Info needed for recommendation letters
Are you a Carleton student headed off to graduate school, looking for a job,
looking for an internship, or engaging in some other venture for which you'd
like me to write a recommendation letter for you? Are you a high school student
who has done a summer program at Carleton, and are looking for a recommendation
letter for college? Fantastic! Talk to me first (email or call if off you're
campus) about what the letter is for, so that I can understand what the letter
is for. Once we've communicated, here's what I need to write the letter:
- Transcript(s). Can be unofficial. The reason I
like to have these is so that I can get a sense of what your overall
course history looks like.
- Resume/curriculum vitae if you have one. If you're applying
for a job, I assume that you've already put one of these together. If you're
applying for graduate school or for college, you may not. Don't bother to
construct one for me for purposes of the recommendation letter, but if you have
one, it helps me to see it. Sometimes I can paint a broader picture of you in
the letter if I know more about what you've done.
- A short description of what you think I should include in the
letter. It's entirely possible that there's something awesome that I
know about you that has slipped my mind, and I'd hate to forget to put that in
the letter. You are hereby licensed to be completely egotistical, as that's the
role I'm asking you to take when putting this together. I can always choose to
leave out something you say if I think it isn't relevant, but I can't put in
something that you don't put in if I don't know about it or if I've forgotten
about it.
Get me the above material as soon as you reasonably can; the sooner you can
to get this to me, the more time that I have to write the letter.
Once you have figured out where you are applying (you may not have known this
yet when you submitted me the above materials), please get me:
- Any materials necessary to submit the recommendation
letters. Most graduate and undergraduate schools handle recommendation
letters electronically where they will automatically send me an email with a
link to follow, so there's nothing you need to supply me with in that case. If
the school you're applying to is using paper-based letters, on the other hand,
I'll need the appropriate forms from you. For a job application, you might need
to supply me with an email address or a postal mail address to send the
letter. If I need to send anything by postal mail, please supply addressed and
stamped envelopes, as that just makes it easier for me to send everything
out.
- A summary page listing all the places you want me
to send a letter, what I need to do, and what the deadlines
are. Sorting these in order of deadline makes it easy for me to get
the earliest ones out first.
Finally, here's your end of the bargain: after you've heard back,
tell me how it turns out. Who accepted you, and who turned you down
(hopefully no one)? This helps me learn how to advise future
students.
Thanks, and good luck!