Letter Writing

If you are requesting a letter of recommendation for a graduate program from me because I’ve been your instructor in the past, I should mention that it will be better for your application if faculty members write your main three letters of recommendation. I am currently a graduate student, and having a graduate student write a letter of recommendation may carry less weight and may contribute to your application not being the strongest. I am happy to be a fourth/fifth letter writer if the school allows more letters. But if you don’t have enough faculty members to turn to, I am happy to be one of the three letter writers.

Below is a list of things I strongly prefer having when I write a letter; not everything may be relevant for you!

• Please try to let me know at least a month in advance. (I will still try to accomodate shorter deadlines, but the letter is likely to be better if I have more time.)
• A list of links to the instructions/prompt for the letter writer, with deadlines.
• Instructions on how to submit (e.g., email to XXX, "you will receive an email", or send me a link, etc).
• Please also find out things like whether I need to mail a physical letter vs. upload to a web site, if my letter has a different deadline than the rest of your application, and any other special instructions.
• I have a strong preference for PDF or plain text documents. A spreadsheet is also ok but I strongly prefer PDF or plain text.
• Please include your name in the filename of any documents you send me.
• Who are your other letter writers? Include a sentence of context too (e.g., advised my honors thesis).
• Once you have drafts of anything you're submitting please send them to me. The basic principle is that I can't write about something I don't know about.
• If you are an undergraduate, I'd prefer you send an unofficial copy of your transcript too.

I leave it up to the applicant to make sure that I don’t miss the deadline (something which has never happened so don’t worry). I ask that you send me frequent email (every week or more as the deadlines grow closer) to remind me. I won’t forget but this keeps it at the top of my to-do list. At some point I will then send you an email back saying that I have mailed/uploaded/etc the letter. If you do not receive confirmation from me, then you should assume that I have not submitted your letter and you should pester me.

Finally, on the application page, please use the following for my personal information. Name: Deewang Bhamidipati
Affiliation: University of California, Santa Cruz
Department: Mathematics
Position/title: Graduate Student
Phone: (831) 459-2400
Email: dbhamidi@ucsc.edu
Address: 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064

Information on this page is heavily inspired by DZB’s letter of recommendation information page (that is, at the moment, it does not differ from his information at all).