Letters of recommendation

 

Hello,

Welcome to my letter of recommendation site. Please read the entire page before emailing me. I am always happy to write letters for students, but please make sure you follow the required steps to ensure that I write as good of a letter as I can and meet any required deadlines.

I require 2 weeks of advanced notice at a minimum (more time is better), not including school breaks and holidays, to write letters of recommendation. I also cannot write letters during the week of final exams. If you are taking a gap year (or going to another program such as the Peace Corps) it is better to ask for a letter before you leave so that there isn’t a large gap between when you took my class and when I wrote your letter (I can always upload them when they are needed once I’ve written them). Once your letter is written, I can submit it within a week of being notified, excluding holidays, school breaks, and final exams week.

Requirements/Steps

  1. Email me asking if I can write you a letter of recommendation. Please make sure you did well in my class before emailing me.
  2. Email me your filled out FERPA release and fill out this form.
  3. If applying for an Economics PhD program only (this does not apply to Master’s degrees), it is recommended that you take the following math courses: Calculus 1, 2, and 3, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra. If you have not taken all of these classes, I can still write you a letter but I will not be able to rate you as well prepared for Ph.D. programs because you cannot be well prepared for these programs without the required math courses.
  4. Send me a list of schools you are applying to with due dates.
  5. I will email you when I’ve completed your letter and submitted it to each school/job. If you don’t hear back from me within a week of your request (after I’ve told you the letter is ready), please email me to check on the status of the letter upload. I don’t want to miss any deadlines (sometimes messages are marked as spam).
  6. I can only write a good letter if you did well in my class. If you did not do well in my class, I will be honest with you and notify you of why I can’t write you a good letter.
  7. This is not a requirement, but I would really appreciate it if you would let me know the outcome of your application (you can send me an email with an update). Students often times ask me for advise about where to apply and having a list of outcomes (without student names obviously), is useful for when I try to tell students where to apply. Here’s a list of where recent students from the Economics Department have been accepted.