Recommendations

Recommendation Requests SSP Alumni

SSP '97 Letters of Recommendation

(for College and Scholarship Applications)

It is very important for private colleges and universities to request one or more letters of recommendation to be included as part of an application. Scholarship applications also require such letters. In many cases the person writing the recommendation is asked to fill out a specific form in addition to, or in place of, an actual letter. It is common practice to ask teachers who know the student very well to write these letters. The senior teaching faculty of the Summer Science Program, Dr. Stephens and Mr. Horne, have the responsibility to write such letters. These letters will often reflect an overall evaluation of the student by the entire staff. Although SSP is recognized by many institutions as an exceptional program, a recommendation is no guarantee that an applicant will be accepted by these institutions.

Please follow these instructions for requesting letters of recommendation. Note that it is not appropriate to ask for a letter from more than one member of the teaching staff; the evaluation is largely a staff evaluation as opposed to a personal one.

Please contact either of us about a month before the first application deadline to discuss having a letter written. While we are under no obligation to write a letter for students of SSP we are usually very happy to do so. Since you obviously want a letter of recommendation to strongly support your application, you should openly and honestly discuss with us the type of letter we feel comfortable writing on your behalf. (You should also do this with anyone else that you ask to write a letter for you.
Please send all the names, addresses and forms from the institutions requiring letters. We ask that you request no more than 6 letters to different institutions. Public colleges and universities do not usually require such letters and they are discarded if sent, so please do not include these institutions in your request unless you are certain they are needed. Stamped envelopes to each institution are appreciated; it saves SSP a significant amount of money. If you are applying for many scholarships, a single letter, sent to your school counselor and copied, is usually the best approach. For applications to colleges and universities it is much more effective for us to send the letter directly to them rather than having your school counselor send copies of the same letter to each institution. This personalizes the letter and we find that institutions respond favorably to this.
All letters are confidential; we do not, and will not, send you a copy. This is a very common practice among those writing such letters. Because of this, it is all the more important to discuss with us the type of letter we would be willing to write.
We do not write "generic" letters of recommendation for our students. Each student is treated as a unique individual. We put significant effort into each student's letter. Nothing delights us more than to hear a year from now that you have been accepted by several of your top choice schools. We hope we can help you through this process.

Dr Stuart Stephens
Cassini Uplink Operations Element
Jet Propulsion Laboratory 230-101
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109
stuart.stephens@jpl.nasa.gov
Mr. Gary Horne
St Theresa School
4850 Clarewood Drive
Oakland, CA 94618
g_horne@sttheresa.pvt.k12.ca.us