LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

1. You need at least 2 letters from professors at the doctoral level
2. One letter from a masters level clinician is acceptable
3. DO NOT get letters from relatives or friends
4. Letters from people whom you have worked with for a year or longer are preferred
5. A letter from a professor that you got an A from is not necessarily a good letter
6. Most schools request 3-4 letters
7. Ask the teacher whether or not they can write you a good letter, if they hesitate do not pursue…no letter is better than a bad letter!
8. Try and pre-stamp and pre-address the letters before you give them to the teacher in order to not inconvenience them
9. You can also provide personalized forms for the teachers
10. If you can’t approach the teacher personally you can mail them a letter asking them to write the recommendation (see sample letter)

How do I pick my recomenders?

For Your Recommendation Letters

A recommendation letter gives you an opportunity to have someone else tell the school that you are a hot candidate. In addition to a great letter, it is important to choose your recommender well.

Here's How:

1) Create list 1: Make a list of all the bosses you have worked for. Include the business owner, your supervisor and other seniors.
2) Create list 2: Make a list of all the teachers and school/college officials who you know really well.
3) Create list 3: Make a list of all the really famous people you know. Do you know a high ranking business official, someone in the news, someone in the government?
4) Create list 4: Make a list of all present/ past business school faculty you know.
5) Create list 5: Make a list of all people who have completed programs similar to the ones you are applying to.
6) Spend a few days adding to the lists above.
7) Check mark all those people in the lists who would be willing to give you a recommendation letter. Use your judgment here. It is not yet time to approach them.
8) From the check marked lists, circle those people who clearly have a good reason for knowing you well. These are the people who can convincingly evaluate you.
9) From this circled list, select those persons who would be willing to give you time, repeatedly if need be. You should feel confident that these people will say good things about you.
10) If you still have many people in the final selected list, congratulations. If you have no one on your selected list, be a bit more lenient in your filtration process and repeat steps 7 to 9.
11) From your final selected lists, give preference to people from List 3, followed by List 4, then followed sequentially from Lists 2, 1 and 5.
12) Make sure that your final select list matches with the instructions provided by the school you are applying to. For instance, some programs might insist on only academic recommenders.
13) Ta Da, your final list of recommenders is ready. Now go and ask them for recommendations.

Tips:

• Sometimes one hesitates to ask for a recommendation. One fears refusal. But you will never know until you ask. So go ahead and ask.
• Finish the process of selecting recommenders and standby recommenders early. It is only fair that the recommenders have enough time.
• Follow all the directions in the application material provided by the business program you are applying to.

All of this information was taken from the website listed below:
http://businessmajors.about.com/cs/recoletters/a/ChoosRecommendr.htm

Waiving Your Rights

When seeking letters of recommendation the term “Waiving your Rights” will come up. By Waiving your Rights you are agreeing with your recommender that you will not be reading the letter of recommendation in which they are writing for you. Although this may sound unfair it is an important thing to do. By Waiving your Rights you are allowing your recommender to write truthfully about you with you fear that they may offend you. It also lets the recommender know that you trust they will be writing in your favor, therefore strengthening the relationship you have with your recommender. If you have any fear that the recommender will write negatively about you then perhaps you have not selected the best recommender. Remember you are trying to sell yourself to the school in which you are applying to, and a negative letter of recommendation is a big turn off for a school.

The following is a website that gives the Legal Implications of Letters of Recommendation. It discusses several concerns about letters of recommendation. It also explains the role of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in letters of recommendation, and the waiving your rights process.

http://www.uah.edu/legal/pdf_files/legal_implications_of_lltrs_of_rec.pdf