APPLYING TO GRADUATE SCHOOL: LETTERS OF
RECOMMENDATION
Most
of the materials you submit for evaluation of your application
to a graduate program are objective and quantitative: grade-point
ratio, and Graduate Record Exam scores. Letters of recommendation
are the important exception; they assess your capacity for
graduate education in a more qualitative fashion by addressing
competencies not specially provided by objective data such
as GRE scores. A substantive letter from an informed
referee (professor, work or internship supervisor) can often
be very persuasive to graduate admissions committees, especially
in "borderline" admissions
decisions.
Letters of recommendation are an opportunity for faculty members to comment on a variety of factors of potential importance to graduate admissions committees: How good are your research skills (of great interest to most graduate programs)? Do you offer thoughtful contributions to class discussions? Do you have good interpersonal skills that enable you to get along with faculty and students? Do you exhibit strong leadership skills? Have you contributed to the various extracurricular activities of the Department such as Psi Chi, or the Psychology club? From
these examples, you can see that letters of recommendation
from informed referee provide a basis for a broad picture
of overall promise and potential for success in a graduate
program.
Letters of recommendation play an especially important role if there are some anomalous or seemingly contradictory aspects to your application. For example, consider a student whose financial or family problems have had an adverse impact on his/her academic performance during a particular year. A
referee aware of such circumstances could offer in a letter
of recommendation an explanation and information that would
offer helpful information about the student's record of academic
achievement beyond that provided by the GPA alone.
Since you are usually asked to provide only three letters of recommendation, you should solicit letters from those faculty members who best know you and your work. Typically, these will be your advisor and the other faculty members with whom you have had several classes and know particularly well. Letters from faculty teaching Behavioral Statistics and Research Methods could be helpful. Graduate
schools will review your grades in these courses especially
carefully.
Ideally, your referees are advocates for admission, but their advocacy can be only as effective as their knowledge about you. Make
an effort to get involved in the activities supported by
the Department of Behavioral Sciences and to get to know
the faculty!
