What is a Letter of Recommendation?
Letter of recommendation or LOR is a document which provides a comprehensive understanding of the candidature of the student. It is also considered to be one of the important documents to understand the student or applicant from a professional perspective of the company, supervisor, mentor, faculty or guide. It always helps the invigilator or the admission team to understand them better and sets a favourable picture of the student about their experience, achievements, contributions, and skills through the recommendation letter.
Why do we need LOR? Who requires LOR?
Any student who is aspiring for his/her higher studies abroad usually needs LOR as a part of their application. Irrespective of the course, be it UG, PG or PHD, the admission team prefers to have the LOR as part of the application. However, few countries like the USA, UK are very specific about the LOR and requires 2-3 LORs as well. For UG students, the LOR can be from their school teacher, principal, school counsellor or even the specific subject teacher. For example, you are applying for a Bachelor in Sports Science then you can surely get a LOR from the sports teacher as well. For PG Students, the LOR can be from the internship supervisor, your college professors, mentor. If you have any work experience then you can surely request a professional LOR from the team manager or HR of the company.
Types of LOR (Letter of Recommendation)
LOR’s can be broadly classified into two types:
Academic LOR: This type of LOR is provided by the teacher, professor, dean, principal who are part of your academic life. Usually, 2-3 LORs is required at the time of application so a UG student can request for it from 2-3 different bodies of the school/college like Principal, specific subject teacher and guidance counsellor. However, for PG aspiring students you can get 1 or max 2 LOR from their academic side.
Important factors to be included in an academic LOR:
Curricular and co-curricular achievements and initiatives
Specific incidents reflecting the applicant’s work ethics
Performance in a particular subject
Relevant projects and research work (if any)
Professional LOR: This type of LOR is usually preferred to be provided by the immediate supervisor. The content of the professional LOR is always based on the credibility of the applicant to work as a teammate or team leader reflecting the applicant’s domain credibility as well. Most of the B-schools abroad demands a set amount of work experience. So you can surely sit with your manager and collectively help to paint an impactful picture of you in your applications.
Important factors to be included in a professional LOR:
Specific work-related incidents highlighting your strengths
Area of expertise
Interpersonal and soft skills
Leadership abilities
How to select a good recommender
I hope that until now, you all must have realized that LOR is an important document in your application. So now let’s discuss the significance of a recommender in the LOR. A recommender is important but not a significant part of LOR. For instance, in your School/ College the principal being head could be your recommender but he may or may not provide much insight about your work and achievements.
Do remember that the University might connect to the recommender to verify the authentication of the provided LOR. When it comes to Professional LOR always prefer your immediate supervisor or manager as they know about your qualities and capabilities which they can justify with ease in the LOR. Strategically select your recommender based on the type, of course, you are applying as they will not highlight your strengths but also the technical capabilities related to the course, helping the admission team to get a better idea about you and your profile. Speaking of Academic LOR contact your specific subject teacher related to the course you are applying for. You can also approach the project mentor who guided you for the final project and thesis preparation.
LOR format and content
LOR is generally of 1 page (maximum 2 pages) describing different parameters in different paragraph structure with approximately 400-500 words. All Institutes or companies usually have their own set format of LOR but do check with the universities if they have any of their specific formats to be followed just to avoid any chaos.
The content and the structure are two of the important factors to communicate your message properly. The content can be broadly divided into 4-5 paragraphs, not only making it interesting for the admission team to read but also reflect your details in a very crisp manner.
1st Paragraph: At the start of the LOR start with a briefing about the relation between the recommender and the student which will establish the base ground of the LOR. Mention about the timeframe the applicant has been working with you. Mention the designation and area of domain about the applicant which will give a gist about the relevancy about the course the applicant wants to study further.
2nd Paragraph: In this, include the qualities and strengths you would like to convey about the applicant to the admission team. Always backup the qualities and the strengths with examples to claim on the detailing about the applicant. Here you can also include the specific achievements related to professional or academic life.
3rd Paragraph: In this part of LOR include the different projects the applicant was part of, which could be from academic or professional life. Highlight the interpersonal and soft skills of the applicant. Always mention the details which are relevant to the context.
4th Paragraph: Conclude the LOR with summarizing all the points mentioned above on a positive note helping the applicant to get through the application process.
LOR Samples
UG LOR Sample
Here is the sample link.
Masters LOR
Here is the sample link.
PhD LOR
Here is the sample link.
LOR Formatting
Since most of the LOR will be read on the monitor screens, it is very important that the format is easily readable.
Few of the guidelines or the DO’s and DON’T are:
Top of the LOR SHOULD be in the official letterhead only
Letterhead must have the institutes/College/Company’s contact number and official mail ID
In signature, make sure that the recommender has included his/her below details:
Name
Designation
Contact number
Email ID (preferably the official mail ID and not their personal ID)
Signature
Use a font size of 11-13
Always use A4 size page
Font colour should be Black and background should be White
It should have a 1inch page margin
Spacing between the paragraphs should be maintained
Always use simple language to convey
A strict no-no for a generic LOR which is not adding any value to the application
Always remember a LOR is not the repetition of SOP (https://www.pandaandthegeek.com/post/statement-of-purpose-sop )
Never copy from another LOR, you can surely refer to them. As it is your individual details.
Conclusion
You need to keep one thing in mind that the admission team receives thousands of applications and you are one of them. So to make your application stand out focus on including your achievements and qualities reinforced by real-time examples. Make your LOR and SOP (https://www.pandaandthegeek.com/post/statement-of-purpose-sop) inclusive of unique points and remember all the above details while preparing Letter of Recommendation (LOR).
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