Recommendations on recommendations
for students

I am often asked to write recommendations for students. If I can, I am happy to help!

Because I teach large classes, I have taught several thousand students at Tufts and I have worked with hundreds of TAs. Therefore, there are some things to keep in mind if I am to be able to help. There are also some general hints about recommendations I like to give to students.

What you need in a recommendation

A good recommendation includes personal information. The people reading it want to know whether you'll succeed in whatever they are considering you for and whether you'll be a good worker or student and colleague. How do you handle set backs? Can you interact productively as part of a team? What are your communication skills (written and verbal)?

A good recommendation gives personal information the recommender can provide that is not otherwise on a transcript or CV. A letter that merely says you took Data Structures in 2018 (and maybe that reveals your grade if you gave permission) is going to be tossed aside by the reader: that's in the rest of your application if it's relevant, and if it isn't, then it isn't. If you know someone who knows your work and how you work, that person will usually be more effective as a recommender than someone who confirms you were on a roster.

The best recommenders are people you worked very closely with, people who have seen your successes and set backs and can testify what it's like to work with you. Such people can also provide insight into what is interesting or challenging about the work — they can explain why the reader should be impressed.

I am unfortunately often in a position where I can only confirm someone took a course in a particular semster. However, I can often contextualize information, by describing the major project(s) of that term (e. g., I can describe a CS 40 assignment or CS 15 project). If that helps, my letter might be useful.

How to ask for a recommendation

It should go without saying: Never use someone as a reference without discussing it with them first!

Do not ask "Can you write a recommendation for me?" or "Would you write a recommendation for me?" When you are asking for a recommendation, you really want that person's help. However, some people interpret the question quite literally and consider only logistics: Do they have time to crunch something out. This is separate from whether they would write a positive recommendation or not.

Better questions are:

• Do you feel you could write a positive/strong recommendation for me?
• What do you feel you could say in a recommendation for me?

These questions put what you care about front and center. You are presumably not interested in a vacuous, bland, or, worse, negative recommendation! While the recommendation author should feel free to express their views, it is perfectly fair, in my opinion, for you to suss out whether the result will help you or not.

I personally try to be candid about what I can and cannot say. I will not “run the letter by you,” but I'm willing to say whether I can write a strong letter, a modest letter, report that you took a class with me, discuss a project you worked on, or whatever. You are asking for my help, and if I cannot help you, I should say so. You should be able to tell whether my letter would be better or worse than someone else's for this application.

What I need for a recommendation

Again, because I have taught thousands of students and my memory fails me more often than I'd like, do not assume I will remember you just by name or face.

Tell me, up front:

• Your name
• Your CS login name (to help me look you up)
• Your Tufts email address
• Optionally your student ID (everything I have is filed under login name or email address, but the ID could conceivably help if I have to consult SIS).
• When you need it: what's the deadline (or deadlines if there are multiple). If the deadline is “tonight” or “tomorrow,” the answer is probably that I cannot write the letter.
• All courses you took with me, including semesters (to help me look you up). The course by itself helps, but to find your information, I also need the semester, e. g.,  “I took CS 15 with you 2021 spring, …”
• Whether I have your permission to reveal grade information. US federal law forbids me from discussing your grades with anyone outside of Tufts without your express permission.
• If you have TAed for me or were a TF, please remind me of the course(s) and term(s) and whether you led/assisted a lab. You may note if you TAed elsewhere in the department, too (professor, course, and term).
• What the recommendation is for (internship, study abroad, full-time job, graduate school, post-doc, etc.).
• Relevant extracurricular activities.
• Any particular thing you think I should mention or discuss (e. g., another internship experience) or that would help me remember details (perhaps a special project we discussed or some particular things you did as a TA).
• If you worked closely with any TAs, tell me who they were. I can contact them for more personal information. I will not report their observations as my own, but I can say “a teaching assistant who worked closely with the student reports …”
• Anything else you think would be helpful that I neglected to mention.

If you are applying to study abroad, then please also include

• Your past travel experience — countries visited, etc.
• Your motivation for studying abroad.
• Why this parituclar program is for you: How does it fit in you plans, what drew you to the program? Have you been to that country before?

Whether I write you a recommendation or not, I wish you all the best!