Students often ask me for a letter of recommendation, which I am happy to do if given enough notice. If I know you only as a student in my course, my letter for you will be my “standard” letter: it will include some information about the difficulty about the course and the skills required to do well (self-discipline, resilience and critical thinking skills). I will give your grade and some information about what percentile of the the class your grade placed you in. But that will be all I can say about you, since I don’t know anything else about your personal qualities.
Medical schools and other health professional schools are looking for additional characteristics about you like adaptability, logical reasoning, oral communication skills, intellectual curiosity, cultural competence, ethical responsibility, compassion and teamwork. Every time you take a class, be thinking about how you can demonstrate these (as well as your self-discipline and critical thinking skills) to the professor. Here are some examples of ways to demonstrate these characteristics in my classes:
- Visit me at office hours. Introduce yourself. Bring a friend if you want. Provide evidence of characteristics that would make you a good medical professional:
- Bring an article you have read that relates to the class to ask my opinion
- Describe your experiences that are outside the dominant culture – your childhood in a different country, your time at community college, your involvement with your family and home community
- Ask questions about how UCI Biology academia works
- Share a story about how your values or culture have made this class important to you
- If you did poorly on an early exam or assignment, ask for specific feedback on how you can improve
- Email me (from your UCI email) with relevant stories you find online that demonstrate curiosity, compassion and cultural competence that relate to the course.
- Find a research article that would be a good fit for Bio 100 and share it with me, saying why you liked it.
- If you notice some students are inappropriately sharing information or cheating, tell me so I can close loopholes and make the class more fair.
- When my class requires teamwork, participate fully and let me know when things are going well in your group. Regularly introduce yourself and your group members to me.
- If you are part of a club or volunteer program, share (via your UCI email) when something you are doing outside of class is related to the learning objectives of the class itself.
- Subscribe to biology or medicine news emails or podcasts, and share interesting discoveries (via your UCI email) with me.
The Association of American Medical Colleges has more guidelines here.
Some additional suggestions when you ask me (a professor of a large class) for a letter:
- I do not need to meet with you for you to ask for a letter of recommendation. A polite email request is sufficient. Other faculty will want to meet with you.
- When you ask for a letter, ask me if I can write a strong letter. If I can only give my standard letter I will tell you – it will not be as strong as if you have demonstrated additional characteristics.
- If you had difficulty early in the course, describe in your email how your exam or assignment scores improved over time with specific numerical examples.
- I use a form to collect information from students for their letter. When you fill out the form, mention any interactions like those listed above so I can find them.
- Give me at least 3 weeks notice for your letter, and provide a mechanism for electronic submission.
Most of these suggestions will work for any instructor of a course. Also keep in mind that instructors do our best to make our courses useful to you. Do your best to arrive on time and participate in class activities. Discuss grades and feedback with us, but do not ask for the grading scale to be changed or ask for extra points. Asking for a better grade is considered rude in academic culture and may affect the strength of your letter.
You can strengthen any “course” letter by being a learning assistant for the course.
Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for a letter! Professors get asked regularly, and we are happy to help if we have the time.