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Recommendation Letters

Most graduate programs require three letters of reference. Check with your proposed program of study office regarding the number required. Your recommenders will be required to submit letters of reference using the online recommendation system.

  • The application will require this information prior to allowing you to submit your online application. However, you do not need to wait for your recommenders to submit their letters before you submit your online application. You can and should submit your online application prior to your recommenders submitting their letters.
  • If you have submitted an application to another program or term previously, you are able to import these recommendations to this application. If you are asking these references to provide a new letter, do not import these reference records as they will not receive a new request to submit a new letter.

Recommender Selection:

  • Recommendations should be provided from employers, supervisors, professors, or others who are able to comment on your professional and educational goals and potential (no friends or relatives please).
  • Recommendation letters should specifically address your ability to succeed in your proposed academic program and discuss any experience that may have prepared you to succeed in the program.

adding a recommender after you submit your application:

excluding A RECOMMENDER AFTER YOU SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION:

  • Log back into your application.
  • Click on the name of the recommender that needs to be excluded.
  • When the individual recommender window opens, click the grey “Exclude” button at the bottom of the window.
  • When the warning message pops up, click “Ok.”
  • This will remove the reference from consideration. 
  • If you later want to reinstate a previously excluded reference, you will need to access the References page again, then click the excluded recommender’s name. At the bottom of the window, they’ll be able to click the grey “Reinstate” button at the bottom to reinstate the reference to show on the administrative side. The reinstate button only appears after a particular reference has been excluded.
  • If you chose to NOT waive your rights to view your letter of recommendation and later want to change this decision, the only way to do so is to exclude the original recommender record and then add a new recommender record with all the same information for the recommender, but change your waiver section response.