Recommendation Letter From a Chinese Professor

Recommendation Letter From a Chinese Professor

A letter from a Chinese professor can fail three checks before anyone reads it: a 163.com or qq.com address, a translation the student made, and a rank with no class size. NTU Singapore refuses free-email addresses "(i.e. email address given by hotmail, gmail, yahoo, qq, etc)"; LSE may need to verify a "Gmail.com/163.com" sender; Stanford bars applicants from "translating" their own reference. Fix those three and a one-page letter in plain English can be strong.

This page is for the professor writing the letter, and for the student who wants to brief them properly. It has a full constructed sample in English, written the way a US or UK reader expects: how you know the student, one incident, a rank with its group, and a clear endorsement. When the draft is ready, choose the graduate school recommendation letter rubric for a free Quick Review.

Every university page quoted below was checked on October 31, 2026. EMBL's page gives dates for its 2027 Winter Recruitment; the others state no cycle year.

Three checks before the letter is read

1. The email address

Our recommendation: use the university address (for example, one ending in .edu.cn), even if you normally work from 163.com or qq.com. Ask the student to check that the address is typed correctly, and look in your junk folder: NTU asks referees to check "inbox/ junk mail and complete it within 14 working days upon receipt." For more programmes' rules, see the LOR email domain and letterhead guide.

2. Who writes and translates

The professor writes the letter. If you write it in Chinese, the translation must not come from the student. Stanford: "Your recommenders must be the sole authors of your letters of recommendation. Drafting, writing, translating, or submitting your own reference, even if asked to do so by a recommender, is a violation of our application terms." Cambridge wants references "in English via our online Referee Portal". The full translation rules are in the guide for when the recommender doesn't write English.

3. A rank with its group

"Ranked 4th" means nothing without the group. "4th of 112 students in the Statistics major, 2023 cohort" can be used. Say how the rank is calculated (weighted average, all courses) if you know. The sentence patterns for a 100-point average are in how to explain grades and rank in a LOR.

Letterhead, signature and stamp

Of the eight universities whose pages we checked for this guide (NTU, Toronto CS, LSE, Cambridge, EMBL, Edinburgh, Stanford and Berkeley), EMBL's fallback is the only place a stamp is asked for on a reference. NTU's page mentions a stamp, but for transcripts. Our view: use headed paper, sign and date it, and do not delay a letter waiting for the department stamp. The countercase: if a programme or a form says "stamped", follow it; the stamp rule then comes from that programme, not from this page.

Describing your university and grades

Readers abroad may not know your university or your grading scale. Two rules from the pages we checked:

• Do not convert. Berkeley's rule for translated transcripts: "Degree names and grades should be transcribed, not converted, into English words or the U.S. grades of A-F." Give the score out of 100 and the rank; do not invent a GPA.
• If the transcript is not final, give the marks. LSE asks referees at institutions that do not issue transcripts before graduation to "comment in detail on the applicant's progress at university, including all of their marks to date."

Describe your university in one checkable clause (for example, the size of the major and how students enter it) rather than a national label the reader cannot verify.

Constructed sample letter from a Chinese professor

Constructed example, written by us, not a real recommendation letter. Context (invented): Associate Professor Zhang Hua teaches at an invented university and supervised Li Mingyu's undergraduate thesis; Li is applying to US MS programs in statistics.

If the professor hosted the student for a summer rather than teaching them, the research internship supervisor letter guide fits better.

Dear Admissions Committee,

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at Eastern Lakes University, where I have taught for eleven years. I have known Li Mingyu since September 2023. I taught him in Mathematical Statistics (spring 2025, 87 students) and I am supervising his undergraduate thesis, which began in March 2026. We meet every week.

Mr. Li's weighted average is 91.2 out of 100. He is 4th of 112 students in the Statistics major, 2023 cohort. In Mathematical Statistics his final mark was 97, the highest of the 87 students that term.

His thesis studies missing data in a public air-quality dataset from three cities. In April, his first model gave very small standard errors. He suspected the result, checked how the stations reported missing hours, and found that missing values had been filled with the previous hour's reading. He wrote a short note explaining the problem, re-estimated the model with multiple imputation, and showed me that the effect we were interested in became smaller but remained clear. I did not suggest the check. He found the problem himself and explained it clearly.

He is also a careful writer. His thesis proposal, in English, needed only small corrections from me.

In my eleven years I have supervised 38 undergraduate theses. Mr. Li is one of the three strongest of those students. I have not seen him teach, so I cannot comment on teaching.

I recommend Li Mingyu for your Master of Science in Statistics without reservation. I would gladly accept him as a graduate student in my own group.

Zhang Hua Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Eastern Lakes University zhanghua@elu.edu.cn

That letter is 277 words. The university, people, marks and numbers are invented for the example.

What it does:

• Basis first: role, years, the course with its size, the thesis and how often they meet.
• Grades readable abroad: a score out of 100, a rank with the group size and cohort, no GPA conversion.
• One incident: the filled-in missing hours. It shows independence and method without the words.
• A counted comparison: "one of the three strongest" of 38 thesis students.
• A stated limit: no teaching seen.
• An endorsement in words a committee can quote, sent from an institutional address.

Writing for a UK course instead? Cambridge asks for 500 to 1,000 words, so the same letter would need more detail: another incident, and Cambridge's own areas (motivation, time management, "whether you would want to supervise the student yourself").

Questions about recommendation letters from Chinese professors

Cannot write it in time? See how to decline a recommendation request so the student can renominate.

Can my professor use a 163.com or qq.com email?

Not at NTU, which names qq, or at Toronto CS, which refuses Gmail and asks for an official institutional address. LSE accepts webmail but "may in future need to verify" it. Use the university address.

Does the letter need the department stamp?

Of the pages we checked, only EMBL asks for a stamp, and only when the referee has no institutional email. Cambridge (without an academic email), Edinburgh (when the applicant uploads the letter) and EMBL ask for headed paper and a signature instead.

Can I translate my professor's letter into English?

No. Stanford names "translating" your own reference as a violation "even if asked to do so by a recommender". See the translation guide.

Should the letter follow the Chinese format or the US format?

The US and UK format: relationship, incident, ranked comparison, endorsement. The LOR format and sample for MS and PhD shows the structure, and European vs American recommendation letters explains how styles get misread. Writing for a doctoral applicant you supervised? The PhD recommendation letter sample from a supervisor shows the research paragraphs.

Get a free review of the letter

Get a free Quick Review of your recommendation letter against GradPilot's graduate school recommendation letter rubric. It reads how you know the candidate, incidents instead of adjectives, comparisons that name their group, and the strength of your endorsement. Writing for a UK or European programme? The international academic recommendation letter rubric also checks that your grades and rankings make sense to a reader outside China. GradPilot's letter reviews aren't for a letter a student drafted for a recommender to submit as their own.

More guides for international applicants are in the graduate school essays hub.

Sources

Retrieved October 31, 2026.

• Nanyang Technological University, Research Programmes Admission Guide (no cycle stated): two referee reports; free-email addresses including qq refused; 14 working days; transcript stamp.
• University of Toronto, Department of Computer Science, How to apply (no cycle stated): official institutional address; no Gmail.
• London School of Economics, Information for referees (no cycle stated): webmail including 163.com may be verified; marks to date.
• University of Cambridge, References and Guidance for academic referees (no cycle stated): institutional email; English; format; headed paper without an academic email.
• EMBL, International PhD Programme application (2027 Winter Recruitment): institutional email only; signed and stamped fallback.
• University of Edinburgh, References (no cycle stated): headed paper, dated, handwritten signature.
• Stanford Graduate Admissions, Recommendations (no cycle stated): sole-author and no-translating rule.
• UC Berkeley Graduate Division, Requirements (no cycle stated): grades transcribed, not converted.