Recommendation Letters
If you need a letter of recommendation from me then please see this note.
I receive a lot of applications from students to write recommendation letters for them for various purposes. Some of them are for internships, some for job applications, and yet others for applying for higher studies. In this note, I attempt to clarify some points regarding getting a recommendation letter from me for any of these purposes. This note essentially captures issues I faced in past few years while recommending students.
My writing a letter for someone is strictly my choice, it is not your right. Just because I agreed to write a letter for a student X and this student happens to be your project partner in a course that I am teaching does not make it certain that I will also agree to write a letter for you.
I have many other responsibilities and am certainly not waiting to write letters for you. Ideally, you should approach me few weeks or a month in advance. Do not approach me on the last day of any application. I am almost certain to refuse you in that case.
Judge yourself if you should approach me in the first place for writing a letter for you.
If you have never taken a course with me then there is no way I will write a letter for you.
If you are currently taking a course with me (and this is your first semester in the institute) then consider your class rank in the course that I am teaching. If you are not in the top 10 % of the students, then there is not much point in approaching me.
If you have taken multiple courses with me and have scored anything less than A- in any course then too, I am unlikely to write a letter for you.
In general, I should be willing to write a letter for someone who has taken multiple courses with me and has scored at least one A and the rest A or A-.
Sometimes, even though you may satisfy rule 3(4), I also insist that your B Tech or M Tech thesis should be in an area of my interest (Theoretical Computer Science, Algorithms, Graph theory, Mathematics, Cryptology,… etc).
I write only a limited number of letters for any specific place. For example, if you are applying to a university Y for internship and I have already agreed to write enough letters for other students for the same place, then even though you may satisfy rule 3(4) and 3(5), I may not write a letter for you.
Do not use my name as a referee unless you have taken explicit permission from me for the same. If I learn that you have done so then I may decline the request when I receive the email from the university/organization. Even worse, I may write an indifferent letter which may harm your prospects (although I would normally not wish to harm you and more likely simply decline the request).