Recommendation Letters

 জ্ঞান দান #৩: Recommendation Letters

WRITTEN BY: Labib Tazwar Rahman, Stanford University, USA 

Recommendation letters are a required part of many university applications. I have written many recommendation letters for students (with whom I have worked) who have gotten admitted to universities abroad—both in undergrad and grad programs. I am grateful to have had many supportive teachers and mentors whose recommendation letters were a part of my application. Alhamdulillah, I was accepted into many undergraduate and master's programs at universities such as Stanford, UPenn, Duke, and Imperial College London.

Recommendation কে লিখবে?

Recommendation letters can come from any academic or professional setting. My recommendations came from teachers (academic) and mentors with whom I did research, projects, or extracurricular activities (professional). 

কখন কাউকে বলব আমার জন্য Recommendation লিখতে?

2-3 months before the deadline is ideal. Less than 1 month before the deadline is cutting it too short. But it doesn’t hurt to ask. Your application does not have to be ready; just request the person as early as possible. Ideally, you should try to build a good relationship with that person. When requesting, give them some reasons why you think they are the perfect person to write your recommendation letter. And give them multiple reminders so that they don’t forget. Remember: they are most likely doing you a favor. Be thankful to them throughout the process.

তার যদি লেখার টাইম না থাকে? বা তার যদি ইংলিশ ভাল না হয়?

Ask them politely if it would be helpful to provide them with a document with talking points. In some cases, they might even ask you to write a draft of the letter (or you can ask them if they would allow it). 

আমি যদি ড্রাফট লিখি তাহলে কিভাবে লিখবে? পয়েন্টগুলো যে লিখবে তাকেও দেখাতে পারেন



1. Stories are better than adjectives. Use stories that show qualities. 

For example: "For the past two years, Ronaldo has arrived at the football pitch every day at 6 AM, before any of his teammates“ is better than saying, “Ronaldo is very dedicated to football.” 

2. Double-check for grammar errors. Use Grammarly. 

Either copy-paste what you wrote to Grammarly, or you can add Grammarly to your Google Docs or Microsoft Word.

3. Read through all of the links below (or save this post for reviewing later):

https://mitcommlab.mit.edu/be/2021/07/27/writing-letters-of-recommendation/ 

https://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/resources/teachers/writing-letters-recommendation/ https://mitadmissions.org/apply/parents-educators/writingrecs/ 

https://blog.prepscholar.com/teacher-recommendation-letters-that-got-me-into-harvard-and-the-ivy-league 

A good recommendation letter might be the difference between acceptance and rejection for two candidates with similar profiles. So put in effort in trying to make sure your recommendation letters are as good as possible. 



May Allah grant success to everyone in their journeys