If you would like me to write you a letter of recommendation, please drop off (or mail to my office) a packet with as much of the following information as possible:
(Hard copy, please. Yes, really. Why do so few students believe me when I say this? )

• A note telling me
  • who the audience of the letter is
    (e.g. M.S. admissions committee, Ph.D. admission committee, potential employer, etc.)
  • If I've written you a letter before (e.g. for a summer internship and now you are applying to graduate school), please remind me of this. Even if it was just a few months ago, I am so busy that I probably have forgotten.
  • A list of all the schools you want letters for, whether paper or electronic, and the ONE date by which you want me to put ALL the letters in the mail and fill out any electronic-only recommendations. I will sit down and do all of them at once because of the context-switching burden (and computer use burden) of doing letters for the same student on different days. This means you need to have already completed and submitted any applications from schools that refuse to let me use a paper form well in advance of the earliest deadline you have, and then confirm with them that they've emailed me the information I need to fill out their electronic form. (Note that if you can get paper recommendation forms for all the schools, you don't need to fill out any of the other schools' forms ahead of the first deadline date.) You might want to use the UCB career center letter service as a backup.
• The recommendation form(s)
• Your resume
• A copy of your transcript (a xerox is fine)
• A draft of your statement of purpose (or equivalent). I will often be able to give you feedback on your draft as well.
• If you have worked on a research project with me, please write up a couple paragraphs describing your contributions and accomplishments.
• Otherwise, include a summary of key or memorable interactions that we have had. E.g.:
• "My final project was the only one that ..."
• "I came to office hours and we talked about ..."
• "I usually sat on the right side of class and asked lots of questions."

• Fill out the forms to the extent possible with my name and contact info: 
• Tel: (510) 642-9359 
• Address:
  5145 Etcheverry Hall #1740
  UC Berkeley                
  Berkeley, CA 94720-1740    
  
• Many schools ask for electronic recommendations, but because those are hard on my RSI, please ask whether they have a paper version of the form that I can fill out instead. (They don't like to advertise this option since it is more work for them, so you need to specifically ask someone at the admissions office if their website doesn't have a link to it, and beg and plead for policy exceptions for recommenders who have RSIs.) I prefer to do as many as possible of the recommendations on paper forms, obviously.
• Provide stamped, addressed envelopes for paper forms to be sent directly to institutional recipients.
• If you are using the UCB career center letter service, instead of using stamps, please ask the faculty support staff on the 6th floor of Etcheverry for an "inter-office mailing envelope" and address it, including the career center mail code (4350), as illustrated here. Note: If you are applying to schools that have very specific questions or ranking grids on their recommendation forms, I recommend using the individual forms instead of the generic letter service form. This includes Berkeley.
  
• To the extent possible, give me all of the materials at once.

Portions of these instructions were stolen and adapted from Kris Pister. Send comments to

Latest update on or after: October, 2012