For future applicants: Letter of recommendation tracker

[TorreAttack]

For the convenience of future applicants, I have here the template of my letter of recommendation tracker for grad school.

Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fb5HrkTcrEIh3WfwjymCJ2FdPkZJJZx8Py0sbc49Kxw/edit?usp=sharing

This was the basic template, and each of my letter writers got a personal link with the document filled with all of the schools that would be expecting a letter from them.

An additional column could be added with specific interests for each school. For instance I applied to some schools with strong Philosophy of Science programs, and other schools with strong Applied Ethics programs, and I indicated which schools fell into which categories when I thought the letter writer would find it relevant.

I sent this tracker by email with the following form:

Dear Professor X,

Thank you for agreeing to be one of my letter writers for this coming application season. In order to make this process as easy as possible for you, I have made this google sheet that contains information on all of the programs that I would like for you to send a letter to. 

(Link here)

This document contains how each school will contact you (So far all of them will contact you by email) and when the deadline is for letter submissions. It also indicates whether or not the school is actively accepting letters now, or if it will wait until later in the "live?" column. When I receive notice that a program has received a letter, I will indicate so in the "received?" column. Some of the schools require me to submit a phone number and an address, so if you are willing, please send over a phone number and mailing address that I can submit as part of my request for a letter of recommendation. 

I hope that this document makes writing on my behalf as easy as possible. Please let me know if you have any questions or requests.

Sincerely,

TorreAttack

Should you decide to use this tracker, make sure to change the name of the google doc to indicate which professor the tracker is for to avoid any mixups.

Before I sent this tracker, I sent each of my letter writers a document that succinctly summarized my work in undergrad. For each letter writer, the document began with a summary of each course I took with them with a three sentence review of each paper I wrote in the course and a selection of quotes from the comments they wrote on the paper and my work on the course in general. After that I did the same with any courses that I did not take with them but were related to my interest in graduate school. I ended with a description of the extracurricular/volunteer/research work I did that was related to my interests in graduate school that they might not have known about.

I might post my other application templates soon as a way to keep busy during decision season. Best of luck to you future applicants! Make sure to ask your professors to write for you well in advance!

[syn]

Very nice idea!  Similarly, I sent all of them via email and hard copy in their department box a packet: on top, a list of programs to which I'm applying, due dates, method they'll need to submit the letters, along with my CV, writing sample, and copies of any papers I wrote for them.  Fortunately I only had three letter writers and 6 applications (4 of which used ApplyWeb, and two of which used a homegrown system with a tracker) so it wasn't too difficult to track.

[TakeruK]

When I did this years ago, most profs weren't into Google Docs lol so I did it by hand. Great template though!

My only question is what purpose did you have in mind for the "Received" column? Most profs aren't going to be checking on this sheet to figure out if the school received it because well, profs submit hundreds of letters per year and it's not really feasible for them to check that each one of their letters went where they are supposed to go. It's the student's job. 

Also, not all schools tell you when they have received the letter, so if you don't update it and a prof does check, it could cause extra unnecessary concern.

But it's still a useful column for your own bookkeeping (let the prof know that they don't have to worry about that column though).

Also, I would recommend sharing the link to the spreadsheet to the prof(s) when you send them reminders since they might lose the original email with the link! When I applied to postdocs last year, I just copied and pasted the table into the body of the email each time with the remaining schools.

 

[TorreAttack]

2 hours ago, TakeruK said:

My only question is what purpose did you have in mind for the "Received" column? Most profs aren't going to be checking on this sheet to figure out if the school received it because well, profs submit hundreds of letters per year and it's not really feasible for them to check that each one of their letters went where they are supposed to go. It's the student's job. 

Also, not all schools tell you when they have received the letter, so if you don't update it and a prof does check, it could cause extra unnecessary concern.

It was pretty much for me only. Two professors actually filled that column out themselves once they sent letter, but you're right it's not too helpful for the professors themselves.