Please read this carefully before you approach me to write a letter of recommendation for you!
Every semester I get approached by several students with a request to writte letters of recommendation on their behalf. These letters are requested for various purposes, the prominent of these being application to doctoral studies. Writing a letter of recommendation is an honorable task and I never decline it. However, I have encountered in some students a fundamental lack of understanding of the process and, effectively, useless waste of effort on their and the recomender's part. I would like to ask you to read this brief document carefully before you approach me.
Many students make wrong choices of faculty for writing letters of recommendation for them. For example, if the purpose of the letter is to testify to your research ability (as it is the case in case of application for doctoral studies), it is not not a good idea to ask for a letter a faculty who knows you just from a course that you took with him/her. Admissions committees are not interested in your course performance (unless it was truly exceptional!) -- they want to assess your research potential. If I worked with you closely on a doctoral dissertation, a M.Sc. thesis, or an independent study, I know you well enough to write you a strong letter. You may have also impressed me with your class project, especially if you have shown creativity well beyond ordinary class work. Please think carefully about the good (and relevant!) things that I am able to say about you before you approach me to write a letter for you. Should my opinion about your ability, attitude, or work ethics be less then perfect, I will frankly say so before I agree to write you a letter. In that case, it is of course, in your best interest to approach somebody else, even though I am still willing to write a letter on your behalf.
Some students approach application for doctoral studies by a process that one might call brute force approach. Instead of carefully selecting a handful universities ad programs that match their skills and interests, they spam many universities with weak applications that they have not carefully thought about. This is a waste of the applciant's, admissions committee's and the recommenders' time. I order to help you with being more thoughtful, I am limiting the number of letters that I am willing to send on your behalf to five. If five is not enough for you, please ask somebody else for a letter of recommendation.
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