I am very happy to write recommendation letters, and I most often write for physics and computational science students. A good letter is specific: it tells a story about what you did, how you think, and how you handle hard things. I can only do that if you give me the raw material. The more you give me, the stronger the letter I can write.

Key points

  • Send everything below in a single email, in electronic form (pdf, Word, text file, or links). Please no paper copies.
  • Send it at least 2 weeks before the deadline. For graduate school applications, 4 weeks is better.
  • I will only write confidential letters.
  • If you want multiple letters, send the information for all of them at the same time so nothing gets buried in my inbox. (Med school letters go through Interfolio, so this doesn’t apply there.)
  • If you haven’t heard from me, it’s fine to send a reminder one week before the deadline and again two days before.

What I need

1. The basics

  1. Your full name, the name you go by, and the pronouns you use. Why do I ask for your pronouns?
  2. What you are applying for: graduate school, REU or internship, a job, a scholarship or honor, medical/dental/vet school. This tells me the level and kind of detail to include.
  3. Why you are asking me, which courses or projects I know you from, and who else is writing letters for you. This helps my letter complement theirs.

2. Your projects (the most useful part)

Choose two or three projects that you are proud of. They can come from a course, research, a capstone, an internship, a hackathon, or something you did on your own. For each one, write a short paragraph (rough is fine) that covers:

  • The problem: what were you trying to figure out or build?
  • Your role: what did you do, specifically? If it was a team project, what was your part?
  • Methods and tools: the physics, the code, the data, the equipment, the languages and libraries.
  • What went wrong: where did you get stuck, and how did you get unstuck? Stories about struggle and recovery are often the most convincing parts of a letter.
  • The result: what did you find or make, and what would you do next?
  • A link, if there is one: a GitHub repo, notebook, poster, talk, paper, or report.

If you took one of my courses, tell me which assignment or project you would want me to remember, and why.

3. In your own words

Answer these in a few sentences each. Informal is fine; I’m mining them for specifics, not editing your prose.

  • What are you proudest of from your time at MSU, and why?
  • What have you done that I might not have seen (helping classmates, learning something on your own, leading a group, going to office hours with a hard question)?
  • Why do you want this opportunity, and how does it connect to what you want to do next?
  • What should a reader know about you that your transcript and CV can’t show?
  • Is there anything in your record I should address, such as a rough semester, a gap, or a change of direction? I’d rather frame it well than have a reader guess.

This is not the time for modesty. Remind me of how good you are so I can say it.

4. Your documents

  1. A bullet-point list of things you want me to talk about. This isn’t a draft for me to copy. It’s a reminder of what I should include: prizes, research results, how we met, and anecdotes (for example, “first author as a junior” or “debugged the group’s simulation code”). Specific beats general.
  2. Your current transcript. Unofficial is fine; MSU students can download a grade report from StuInfo.
  3. Your resume and/or CV.
  4. Your personal statement(s) or application essay. A rough draft is fine if the final isn’t ready, but tell me it’s a draft.
  5. Test scores (GRE, MCAT, etc.) if you have them and they are relevant.
  6. If you took one of my senior capstone courses: one or two papers you wrote for it.

5. Logistics

  1. A list of programs or organizations you’re applying to, with due dates. (Not needed for med school letters.)
  2. The name and title of the person receiving the letter, if relevant.
  3. Any forms that need my signature, with your information already filled in.
  4. For electronic submissions: the URLs or email addresses where letters go. (Interfolio applicants can skip this; Interfolio will email me.)
  5. For letters that must be mailed: the addresses, plus addressed, stamped envelopes. Leave the return address blank and I’ll fill it in.

A few extra notes by application type

Graduate school or REU. Tell me which research areas and which faculty you’re interested in, and what computational or experimental skills you bring (languages, data analysis, instrumentation, HPC). If you have research experience, tell me what you contributed and what you learned.

Industry or internship. Include the job description or a link, and tell me which of your skills and projects you most want highlighted.

Medical, dental, or vet school. Do you have a specialization in mind (oncology, pediatrics, large-animal medicine, reconstructive dentistry…)? If so, what led you to it? Your project stories still matter: I like to write about how you think, not only your grades.

Scholarships and honors. Send the selection criteria, and tell me which of them you think you meet most strongly.

What makes a helpful email

Here’s a quick example of the difference between a weak and a strong project description.

Weaker: “I did a research project on simulating gravitational waves. It was a lot of work and I learned a lot.”

Stronger: “I wrote a Python code to model the inspiral of a binary black hole system using the post-Newtonian approximation. My first version drifted badly in energy, and I spent two weeks working out that my time step was too large near merger. I switched to an adaptive integrator and validated against published waveforms. Repo is linked below.”

The second one gives me something I can actually write about.

Shamelessly stolen from Brian O’Shea, then modified.