Mechanical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

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On Writing Recommendations

Every year, especially during Autumn Semester, students request me to write them recommendation letters for internships (MITACS, UARE, OIST, and so on) as well as for graduate school applications. And, I write them - quite a few of them actually.

The number of students for whom I end up writing recommendations is fewer than the number of students from whom I receive requests. There are two reasons for this mismatch:

1. For each student I agree to, I have to write a number of recommendations because they apply to a number of places. Not every institute/organization has the same format of accepting the recommendation letter. So I do have to invest a significant amount of time.
2. Often I end up writing recommendations for multiple students to the same institute/organization - most commonly for MITACS. The higher the number of students I write recommendations for, the lesser is the weight of each of my recommendations. So it benefits nobody.

So, to prevent disappointment on the part of the students and the unpleasantness of being the cause of that disappointment on my part, here are a few guidelines/policies:

For internships:

• A number of students work with me on various projects starting from the end of the third semester/fourth semester. I will always give these students the highest priority in giving recommendations. Provided the students have not slacked off, the recommendations that I write for these students will be comprehensive covering various aspects of their academic capabilities and achievements.
• Quite a few students end up with “Excellent” grades in my class. I will give these students higher priority than others. However, note that an “Excellent” grade alone does not justify a recommendation unless the student has shown truly remarkable engagement in class.
• There are always a few cases where the student missed out on a “Excellent” or even an “A” grade, but who excelled in terms of engagement in the class - particularly in taking a very active part in answering questions and responding to discussions. I will make exceptions for such students.

So if you are one of the three kinds of students mentioned above - be very honest with yourself if you think you are of the third kind - then send me an email. Depending on your performance and how many requests I am already processing, I will reply to you. If the reply is negative, please do not persist. If the reply is positive, I may set up a meeting with you to know a few things more personally.

For graduate school applications:

Recommending for graduate school applications is significantly more serious than recommending for summer internships. Therefore, I will be more selective here.

• Ideally, the students for whom I write recommendations for graduate school applications will be a subset of the students for whom I had written recommendations for summer internships.
  
• Recommendations for graduate school applications usually entail writing very comprehensively about the student’s potential for higher studies. Writing anything meaningful towards that end necessarily implies that I know about the student’s project work and interests in a detailed manner. Such knowledge is possible only if the student has been working with me for an appreciable time.
  
• Although it is still possible to write recommendations based solely on “Excellent” performances in course work, such recommendations can only act as a support to a proper recommendation based on research activity that the student may obtain from another faculty member. So I will write such supporting recommendation letters only in those cases where the student has done proper research work elsewhere and I am convinced of his/her potential for graduate school.