…several years out of college, that is.
I graduated from a commuter university with an assembly line-style History department. I haven’t really kept in contact with any of the facualty.
Whom should I approach? The ones in whose classes I got decent grades, but kept a low profile, or the ones with whom I had a relatively cordial relationship but the occasional bad quarter?
Should I call them? Email them? Swing by during office hours?
Any other suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.
When I decided to apply to grad school last spring after several years out, I knew that none of my professors would remember me - I’d been gone seven years, and I hadn’t really been close to any of my profs. So I went to current and former supervisors. That had the benefit of people who knew my interests and abilities now, not what I thought I wanted seven years ago. The school didn’t mind at all - they got better references than they would have if I’d gone to Professor Soandso and gotten a generic one.
If you decide to ask the professors, I’d stop by their office - seeing you might remind them of specifics about you.
It’s okay to remind professors of specifics, as well: when you ask for letters, be prepared to give them the name and semester that you took each class in and your grade in each class. If you still have original copies of the papers you wrote, bring them: the profs won’t reread the paper, but they will reread thier own comments in the margins. If you don’t have original papers, you can take new print-outs, but attach notes saying ‘This was that paper where I arugued X, and supported it with A, B, and C’ Again, they won’t read it, but they might skim it.
Good luck!
When I applied, I had the benefit of only one year lapsing since college graduation. I selected three professors to write my recommendations. I had a more professional relationship with one of them (she encouraged me to apply to grad school in the first place), as I had worked with her on a theater production and took some of her courses, in which I did well. The second professor was more of a friend; I’d actually hang out with her in addition to taking her courses. I did well but not exceptionally in the third professor’s courses, and we also had a pretty good personal relationship. If you kept a low profile in the classes you did well in, gradewise, it would definitely benefit you to stop by and reacquaint the professor with your face. It may not be a bad thing to get a recommendation from a professor who saw some “occasional bad quarters;” perhaps something could be said about your perseverance, study habits, extracurricular help (if any of that applies), anything you did to try to better the situation. I think the suggestions above are excellent, as well.
I workstudy in the admissions department in a top university, so I have a few suggestions for you. If you have been out of school a while, perhaps you want to think about asking people that aren’t ex-professors for recommendation letters…this can include co-workers, bosses, anyone you might have collaborated on projects with. Anyone that has a good judge on your knowledge, work ethics and habits, and your personality. Believe me, a detailed letter from a non-professor is perferable to a short form letter from a member of the academic sect any day. When you actually go in to ask for your recommendation letter, drop off a resume. This will remind them of your vast array of accomplishments and interests. Instead of saying “Blah has received many awards over the years,” your recommender can specifically say “Blah has received the Pulitzer, the Nobel Prize, and an Oscar for Best Acting.”
Good luck!
Give the prof some advance notice/sufficient time to write the letter. (This is my biggest beef with students who ask me for one
–“I need it in two days!” Oh, right.)
That being said, KalliopeCU’s advice is excellent. When I apply for full time teaching positions, I get my star students to write me letters sometimes because they’ve actually seen me in action in the classroom, as opposed to most of the profs.
I disagree a bit with KalliopeCU on non-academic recs. I have pored over a lot of grad school apps in my life and these are always the worst ones. They just don’t know how to write the letters. They also carry far, far less weight.
I have written letters for people I haven’t seen in ten+ years. I have no problem with people asking for letters after some time. It really does help to include information such as course numbers and terms so I can find the files faster.
Be sure to phrase the question in such a way that if they may not be able to write a good letter they can just decline instead. (They should decline rather than write a bad letter but there are a lot of d**kheads out there.) Let them know that it is fine with you if they can’t/don’t want to do it.
Try to mention in your request any particulars that you are trying to highlight. A nice term project or some such that you did. I.e., “Big Time U is interested in knowing about my background in Carbon Nanotube-based cat food.”
Don’t worry about the bad quarter if you did well overall. Good letter writers just won’t bring it up.
Since I’m a computer geek email is great, but other fields may not view things the same way.
Thanks for the replies, everybody. It’s helping me a lot.
Thanks for the replies, everybody. They’ve been most helpful.