and make your request early so your teacher's quota for rec requests doesn't fill up. If you're applying to a selective school, like in the Ivy League, another feature that can make your letter stand out is a statement of high ranking.

On the flip side, a statement of average ranking could be a dealbreaker and would best be left out. If you're applying to a selective or Ivy League school like Harvard, a statement of high ranking could stand out and impress admissions officers. Here are a few examples. Carla is without a doubt the most talented and driven student I've ever had the pleasure of teaching in my fifteen years at Roosevelt High School.

Pablo is one of the top three students I've had in my AP Calculus class in the ten years I've been teaching it. Due to her impressive determination, effort, and intellectual curiosity, Alexis has risen to the top of her class.

Statements like these are especially impressive if your teacher or counselor has been at your school for many years.

Your ranking could also get more specific, like saying you have a top "aptitude for scientific inquiry," "curiosity for solving problems," or "sophisticated analysis and understanding of literature.

Conversely, if your recommender says you're "above average" or "satisfactory," it sounds lukewarm and won't add much to your application. For a top school, a mediocre ranking like this could even sink your application to the bottom of the pile.

A statement of high ranking from an established teacher or counselor is one feature that could help make your recommendation letter great. Finally, your recommendation letter should come from a qualified person whose opinion admissions officers will take seriously.

Schools have requirements for who your recommendation letters should be from. You also should know who to ask and who not to ask. I mentioned a few times that your letters of recommendation should come from teachers or counselors who know the student well.

Readers can pick up on this pretty easily, from the depth of insight provided and how personalized your letter is. They should also come from the right people. For instance, more selective schools ask for two teacher recommendations and one school counselor recommendation. Other schools just want one teacher rec and one counselor rec. Dartmouth and Davidson are unique in that they want a recommendation from a peer. Does that mean you should ask any teacher you've ever had in high school?

Definitely not. Usually the best rec letters come from junior year teachers , because they had you in class recently and for a whole year. Another good teacher is one that had you for more than one class or advised you in an after-school club.

A freshman or sophomore year teacher would probably not be recent enough. Your recommenders will state who they are and how they know you in their introductions.

That way admissions officers know to give their opinion serious consideration. These introductions might like look this:. As Jim's 11th grade AP Chemistry teacher and academic advisor, I'm honored to provide him with this letter of recommendation to Dartmouth College. I had the pleasure of having Caitlin in my 11th grade English class and current Creative Writing class.

From the first day of class, she impressed me with her insightful comments and advanced writing skills. I'm certain that Caitlin will continue to excel academically and creatively in her future, and I highly recommend her for admission to your undergraduate program. If you feel that you don't have any teachers who know you well enough maybe your school has a huge student to teacher ratio , you might send in a supplemental recommendation from a supervisor, coach, community member, or other person who knows you well and who admissions officers will view as an official, trustworthy, and informed source.

The strongest recommendation letters for college usually come from your junior year teachers or teachers who have had you in several classes or clubs and thereby gotten to know you in more than one context. Freshman and sophomore year teachers probably aren't recent enough, and senior year teachers may not have had you in class long enough to know you well. Given that you'll likely ask junior year teachers for recommendations, go into junior year with a proactive mindset.

Participate in class, get to know your teachers, and be open about your future goals. As we draw to a close, let's review the most important features that make for a great recommendation letter for college and what you can do to get one or three! Your recommendation letter should come from a recent teacher or other source who knows you well.

Your letter should highlight your most important personal and academic strengths, as well as support them with examples. Rather than repeating your resume, it should focus on just a few key aspects of who you are as a student and person. To ensure that you get a great letter of rec, there are a few things you can do.

First, ask a teacher who supports you and knows you well. Second, don't be afraid to give them information , both in the form of a "brag sheet" full of your self-reflections and by explicitly telling them what you'd like your letter to include. This is especially effective if you're applying to a specific major, like English, and want your English teacher to talk about your insightful analyses of literature.

As long as you're thoughtful about who you ask and give some serious thought as to what you'd like your ideal letter to include , then your efforts should pay off with an impressive and memorable recommendation letter for your college application.

Now that you know what makes for a great recommendation letter, what about the flip side? What features make for a bad letter of rec? Read all about bad recommendations here. Do counselor recs differ from teacher recs at all? Read about what counselors should include in their reference letters as they support their students on the path to college. He enjoys cleverness with language—not the easy cleverness of puns but the intricate interplay of sound and meaning that make a sentence or a phase perfect.

He writes flawlessly—his natural voice is straightforward and organized and efficient. His work ethic is beyond reproach: every assignment done flawlessly, tests studied for, cello practiced, community involvement accomplished. He makes busy look easy. On the other hand, Taylor is defined by his Evangelical Protestant faith, and he very much belongs to a suburban, affluent Evangelical community.

We are a STEM magnet with a decidedly secular feel. What with one thing or another, we have more openly gay atheist boys than evangelical Christians at this school, and more kids would admit to being undocumented than being pro-life. But instead of running for it which I think he seriously considered , Taylor adapted—and the way he adapted is a testimony to his character and the key to why he will be such an important asset in an academic community.

For one thing, Taylor always brings his full intelligence and analytical ability to bear on his faith. He questions everything, and he always embraces nuance and tone. Furthermore, his analytical nature means he is able to compartmentalize and to appreciate people that are truly different than he is.

In many ways, college is traditionally the place where students like Taylor have the opportunity to learn what Taylor already knows—how to get along and work with people that are different than themselves. Taylor will be a catalyst for that process: he can move comfortably in literally any company, and he can translate between very different people—and teach them to connect to each other.

Also, he could write the paper. No one here believes him. He carries my very strongest recommendation.

Somewhere on your campus you have a professor who will be really glad you accepted Taylor. Taylor is brilliant. He can read anything—not just decode, but understand nuance and tone and context. He writes organized, effective prose.

This is one that is going to explode a few years into a true intellectual. Taylor likes to talk, but not in a large class. His essays were fantastic— Taylor at his best when he has time and space to really develop an idea. While Taylor certainly has a breadth of knowledge to draw upon, in his heart he is a deep thinker—he wants to take ideas and see how far he can go with them.

It would be easy to mistake Taylor for being a little cold. He worries he is a little cold, because it is very clear to him that he has more control over his external emotional reactions than the average teenager. Taylor is really special. I am quite fond of him, and absolutely convinced he will make meaningful contributions to the stock of human knowledge.

He carries my strongest recommendation. I have such a soft spot for Jordan. In most any high school in America, Jordan would be an academic superstar. This is a difficult adjustment for many students, and many of them handle it poorly. They make excuses, or they get discouraged, or they start slacking off so that they can pretend they never wanted success in the first place. Jordan did none of that. He recognized pretty early that he was going to have to work very hard just to keep up with the pack, and so he buckled down and did that.

In one of his college essays, he talked about how maturity is about endurance, and putting one foot in front of the other even when it seems like the ultimate goal is out of reach. Jordan figured that one out entirely on his own, and I tend to think a young man who understands that simple truth is well nigh unstoppable. His observations and insights into characters in great literature were always impressive, and grew better and better throughout the year as he learned to appreciate the medium more.

His essays and classroom commentary often presented very clever ideas that were totally unrelated to my own interpretations or previous class discussions. I think this is an outgrowth of his tendency to intensively reflect on his own motivations and internal processes. His own personal aesthetic is a wonderful combination of STEM-nerd, gentle vaquero, and small town friendly. Jordan is also a very fluent writer. The structure of AP exams works against him here—Jordan is a think-write-think-write type, and AP exams are about disgorging facts and analysis in a rough draft, showing you can produce the ideas in a hurry and assuming you can refine them later.

I think this held him back significantly, and that he will really thrive in college where the extended researched argument becomes the standard product. Finally, Jordan is a sweetheart. I will miss him. Jordan carries my strongest recommendation. Please, please, please take a deeper look at this application and consider giving him the chance he needs to demonstrate the amazing young man that he is.

First, bluntly, Jordan is a victim of sustained abuse. CPS has been called, the situation has been mitigated, we are watching him, but by the time we became aware of this, much of the damage had been done. As a freshman, he sat in my class with a flat affect and refused to answer questions or do homework.

He often looked exhausted. I did ask if there was anything wrong at home, but he very convincingly blew that off. The abuse came entirely at the hands of his father, and while the physical punishment has stopped, it is still not a happy or healthy household. First, Jordan is a stubborn son-of a-bitch. But at the same time, I know that rock-solid perseverance will be an asset to him.

After what he has been through, he will always see that opportunity as a gift to be taken advantage of. I have no doubt Jordan will be successful at school, in the sense that he will graduate in 4 years with reasonably good grades.

Even when he was staring off into space, he was paying attention. Jordan is going to break this cycle and turn into the sort of person who speaks out against the sort of hell he faced. He has so, so much to give if only we can get him to a safe space where he can undo some of the damage done to him and start to rebuild himself. I mean that. Taylor is a bit of an anachronism. There was also a great deal of unconditional love and mutual respect.

Together, that combination has shaped a strong-minded, hard-working, ethical and rational young man who manages to be both socially awkward and oddly charming. Taylor has an interesting brain. He soaks up information like a sponge, reading at the very highest level: he has an enormous, robust vocabulary and is comfortable with long and archaic texts. I know this is true because he makes connections that are at times brilliant, at times spurious, and always interesting.

He processes everything through quirky analogies, odd comparisons, and non-intuitive connections. Luckily, all that information and all those connections mean that his own understanding is very complex, and while he at times gets lost in the forest of his own vast mind, he always finds his way back.

I always genuinely looked forward to reading his essays. Taylor is a hard worker with absolutely no expectations of short-term gratification. Taylor would be a wonderful addition to any academic community. I highly recommend him.

Is there another way? The organized narrative structure is broken into these parts:. Start with a narrative that introduces the class you teach, and your student as a student in that class. Keep this to one or two paragraphs. Academic and Intellectual Growth. Bullet points, baby. This is where you write, in one-two sentences for each bullet point, about how the student has grown in your class, their strengths and weaknesses, their intellectual vitality, etc.

Again, bullet points. What is this student like as a person? How do they treat their peers? This is the part where you wrap things up in a sentence or two and write just how much you recommend the student. Need proof it works? I like bullet points. The format is nice. The writer gets right to the point and is focused on the heading. When reading so many applications, I would prefer this format over the narrative letters. Do some research on the company's culture, visions and goals so that you can properly compare them with the candidate's values, goals and personality.

If the candidate is making a career change, explain why they will be able to succeed in the new role or industry. To successfully accomplish this, the candidate should share the job description with you. This will help you form a clear understanding of the duties and responsibilities related to that position. When you're well-informed of the requirements, your letter of recommendation will be strong, unbiased, insightful and will reassure the hiring manager that the candidate is the right fit for the job.

Mention specific details about the person, such as why the candidate is well-suited for the role and what they can contribute if they're hired. Make your recommendation letter more credible by including some specific examples relating to the candidate's qualifications. The examples will give a good idea of how the candidate works in day-to-day operations. Providing two to three specific anecdotes will add credibility to the letter.

In short, your letter should be an effective and positive endorsement of the candidate. The best letters are those that reflect the candidate's skills and accomplishments and explain how the candidate will use them to be successful in the role they're applying for. In the concluding paragraph, explain that you're open to providing more information about the candidate if necessary. You can mention your phone number or include an email address and a phone number in the signature of the letter.

End the recommendation letter by summarising why you think the individual would be a good fit for the opportunity. Finish the letter with your name and title. Use common closing phrases like "sincerely," "thank you" or "best regards. Double-check your letter to ensure it makes sense to the reader and is relevant. The recommendation letter should be brief and related to why the candidate is the perfect fit for the position. Maintain professionalism by checking for any grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you've written the hiring manager's name on it.

Ensure everything is aligned and formatted properly as well so that the letter looks clean and professional. Follow these tips to help you write a strong recommendation letter:. Here is a template that you can use as a guide as you write your own recommendation letter:.

It is my pleasure to endorse [applicant's name] for [opportunity] in [organisation or institution]. Here is an example of a recommendation letter written by a manager for a former employee:. It is my pleasure to endorse Sanjay Singh for employment in your esteemed organisation. I have known Sanjay for over three years, during which he worked as a communication executive in my office. I was highly impressed with Singh's attitude and efficiency during the time that he worked with me.

Sanjay is both very bright and highly professional. I am confident that he will display a high degree of commitment and discharge his job duties and responsibilities with diligence in your organisation. He is a fast learner and has shown the ability to absorb large volumes of information. Sanjay has demonstrated the ability to beautifully express information and ideas in both written and verbal forms.