Recommendation Letter Sample for Student to Get an Edge Over the Crowd

Recommendation Letter Samples for Students

The recommendation letter is a letter written by a mentor, supervisor, professor, or teacher that can confirm a student’s knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm toward education and the acquisition of new knowledge. The best academic reference letters are written by people who know the applicant. It may be a professor from a favorite course, or a mentor who has assisted with writing academic papers or leading a project. Struggling with your scholarship essay? Let us assist you! Just request ‘write my scholarship essay for me‘, and our expert writers will craft a compelling piece tailored to your needs.

Sample Letter of Recommendation for Graduate School – What Matters Most

It may appear pointless to write such a letter. But in fact, a recommendation letter serves a unique purpose. The admission committee looks for candidates with hard and soft skills. Hard skills refer to test scores, grades, and general performance. Soft skills indicate what sort of person the candidate is. A letter of recommendation is aimed to knit together the candidate’s soft and hard skills, and give insight on personal experience with working with a candidate. The description of the real-life situations highlight candidates’ character traits and potential.

How many letters of recommendations should you request? On the one hand, for some educational institutions it will be enough to attach one recommendation letter to your application. On the other hand, some schools ask for from two to four teacher recommendations. For example, military and medical schools usually require more than one professor recommendation letter. Visit the college website and find the information about the number of such letters.

Memo for Students for a Great College Recommendation Letter

A mediocre recommendation letter won’t add value to your application. While it seems that you have no power to influence the quality of a recommendation letter, you still have things to do to ensure your recommender gives a well-written recommendation letter.

First, you need to choose a person who will be able to tell more about you than the average student. If you need more than one recommendation letter for different programs, make sure that you will ask your recent or former supervisor for a strong recommendation.

Second, prepare background information for the recommender. Share the information that will be helpful to create a letter. Include your resume, statement of purpose, list of points that you wish the recommender to highlight in the letter, list of schools you are applying for, and instructions for submission.

Third, don’t forget to send a thank you letter for the recommendation. It will be better to send the letter two weeks before the submission deadline. This act of politeness will also be a gentle reminder for the recommender to submit the letter. Besides, write another letter describing the results of admission, as the recommender will be pleased to hear from you.

What Makes a Great Scholarship Recommendation Letter Sample

Here we will tell you what points you should consider crafting a powerful letter of recommendation. The typical structure of a recommendation letter for an educational institution includes three sections: an introduction, a body that describes the applicant’s strengths, and a conclusion.

• Provide an assessment of the student’s skills and suitability for the program instead of advocating the candidate.
• Mention the relationship with the applicant: how long have you known the candidate, how you have interacted, and whether your opinion is based on direct or indirect consideration.
• There is no strict requirement for the length of a recommendation letter. The only thing you should remember is that the letter should be focused on the student’s personality and skills.
• Provide GPA or MCAT scores only in case you want to interpret them.
• Describe the student’s behavior in the context of the future program. You can use it as an example of a particular situation.
• Use comparisons in describing skills and situations. Always provide the context of the situation.
• Describe the obstacles the student has already faced and successfully overcome.
• Define what skills he or she has obtained in the result.
• Tell the reader how the student’s background and experiences may contribute to the program.
• If you write about the moments that may be considered sensitive, make sure that the student agrees on including this in the letter.
• Describe whether the student has demonstrated thinking, reasoning, science, and interpersonal competencies.
• It is believed that a strong recommendation letter is more than one page. For some admission committees, the recommendation letter that is less than a page is considered as a red flag.
• If you are going to mention weaknesses of the student, make sure that you can frame it positively.
• Give specific examples beyond evaluation. For example, you can describe the applicant’s leadership skills talking about his or her participation in group projects.
• Write several drafts. Ask your assistant or someone you can rely on to read out your writing. A recommendation letter should not contain any mistakes.

A letter of recommendation may be considered as a sort of sales letter. It is important to put a lot of effort in finding the right words to depict the applicant’s personality and skills. To write a strong recommendation letter, one should include information about the student’s potential (e.g. leadership), skills, ability, strength, consistency, motivation, character, contribution to class and community, accomplishments, etc. Be enthusiastic and detailed to catch the reader’s attention.

Medical School Recommendation Letter Sample

Medical schools often require a letter of recommendation as a part of the admission process. Such letters should show the readiness of the candidate to the program. Usually, admission committees from medical schools ask for three recommendations from science and non-science professors. Some medical schools ask for a committee letter. Also, it is applicable to get recommendations from an extracurricular professor, clinical mentor, and other academic sources.

If you were asked to write a recommendation letter, we recommend you look through the qualities the committee members usually look for in a medical school letter of recommendation:

Intellectual ability. The student should show good critical thinking and reasoning skills. It is important to show how a student can analyze a situation and find appropriate solutions.
Maturity. The medical institution needs candidates who are able to cope with various types of situations.
Reliability. Such skills as accuracy, sense of responsibility, timely fulfillment of obligations – all of these are needed for a medical worker.
Communication skills. Both written and oral skills are essential for the future doctor. Describing a case in a scientific article, communicating with colleagues and patients, expressing ideas to colleges – all these and even more are connected with the work of medics.
Perseverance. Doctors usually experience hard working shifts, so such qualities as endurance, stamina, and finishing tasks on time are important.
Self-confidence. Doctors frequently should make decisions on their own relying only on themselves. Awareness of personal weaknesses and strengths will help the future doctor make the right decisions.
Interpersonal skills. Typically, medical workers work in a team. Clinics and hospitals have various departments where employees should work as a team to do their work well. That’s why the candidate should have an ability to cooperate and get along with others.
Emotional stability. Medical workers deal with many patients and frequently experience stressful situations. The future doctor should be ready to perform under pressure, have a stable mood, and be able to relate to others.
Empathy. The value of empathy in a doctor’s practice is extremely high. Empathy is key in winning patients’ trust and creating fruitful communication, which in most cases has a positive effect on the quality of treatment.
Cultural competence. The future doctor should be well suited to communicating with people from various countries and cultures.

There is no requirement to describe all of the qualities listed above. It is expected that the writer can’t know everything about the student and describe only several qualities.

Recommendation Letter Samples Are Waiting for You

Don’t underestimate the importance of recommendation letters. It’s a part of the application process and may become a crucial point that will force the committee to make a decision to your side. Be proactive and think ahead about requesting a recommendation letter.

Consider that the use of our samples and guides are aimed to help you think about the letter and speed up the writing process. Our samples can be modified and applied for master degree or for graduate school. You can freely use samples from this website as a templates for a future paper, considering the admission requirements.

If you want to create a strong recommendation letter, don’t copy finished texts from the internet. Sample letters can give you ideas and helpful phrases that you can incorporate into your own letter. On our website pay for an essay, you can find a helpful guide on how to write a recommendation letter for college. Hopefully our guide and samples will help you write a professional recommendation letter!