Overview

The best letters are from people who can best comment on your activities and qualities that are most relevant to the fellowship’s evaluation criteria. It's a good idea to be sure to share the specific criteria for the opportunity for which you are applying with your letter writers, along with other information that could help them to write the strongest possible letter.

The Graduate College has developed a fillable worksheet for the some of the specific fellowship opportunities that we work with most commonly that you can share with your advisor to help them write a more effective letter of recommendation. These can be located within the fellowship specific sections below or you can access the generic recommendation worksheet (HawkID and password required). Other useful resources include:

Fellowship Specific Resources

AAUW American Dissertation Fellowship Recommendation Worksheet

Review Criteria and Reviewer Perspectives

  • Reviewers for AAUW fellowships are evaluating applicants on multiple criteria, including (but not limited to): the student’s scholarly qualities; context about the project’s significance and feasibility; and the student’s impact through teaching, mentoring, and/or outreach.  
  • If you are a research mentor, you are in an especially powerful position to be able to provide expert context about the quality of project design, originality of the project, scholarly significance of the project to the discipline, the feasibility of the project, and the applicant’s qualifications to do the project (AAUW(link is external)).  The most helpful recommendation letters will include specific examples and details to establish that context.
    • Asserting that “this project is very original” is less persuasive than giving concise explanations about what specific new approaches, new subject matter, new perspectives, etc. the applicant takes.
    • Saying an applicant is “the most promising student I’ve seen at this point in a degree program” would be an even more powerful statement with quantitative scope (“[…] in # years of mentoring # doctoral students”) and/or qualitative context (“[…]in terms of initiative to seek further training opportunities and the ability to critically analyze primary research papers”) to clearly state the reasons the student is promising. 

Official AAUW Resources

AAUW International Fellowship Recommendation Worksheet

Review Criteria and Reviewer Perspectives

  • Reviewers for AAUW fellowships are evaluating applicants on multiple criteria, including (but not limited to): the student’s scholarly qualities; context about the project’s significance and feasibility; and the student’s impact through teaching, mentoring, and/or outreach.  
  • If you are a research mentor, you are in an especially powerful position to be able to provide expert context about the quality of project design, originality of the project, scholarly significance of the project to the discipline, the feasibility of the project, and the applicant’s qualifications to do the project (AAUW(link is external)).  The most helpful recommendation letters will include specific examples and details to establish that context.
    • Asserting that “this project is very original” is less persuasive than giving concise explanations about what specific new approaches, new subject matter, new perspectives, etc. the applicant takes.
    • Saying an applicant is “the most promising student I’ve seen at this point in a degree program” would be an even more powerful statement with quantitative scope (“[…] in # years of mentoring # doctoral students”) and/or qualitative context (“[…]in terms of initiative to seek further training opportunities and the ability to critically analyze primary research papers”) to clearly state the reasons the student is promising. 

Official AAUW Resources

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Recommendation Worksheet

Review Criteria and Reviewer Perspectives

  • Reviewers for the NSF GRFP are evaluating applicants on not only the rigor of their proposed research project and their previous research experience (although these factors are still important to address the Intellectual Merit(link is external) criterion!); applicants are also being evaluated on Broader Impacts(link is external)—the potential for the applicant themselves and their research to benefit society. 
  • NSF seeks “individuals with the demonstrated potential to be high achieving scientists and engineers” (solicitation Introduction(link is external)); the most helpful recommendation letters will include specific examples and details providing that demonstration. 
    • Asserting that a student is “a great leader” is less persuasive than giving evidence from the student’s activities in lab, courses, teaching, and/or outreach.  Saying an applicant is “the most promising student I’ve seen at this point in a degree program” would be an even more powerful statement with quantitative scope (“[…] in # years of mentoring # doctoral students”) and/or qualitative context (“[…]in terms of initiative to seek further training opportunities and the ability to critically analyze primary research papers”) to clearly state the reasons the student is promising.  With over 13,000 applicants in the 2016-2017 cycle, reviewers will not be able to give the benefit of the doubt by extrapolating possible context from a positive but vague description.
  • Reviewer perspectives(link is external), older (ca. 2002) but still useful; content specific to reference letters is in section 4

 

Official NSF GRFP Resources

Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Recommendation Worksheet

Review Criteria and Reviewer Perspectives

  • Reviewers for the Ford Foundation fellowships evaluate applicants on their research, teaching, and outreach (relevant factors for Dissertation(link is external) fellowships.) To the degree that you have direct knowledge, ideally provide context about any or all of the following evaluation criteria:
    • academic achievements (past and future potential), ability to respond to the learning needs of diverse students, sustained engagement with communities underrepresented in academia (and ability to bring this engagement into their teaching/scholarship), likelihood of using the diversity of human experience as a resource in teaching/scholarship
  • The most helpful recommendation letters will include specific examples and details to establish and illustrate the student’s activities.
    • Saying an applicant is “the most promising student I’ve seen at this point in a degree program” would be an even more powerful statement with quantitative scope (“[…] in # years of mentoring # doctoral students”) and/or qualitative context (“[…]in terms of initiative to seek publication opportunities”) to clearly state the reasons that the student is promising. 
    • Asserting that “this project is very original” is less persuasive than establishing the prior approach and then giving concise explanations of what is new about the approaches, subject matter, perspectives, etc. the applicant uses.

Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Recommendation Worksheet

Review Criteria and Reviewer Perspectives

  • Reviewers for the Ford Foundation fellowships evaluate applicants on their research, teaching, and outreach (relevant factors for Predoctoral fellowships.) To the degree that you have direct knowledge, ideally provide context about any or all of the following evaluation criteria:
    • academic achievements (past and future potential), ability to respond to the learning needs of diverse students, sustained engagement with communities underrepresented in academia (and ability to bring this engagement into their teaching/scholarship), likelihood of using the diversity of human experience as a resource in teaching/scholarship
  • The most helpful recommendation letters will include specific examples and details to establish and illustrate the student’s activities.
    • Saying an applicant is “the most promising student I’ve seen at this point in a degree program” would be an even more powerful statement with quantitative scope (“[…] in # years of mentoring # doctoral students”) and/or qualitative context (“[…]in terms of initiative to seek publication opportunities”) to clearly state the reasons that the student is promising. 
    • Asserting that “this project is very original” is less persuasive than establishing the prior approach and then giving concise explanations of what is new about the approaches, subject matter, perspectives, etc. the applicant uses.

Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship Recommendation Worksheet

Review Criteria and Reviewer Perspectives

  • Reviewers for the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion fellowship are evaluating applicants on their scholarly work with respect to the current project, the project’s likely impact, and the applicant’s future scholarly potential.  As a research mentor, you are in an especially powerful position to be able to provide expert context about originality, scholarly impact, proposal quality, project feasibility, and the candidate’s potential.  The most helpful recommendation letters will include specific examples and details to establish that context.
    • Saying an applicant is “the most promising student I’ve seen at this point in a degree program” would be an even more powerful statement with quantitative scope (“[…] in # years of mentoring # doctoral students”) and/or qualitative context (“[…]in terms of initiative to seek publication opportunities”) to clearly state the reasons that the student is promising. 
  • The first round of review will be by scholars in the student’s discipline, though not necessarily the same subfield.  The final round of review will be from scholars across a broad range of humanities and social sciences disciplines. (Mellon/ACLS FAQ)  Likewise, do not assume that the same reviewers reading your recommendation letter will have substantial background in your specific subfield.
    • Asserting that “this project is very original” is less persuasive than establishing the prior approach and then giving concise explanations of the new approaches, new subject matter, new perspectives, etc. the applicant uses.

Resources for Reference Writers

  • “Writing a Letter of Recommendation”, an extremely useful collection of advice from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (advice is generalizable across fields). 
    • Particularly note pp. 10-11 and 15-19 for examples of how many small word choice differences (often unconsciously done when describing female vs. male applicants) can add up to a substantially stronger or weaker impression of an applicant.
  • A Nature article by Dutt et al. (2016)found that letter writers from the Americas tend to write longer letters than writers from other geographic regions (Table 3).  Be aware of the potential impact of cultural differences in how lengthy or superlative a letter is expected to be—especially if most reviewers will be used to letters from writers in the Americas.
    • Also see Table 2 and “Methods” section for a summary of letter qualities that surveyed senior faculty interpreted as “excellent,” “good,” or “doubtful.”