Letter of Recommendation Request

I receive an enormous number of letter of recommendation requests.  I am always happy to write letters, but to ensure that I do so promptly, and without error, I require that people who request letters from me follow the following guidelines and procedures scrupulously.

Please note the following rules of thumb:

• You want letters from professors in whose courses you did particularly well.  If you did significantly better in other professors' courses, you should consider soliciting letters from them first.
• For admission to graduate programs, you will ordinarily need letters from professors in whose courses you received a B+ or better.  The better the grade you made in my course(s), the stronger the letter I can write.
• If you were a student in one of my large lecture courses and you did not get to know me well personally, please request that your TA from the course e-mail me a quotable blurb that I can build into my letter(s).

Please also read the following carefully:

1. I will need at least three weeks' notice.
2. For any forms I must fill out, you MUST complete ALL required personal information at the top of the form.  I will not fill out forms with blank or incomplete personal information.
3. Drop off forms at my office, mail them to me, or, best yet (if possible), email them to me.
4. Some schools are now putting recommendation forms on web sites.  Do not point me to the web site.  Download the form and e-mail it to me.  If the form is a form-fillable .pdf, make sure you fill in all the necessary personal information on the form BEFORE you e-mail it to me.  (The one exception to this rule is schools whose admissions procedures are entirely online and require a login and password from recommenders to upload letters.  In this case the school in question will e-mail me with login information.  You must still follow point 5 below, however.)
5. In addition to dropping off forms (or instead of dropping of forms, if just a letter is required), you MUST download, complete, and e-mail me as an attachment a copy of a Letter of Recommendation Request.  The document is in RTF format, which you can edit in Microsoft Word or WordPad.  Right-click on the link to save a copy.  Do not print out this form and leave it for me; you must e-mail it to me as an attachment.  I will not write letters if you give me a hard copy of this form.  I will alert you when I have completed your letter(s) by replying to this e-mail message.
6. Do not supply me with envelopes.  I will print up envelopes.  I will sign envelopes across the seal at the back and leave them for you to pick up (I will tell you where in my confirmation of completion message).  Do not provide me with stamps; you can stamp any letters that must be sent in separately once you receive them from me.

Thank you for your cooperation.

David A. Welch