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How do I ask my professor for a reference letter?

Is it a good idea to ask a professor to co-write a recommendation letter with his graduate student, if you've worked extensively with the graduate student?

  • I will be applying to US schools for a masters program in Computer Science. As part of building my application, I have been working extensively with 2 PhD students (working in different areas of Machine Learning research - Computer Vision and NLP) who are advised by the same professor. The PhD students know me and my work very well, but I haven't been in direct contact with the professor. So, will it be a good idea if I could ask the professor to co-write a recommendation letter with the PhD student(s). I'm guessing the professor would not know me very well to write a good recommendation letter nor have enough time to expend on a recommendation (since he's probably very busy and may get many requests for recommendations from other students), but since his students have a good idea of my abilities, would such a letter be accepted by schools and would it have any value at all?

  • Answer:

    I'm not sure I've ever seen a co-written recommendation letter... I would talk to the grad students and then to the professor. What you actually want is a letter from the professor in which he gives information about you, as related to him/her by the students. Although the students know you better, the professor is a better qualified as a recommender. The letter will be judged in the context of the professor's position and reputation. Graduate students, although best positioned, do not have the standing. But the professor should be able to do the right thing (talk to the students and form a reasonable judgement). If all you have are letters from the students, it's not that convincing: They don't actually have the experience to judge your suitability, nor is it clear that the basis for a nice letter is not simply friendship.

Alex Rudnicky at Quora Visit the source

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Absolutely! I do this all the time, although if I commit to a letter I try to find out as much as possible of what the student has accomplished, so I can personalize what the grad student has provided me, and it goes out under my signature.

Randy Howard Katz

As a grad student - I've 'co-written' letters for undergrads with my PI Essentially, I would write the first version, which heavily emphasized specific accomplishments. Then the PI would put those specific examples into context of where they would place the student and add superlatives/comparatives as they deem appropriate. To give an example, I would say 'X contributed to project Y by taking ownership of Part C. They did so completely independently, leading to their co-authorship on a published work.' Then the PIs job is simply to rewrite/write the intro where they say 'X is in the top Z% of undergrads who have gone through my lab. They have accomplished a significant amount leading to co-authorship on a paper.' This works well for everyone. The undergrad get a great letter. The PI provides context and the grad student provides specificity. Also, you avoid any ethical issues with the PI simply signing someone else's words. You can recommend this system to the PhD students and the professor of your lab. I'd think they'd be ok with it.

Rishabh Jain

Have the Ph.D. student with stronger writing skills write the letter of recommendation.  The professor is going to be saying "I haven't worked with this student directly, but...." and that's a really weak LOR.  An enthusiastic LOR with concrete examples from a graduate student is going to do you a lot more good than a co-written LOR from a professor.

Barry Rountree

I haven't co-written letters with graduate students, but this sounds like a reasonable idea if the graduate student has a first-hand knowledge of the recommended person. The general rule is: the more credible details, the stronger the letter.

Igor Markov

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