What to do if I am writing you a letter
If I am writing you a letter for graduate school or a fellowship,
I need the following material
two weeks before the first deadline:
- A copy of your transcript (unofficial is fine)
- A copy of your "personal statement"
- Copies of any other essays you are submitting with your
application
- An "I-am-great report" that you write describing all the great things
you did in my class, in my lab, working with me on a project, or
whatever.
The goal is to be sure I don't forget anything, so slather praise on
with a trowel. If it needs toning down, I can do it. But if I've
forgotten something good that you did, it's less than ideal.
If you are applying to more than one school, I need
a list of schools in machine-readable form.
The form I use names the school and the department to which you are
applying.
It is a Lua program; here's a sample:
local cs = 'Department of Computer Science'
local csd = 'Computer Science Department'
local cse = 'Department of Computer Science and Engineering'
local cis = 'Department of Computer and Information Science'
local ciss = 'Department of Computer and Information Sciences'
local cise = 'Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering'
local comp = 'School of Computing'
local scs = 'School of Computer Science'
local eecs = 'Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science'
local seas = 'School of Engineering and Applied Sciences'
return {
washington = {
dept = cse,
school = 'University of Washington',
},
cmu = {
dept = scs,
school = 'Carnegie Mellon',
},
harvard = {
dept = seas,
school = 'Harvard',
},
-- ... more schools can follow ...
}
Please validate your file by running lua on
it, as in
lua my-schools.lua
Back to Norman Ramsey's advice for students.