Letters of Recommendation

About three months before you plan to apply, you should reach out to potential writers of letters of recommendation and ask if they would be willing to write you a letter for our program. Letter writers should be people who are familiar with your academic work, and who are capable of judging whether you would be likely to succeed in a graduate program in history. Usually, these letters are written by history faculty members with whom you have taken classes. Occasionally they are written by faculty members from other disciplines, or by people who have supervised you in history-related jobs or internships. You should not submit letters written by people unfamiliar with your academic work or unable to judge its quality such as former employers from non-history-related jobs or people who know you socially. It is not unusual for people who have been out of school for a few years to reach out to people who taught them several years ago and ask for a letter.