Writing Letters of Recommendation for Applicants for Nationally Competitive Scholarships and Fellowships
Thank you for agreeing to write a recommendation on behalf of a ¶¶Òõ̽̽ student who is applying for a nationally prestigious fellowship. Every year, many ¶¶Òõ̽̽ students apply for, and some are awarded, fellowships for which they compete nationally. We are tremendously grateful to the ¶¶Òõ̽̽ faculty who serve as those students' mentors, not only writing letters of recommendation for them, but providing them with inspiring role models and valuable advice as they share with them their disciplinary knowledge and experience.
The importance of recommendation letters for national competitions like Fulbright, Truman, Rhodes, Boren, or Udall (and others) cannot be overstated; they are the most important items in the application outside of the applicant essays written by the candidates. Referees are therefore advised to provide as much relevant detail as possible and, especially in the case of fellowships like the Fulbright, specifically to address the candidate's statement of grant purpose. In any case, it is important that you have access both to information about the specific fellowship and to the candidate's personal statement when preparing your letter. Candidates have been advised by our office to provide you with relevant materials, but if you have any questions about that material or further questions about the fellowship, do not hesitate to get in touch with us at four@uvm.edu (or with the candidate).
Below are some guidelines for writing fellowships letters that might be helpful to you:
Guidelines for Strong Fellowship Letters
- Letters should be 1-2 pages and single-spaced in length. All the fellowships selection committees appreciate letters that are a little longer than the standard undergraduate recommendation.
- Provide the context for your relationship with the candidate and the length of time you have known them.
- Situate the candidate's performance in the larger context of your experience.
- Address the student's academic (or job-related) performance or extracurricular engagements in detail and with specific examples if possible. A recommendation that demonstrates a personal knowledge of the candidate beyond the grade they may have received in your class delivers a strong and lasting impression. Try, therefore, not to rely solely on a summary of a candidate's performance in a class or a cursory review of their transcript and/or resume.
- Some scholarships (like the Truman) will ask you to address a very specific quality in a candidate (like leadership, for example). The candidate should be clear about what you are being asked to address and your letter should clearly and specifically address that quality.
- Be specific about why the student is a strong candidate for a specific fellowship.
- Avoid hyperbole as well as overly negative language. The foundations that grant these awards are looking for realistic, substantive evaluations of candidates rather than overly positive, unsupported hyperbole.
Characteristics of Weak Fellowship Letters
- Too short, vague, unsupported points.
- Generic letters that were obviously written for other purposes (grad school admission, for example).
- Letters that merely summarize a candidate's resume or transcript.
- Letters that merely describe classes taken or activities rather than the work the candidate did within those contexts.
- Letters that evaluate the candidate negatively, or even as merely average.
Do NOT Agree to Write a Recommendation Letter if:
- You are not strongly and positively supportive of the candidate.
- You do not feel that you know the candidate well enough or cannot remember enough about them to provide a substantive, detailed letter.
- You do not feel that you are the right person to recommend them for the fellowship.
- You do not have the time to write it (recommendation letters that come in after the deadline for national fellowships will simply not ever be considered as a part of the candidate's application by the foundation and will therefore greatly disadvantage the candidate).
Considerations
In addition to these rather general guidelines, you'll want to keep in mind the specific criteria the individual foundations use to define their fellowships. You don't need to address all the criteria; ideally, the student has chosen their recommenders with the criteria in mind and has appropriate people to address the different categories. Again, the rule of thumb with these letters is specifics, but specifics that speak to your own experience of the student and their work or other accomplishments.
Here are the links to specific fellowship pages which feature tips for recommendation writers. If you are writing for a student who is applying to a fellowship that is not on this list, please do not hesitate to contact our office for information related to that fellowship.