How to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation

By Tamiera Vandegrift on August 18, 2017

The competition for financial aid is becoming more and more fierce with time due to the rising amount of students seeking ways to pay for school. As a result, scholarship applications are becoming tougher, demanding more from applicants.

An example of these demands is the well-known letter of recommendation. These letters will grow to be your best friend in every professional sense. In just a page or two, they will inform the recipient about each and every one of your amazing qualities. So how do you go about getting one? Keep reading to find out the best way to ask for a letter of recommendation for a scholarship application.

Step One: Start thinking

After you have thoroughly reviewed the requirements for a scholarship application, it is now time to start thinking about which person in your professional circle would be the best to consult. As tempting as it may be, it is important to stay away from friends and family. Those contacts will always come off as biased, therefore they will not help you in any way during the application process.

If you are stumped, focus on what values or attributes the scholarship is centered around. Are they looking at community service or athletics? Academics or creative arts? Think of a professional figure in your life that can attest to your experiences and skills in those area(s). That is the person that you want to ask.

Of course, only ask individuals who you know for a fact that you have had a positive experience with, such as your community service coordinator or your boss from that part-time job last summer. If you know that your chemistry professor had it out for you all semester, don’t bother asking her for a letter of recommendation.

Image via: www.pixabay.com

Step Two: Pop the question

Once you have picked your recommender, make sure to ask them for their recommendation as early as possible. Preferably, you want to give your recommender around a month minimum to draft their recommendation for you. With this window of time, they will be able to give you a thoughtful letter detailing every last morsel of great information that will knock the socks off of the scholarship committee. If you wait until closer to the due date to pop the question, you will risk having a rushed letter of recommendation which could potentially hinder your chances of earning the award.

The best way to ask someone to provide you with a letter of recommendation is via one formal email. It might be tempting to meet with them in their office or at Starbucks for lunch, but doing so digitally prevents the potential recommender from being uncomfortably put on the spot so to speak. It gives them time to evaluate their current schedule and commitments in order to determine whether or not giving their recommendation is something that realistically fits into their schedule. Believe it or not, writing letters of recommendation is heavy work! Ask early, ask professionally, and ask digitally.

P.S. If you haven’t heard back from them in a week after sending the original email, follow up. Don’t be shy. Your email might have slipped through their inbox or they might have forgotten. The worst thing that can happen is that they will tell you “no.” If that’s the case, all you need to do is ask someone else while you have time. You have nothing to lose!

Image via: www.pexels.com

Step Two and a Half: Provide the goods

Don’t take it personally, but not all of your professional contacts will remember every detail of you. They might recognize your name and your face, but what about the rest? That’s where you come in. Aside from a request for a letter of recommendation, your email to this person should also serve as a miniature autobiography to briefly remind the potential recommender of who you are and what your academic/professional contributions were. Also, you should include information on the scholarship itself and what the letter of recommendation needs to be focused on.

Good things to include on this email include, but are not limited to: a resume, a list of courses (if your potential recommender is a teacher), a short summary of your history with your potential recommender, the details of the scholarship, etc.

Image via: www.pexels.com

Step Three: Say “Thank you”

Your application has been sent off and now it’s time to eagerly wait for the scholarship winners to be announced. Whether or not you earned the scholarship award, take the time to construct a formal thank you note. This time, you won’t necessarily want it to be digital. Buy a card or even stop by and thank the person face-to-face. Your recommender took time out of their schedule to help you get one step closer to funding your education by writing a letter of recommendation. Be sure to thank them for their time in the most genuine, professional way possible.

Good luck!

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Get Top Stories Delivered Weekly

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format