Letters of Recommendation Process

When you fill out an application, you will be asked to enter contact information for your recommenders. Your recommenders will then receive a notification email with instructions for uploading their letter. Please note:

• Letters of recommendation will be automatically attached to your application as soon as they are submitted. 
• You may view the status of letters of recommendation within your application or from your Application Status Portal.

The number of letters required varies by application type.

• For degree programs, three letters of recommendation are required. (To a maximum of five).
• For non-degree programs, two letters of recommendation are required.

Unfortunately, no. We will only accept letters submitted online.

If your recommender is only willing to provide a paper letter, you may want to consider a different recommender as paper letters will not be considered. 

From your Application Status Portal, you will be able to remind, add, or exclude a recommender. This feature is no longer available once the minimum required number of recommendations (3) has been recieved. 

Yes, you may “Exclude” a recommender from within your application or on your Application Status Portal. 

Unfortunately, no. You will have to identify your recommenders again in your current year application. Your recommenders will have to submit recommendations again.

Yes. We will accept letters of recommendation from Interfolio or other dossier services that have the ability to upload a letter directly to our online recommendation system on behalf of a faculty member. In such cases, please enter the dossier service-specific email address provided by the recommender when adding a recommender for your application.

Please be advised that dossier services generally will not fill out optional questions on our recommendation form, including ratings of your Academic Performance, Intellectual Potential, and Motivation for the Proposed Program of Study.

Paper letters and emailed PDFs are not acceptable. 

Yes, however, we suggest that at least one recommendation should originate from a faculty member of the last institution you attended as a full-time student. This is not mandatory and may not be feasible if you have been out of school for a number of years.

Once you enter your recommender’s information (including email address) and select “Send to Recommender,” an email is automatically generated and sent to your recommender. If your recommender does not receive the email, it is possible that their email provider is blocking the email. You may try resending the email, or excluding the recommender and adding them again with a different email address.