It is an important duty for a faculty that providing graduate school applicants a strong recommendation letter. However, faculty members experience difficulties in writing a strong recommendation letter because of 1) lack of applicant information and 2) time pressure. In order to address the problem, I suggest "using a recommendation request form". The template and instruction is here: http://leadershipcenter.tistory.com/444

1. 1
Guiding to Graduate School Application & Writing
Recommendation Letters
Jeonghwan (Jerry) Choi, PhD
Management faculty
&
Mohammad Mousavi, PhD
Finance faculty
(Oct. 04, 2017)

2. 2
Purpose: Faculty members want to give more practical
guides and supports for graduate school applicants.
Guiding WKU Students to Graduate School
Application

3. 3
Situation: More than 70% of WKU students are going to
prestigious Graduate schools all around the world (Dr. Holger
Henke’s Interview, China Daily 2017)
Guiding WKU Students to Graduate School
Application

4. 4
Problem: A few number of WKU faculty write more than 70
recommendation letters in a semester. And the number is getting
dramatically increasing. It is a big investment for faculty.
Consequently, the process is mechanistic. However, WKU faculty
want to provide more practical guides and strong recommendation
letters for our students.
Guiding WKU Students to Graduate School
Application
Example: 20 students X 7
graduate schools = 140 letters

5. 5
An example of strong recommendation letter!
Ying Feng (Kelly) at Johns Hopkins
Guiding WKU Students to Graduate School
Application

6. 6
Key components of strong recommendation letter!
Ying Feng (Kelly) at Johns Hopkins
Guiding WKU Students to Graduate School
Application
Key Components
Specific “purpose of
study”
Studying Innovation / Tech
Management in the US
Targeted “graduate
programs”
Listing seven prestigious American
innovation / tech management schools
(Johns Hopkins, UIUC, Columbia, Boston,
Stanford, Kellogg, U of Chicago)
Pin-pointed
strength
Winner of Kean BPC,
Financial knowledge & Inquiry for
Management from Internship at Philips
Continual
communication
Since the Kean BPC, Kelly discussed
continually about her studying
abroad with a faculty
Clear career vision after
the Graduate program
Kelly would start her career in the American
manufacturing company as an innovation
management expert, and she gradually move
back to Sino-American enterprise.

7. 7
Fours issues that need to be addressed.
Guiding WKU Students to Graduate School
Application
Students get “Biased information”2
Students get “Interventions from
Parents & Third-party agents”
3
Faculty need more
“Communication” with potential
applicants
4
Faculty need “Basic materials”
from students
1
WKU needs to provide more
practical information about
graduate schools
WKU needs to guide students to
choose the most appropriate
graduate programs
WKU needs to provide
Institutional support.
Students need to provide faculty
“Statement of Purpose, CV,
Transcript, Where to apply?”

8. 8
How to address these issues?
Guiding WKU Students to Graduate School
Application
“Biased
information”
2
“Interventions
from Parents &
Third-party agents”
3
“Communication”4
“Basic materials”1
Idea 2: WKU Faculty members can take five-
minutes “Video” to guide students to apply
graduate schools.
More ideas?
Idea 1: Let students complete a
“Recommendation Letter Request Form” that
contains necessary basic materials.

9. 9
How to get “Necessary Information” from students?
➪ Recommendation Letter Request Form !
Guiding WKU Students to Graduate School
Application
Idea 1: “WKU
Recommendation
Letter Request Form
for Graduate School
Application”