How to Write a Letter of Recommendation: Counselor’s Guide + Samples

how to write a letter of recommendation

At the bottom of your to-do list is writing a letter of recommendation — for dozens of students — and all the desktop zen gardens in the world won’t make that go away.

But don’t worry. We’ll show you why writing strong recommendation letters for your students can be one of the most powerful ways to advocate for them. And while we’re at it, we’ll also walk you through how your letters of recommendation differ from a teacher’s letter; then, we’ll offer you two different ways to write yours. Both approaches work well, so we’ll show you how each is done — with examples for your reading pleasure.

After all, “strategy” is this guide’s middle name.

how to write a letter of recommendation

In the spirit of this topic, we’ve gathered advice from a number of experts, including:

And I’m Alexis, a high school English teacher-turned college counselor-turned journalist. Ethan (the College Essay Guy) and I serve as your synthesizers and storytellers in this guide, which we’ve chunked into a few parts:

TABLE OF CONTENTS