Recommendation Letter HELP

[catcobb]

I am going to be asking some potential recommendation letter writers this week and wanted to ask for some advice!

I will be asking in person but I want to send an email requesting a meeting! What should I say in the email? Do I mention that it is for recommendation letters?

Also, I am a child development major applying to SLP grad school and because of this, I don't have any CSD or SLP professors that I will be able to ask for the letters. 

Will this hurt my chances?

Thank you!

[MelBase]

Hi @catcobb! I am an anthropology major, so we are in a similar boat as non-SLP applicants. I don't think it will hurt your chances at all, as long as you have a decent GPA and GRE scores and some experience. Not necessarily experience in CSD, but just extracurricular stuff in general. When writing my SOP, I made sure to relate the classes I have taken to SLP and how they would make me a better clinician in the future.

I didn't have professors that I knew really well, but found a professor I wanted to ask. I didn't just want to stop in and put her on the spot or catch her off guard so I sent an email too. I basically said that I wanted to schedule a meeting to discuss if she would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation. I said I was going to stop in, but I knew how busy the start of a semester can be and I didn't want to catch her at a bad time or put her on the spot. I also said that I had a packet prepared that included the schools I am applying to and why, a draft of my personal statement, my resume, and academic transcripts/information and if she was willing to schedule a meeting what times/days worked best for her. She emailed me back the next day saying she was happy to and that I could just send in the information electronically and didn't even need to meet with her. I thought it would have been weird to send an email saying that I wanted to meet with her, but not say what it was about. A lot of professors know that this is the time when students are asking for LOR, so they are expecting it anyway.

Hopefully this helps!

 

[slpvee]

I sent an email to my professors asking when they were available to discuss a potential recommendation letter. If I haven’t had that professor in a while, I will remind them who I am and what class I had with them as well as what grade I got. After we set up a time to meet at their office, I brought my resume, transcripts, personal statement, and a list of schools with deadlines in a manila envelope to give them.

Some schools offer leveling Masters programs which allow you to take prerequisites the first year and then matriculate into the grad program. You won’t be able to apply to programs that don’t have that because they want you to have had a postbac done for SLP or have your bachelors in communicative disorders. 

[slptobe!]

On 9/18/2019 at 4:05 PM, slpvee said:

I sent an email to my professors asking when they were available to discuss a potential recommendation letter. If I haven’t had that professor in a while, I will remind them who I am and what class I had with them as well as what grade I got. After we set up a time to meet at their office, I brought my resume, transcripts, personal statement, and a list of schools with deadlines in a manila envelope to give them.

Some schools offer leveling Masters programs which allow you to take prerequisites the first year and then matriculate into the grad program. You won’t be able to apply to programs that don’t have that because they want you to have had a postbac done for SLP or have your bachelors in communicative disorders. 

Absolutely agree with what you said, sometimes professors or supervisors have packets or requirements for their students to send transcripts and resumes in order to help them write a good letter and be organized when sending them out. 

Also, SJSU has an extended masters program. However as said above, you have to take a leveling post-bacc program first before you would be considered for grad programs unless it's an extended program.