LOR Format and Sample for MS and PhD Recommenders

LOR Format and Sample for Master's and PhD Applications: A Guide for Recommenders

This page is for the person writing the letter: the professor, research supervisor or manager who agreed to recommend someone for a master's or PhD program. A graduate letter of recommendation (LOR) in 2026 is rarely a letter you post. It is usually two things you submit through a link the university emails you:

1. A short online form. It typically asks how you know the applicant, which group you are comparing them with, where they rank in that group, and how strongly you recommend them.
2. A letter, uploaded as a file. Usually a PDF on your institution's or company's letterhead, with your signature and contact details.

Most of the graduate pages we read publish no fixed template. Georgia Tech, answering a question about mailed letters, says: “We do not have a template, nor do we require any specific format for paper letters of recommendation.” Some programs do set rules, quoted below from their own pages as read on October 27, 2026. The format section and the labelled sample show the conventional layout.

If you are the applicant, read the authorship rules before anything else. Several programs prohibit applicants from drafting, writing, translating or submitting their own letters; two Stanford programs say this holds even when a recommender asks. Stanford calls it “a violation of our application terms.” You can give your recommender this page, your CV and your statement of purpose.

For how to choose writers and how many letters programs ask for, see our guide to grad school letters of recommendation. For the writing itself (incidents, comparisons, endorsement wording), see how to write a letter of recommendation for a student. For length, see how long a letter of recommendation should be.

The Format at a Glance

How the Online Recommendation Form Works

1. The invitation. The applicant enters your name and email in their application. Yale: “Your recommenders will then receive a notification email with instructions for uploading their letter.” Harvard Griffin GSAS accepts letters only through its portal: “Harvard Griffin GSAS does not accept letters submitted via email, mail, or a dossier service.”

2. The waiver notice. Under US law (FERPA), an enrolled student can see letters in their file unless they waived that right when they applied. Some invitations tell you which they chose. Harvard Griffin GSAS: “When you waive your right to view your recommendation, our system notifies your recommenders of your decision.” More on this below.

3. The rating questions. Stanford's graduate application shows the most common structure. Recommenders are asked:

• “Please identify the most selective group to which you are comparing the applicant”, with options from “Undergraduate students” to “Doctoral level students”, plus “Master's level students” and “Other (please specify)”
• “How many years have you evaluated people in this group?”
• “Approximately how many people are in this group, totaled over those years?”
• “In overall ability (as appropriate to graduate studies) this candidate is among the:”, with options “Top 1-2%”, “Top 5%”, “Top 10%”, “Top 25%”, “Second quarter”, “Third quarter”, “Bottom quarter” and “No basis for judgment”
• “Admission to graduate study at Stanford University is:”, with options “Strongly recommended”, “Recommended”, “Recommended with reservations” and “NOT recommended”

Yale's form includes optional ratings of “Academic Performance, Intellectual Potential, and Motivation for the Proposed Program of Study.” Fill in the grid before you finalize the letter, so the percentile you tick and the comparison sentence in your letter say the same thing. If you cannot honestly place the applicant, “No basis for judgment” is an option on Stanford's form for a reason. Our guide to recommending when you have no basis for judgment covers that case.

4. The letter upload. Most forms take a file. Georgia Tech's also lets you paste text: “It is possible to attach a file in the online form and the form also provides a space where they can type or paste in a letter they have written. However, if your recommender chooses to use one of these options they must still complete the form in order to submit the recommendation.”

5. The deadline. Policies differ, so read the invitation:

• Yale: “There is no specific deadline for letters of recommendation, and recommenders may upload letters even after the application deadline.” Yale adds that programs begin reviewing soon after the deadline.
• EPFL: “The deadline for receiving the letters is one week after the application deadline.”
• MIT: “Some departments are lenient about the due date for letters if recommenders are late turning in their recommendation, but this is not a guarantee.”

If you use a dossier service such as Interfolio, check first whether the program accepts it. Yale warns that dossier services “generally will not fill out optional questions on our recommendation form”. Our guide to Interfolio letters and graduate rating forms covers the workarounds.

The Letter's Layout, Block by Block

Where a program sets no template, a graduate LOR follows ordinary business-letter layout. In order:

1. Letterhead. Your institution's or company's letterhead, as Boston University and NYU Tandon's online master's programs require.
2. Date. The date you sign it.
3. Addressee. “Admissions Committee” plus the program and university, or a general salutation if the same letter goes to several programs. No graduate page we read names a required addressee.
4. Subject line (optional). For example, “Recommendation for [applicant's full name], [degree and program]”. Stanford GSB's PhD program asks applicants to make sure you use their formal name: “Be sure to ask your recommender to use your formal name when writing your recommendation letter.”
5. Opening paragraph: who you are and how you know the applicant. Your role, how long you have known them, and in what setting. Purdue Computer Science asks recommenders “to include a very brief description of their qualifications for writing the letter.”
6. Two or three evidence paragraphs. Specific things the applicant did that you observed. Our writing guide covers how to build these.
7. A comparison paragraph. The group you are comparing them with, its size, and where they sit. It should match your answer on the rating grid.
8. A closing endorsement. One clear sentence of recommendation, plus an offer to answer questions.
9. Signature block. Signature, typed name, title, department, institution, official email and phone number.

Then export it to PDF with the signature visible and upload it through each program's link. Length is covered in our letter length guide.

What Programs Ask Recommenders to Address

The prompts below are the best guide to your evidence paragraphs, because they are what the committee asked you.

Stanford (default letter prompt; Stanford notes that “The exact prompt displayed to the recommender may differ depending on the graduate program you select”):

“Please write candidly about the applicant’s qualifications, potential to carry on advanced study in the field specified, intellectual independence, capability for analytical thinking, ability to organize and express ideas clearly, and potential for teaching. Descriptions of significant actions, accomplishments, character, and personal qualities related to scholarly achievement are particularly helpful.”

Boston University Graduate Medical Sciences (doctoral programs):

“Please indicate your relationship with the applicant, how long you have known them and articulate his/her academic or professional background. It is helpful to note the state of the applicant’s preparation and motivation for the intended doctoral program and why Boston University is a good match for their research interests. Also include an evaluation of their communication skills and ability to work independently.”

University of Toronto Computer Science: “At least two letters should speak to your ability to conduct independent research at the graduate level.”

Purdue Computer Science: “If you have done research, we expect a recommendation from your supervisor.”

Across these prompts, four things recur: your basis for judging, independent and analytical work, communication, and readiness for this specific program. A letter that covers those four, with an example for each, answers most graduate forms.

What changes with the kind of recommender

Managers writing for a returning student should also read our employer letter of recommendation guide.

Sample LOR for a Master's Program

This is a constructed example, written by us, not a real letter or a real applicant. It shows the layout and the kind of evidence that answers the prompts above. It is not a template to fill in. A letter's value is the recommender's own observation, which no sample can supply.

[Letterhead: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, (Institute name), (City), India]

14 November 2026

Admissions Committee
Master of Science in Computer Science, [University]

Recommendation for Ananya Rao, MS in Computer Science

I am an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at [Institute], where I have taught for eleven years. I have known Ananya Rao for two and a half years: she took my Operating Systems course (120 students) in her third year, and she then completed her final-year project in my systems lab, where we met weekly for ten months.

In Operating Systems, Ananya was the only student that term to find that the starter code for our scheduling assignment mishandled a timer edge case. She did not just report it. She wrote a test that reproduced it and a two-paragraph explanation that I now give to every class.

Her final-year project measured cache behaviour in a key-value store under mixed workloads. Midway through, her first set of results turned out to be an artefact of how the benchmark warmed the cache. She found this herself, discarded six weeks of data, redesigned the warm-up procedure and reran the experiments. Her final report was the clearest I received that year, and she presented it to our department seminar, answering questions from faculty without notes.

Ananya works independently but asks for help at the right moment. Two junior students in the lab now use the experiment scripts she documented.

Of the roughly 600 undergraduate students I have taught over the last five years, I would place Ananya in the top 5%, and among the 25 final-year project students I have supervised in that time, she is one of the two strongest. I recommend her for your MS program without reservation.

I am glad to answer any questions.

[Signature]

Dr. S. Menon
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
[Institute], [City], India
s.menon@[institute].ac.in · +91 [number]

Why each part is there:

• Opening paragraph: role, length of contact and two settings. This is what Purdue and BU ask for, and it tells the reader how much weight to give the rest.
• The bug report and the discarded data: two incidents a committee can picture. They show the “intellectual independence” and “capability for analytical thinking” Stanford's prompt asks about.
• The seminar talk: evidence of communication, which BU names.
• The comparison sentence: a named group, its size and a time window. It matches “Top 5%” on a Stanford-style grid.
• The closing endorsement: one sentence that matches the comparison.

A letter from a manager follows the same layout, with workplace incidents in place of coursework. A PhD letter from a research supervisor usually spends more of its evidence on research independence. Our guide to what PhD admissions committees look for in letters covers the PhD reader.

Authorship, Confidentiality and Verification Rules

These rules are quoted verbatim. Each binds the program that published it; check the rules of every program the applicant is applying to.

Who may write the letter.

• Stanford Graduate Admissions: “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. You are responsible for informing your recommenders of this policy.”
• Stanford Graduate School of Business, PhD program: “It is highly inappropriate to draft or write your own letter of reference, even if asked to do so by your referee. If the individual insists on this approach, you should find another referee.”
• Knight-Hennessy Scholars (a Stanford graduate scholarship): “You may not write, draft, edit, translate, or submit the letter of reference. We will require you to affirm in your application that you have not done so.”
• Harvard Graduate School of Education (FAQ revised August 2023): “You cannot be involved in any way in the drafting, writing, or submitting of your recommendation letters. Writing a first draft of a letter to give to your recommender is not allowed. However, you may provide a resume or summary of your accomplishments to your recommender to use for contextual information; you may also provide them with a copy of your Statement of Purpose.”
• NYU Tandon (online master's): “Letters of recommendation must be submitted directly by your recommender; any letter you upload to the application directly will be considered unofficial and will not fulfill the application requirement.” (NYU Tandon's online master's made letters optional from the Spring 2027 application.)
• EPFL: “These recommendations are confidential and will only be accepted if they are submitted by the referees themselves, through the electronic application process.”

What this means in practice. Some recommenders, especially busy ones, ask the applicant to send a first draft. The pages above treat that differently from sharing background material. Stanford says an applicant-written draft violates its application terms even when the recommender asked for it, and Stanford GSB's PhD program calls it “highly inappropriate” even then. Harvard's education school allows a résumé and statement of purpose but not a draft. So an applicant who writes their own letter may breach the program's application terms, whatever the recommender intended. If you are the recommender, ask for the applicant's CV, statement of purpose, transcript and list of programs instead. For applicants, our scripts for redirecting the request to a brag sheet cover how to respond.

AI tools. None of the graduate admissions pages we read on October 27 sets a rule for recommenders using AI tools. The rules above bind applicants. If you use any tool, the observations, comparisons and endorsement still have to be yours. Our article on how committees notice AI-written letters explains why generic letters lose weight.

The FERPA waiver. The federal regulation (34 CFR §99.12) says a waiver counts only if “The educational agency or institution does not require the waiver as a condition for admission to or receipt of a service or benefit from the agency or institution” and “The waiver is made in writing and signed by the student, regardless of age.” Programs describe its effect on the letter:

• Harvard Griffin GSAS: “admissions committees may consider letters of recommendation as more credible sources of information when the applicant has waived their right to access the letter.”
• Purdue Computer Science: “Not waiving your right to review a letter of recommendation tends to diminish the value of the letter.”
• MIT asks applicants, for each recommender, to “select if they waive their right to access their letter of recommendation or if they maintain their right to access their letter of recommendation under FERPA policy.”

If the applicant did not waive, write the same honest letter, knowing they may read it after enrolling.

Translations. If you write in another language, follow the program's instructions. Harvard Griffin GSAS: “The recommender would need to upload a copy of their original letter in the language it was written, a copy of the English translation of the letter, and verification from the professional translator certifying the translation.” Knight-Hennessy bars the applicant from translating: “A friend, a colleague, website, or a paid service may translate the document, but you may not translate the document.”

If You Are Writing From Outside the US

If you are writing from India or elsewhere outside the US for a US, Canadian or European program, three things are worth checking:

• A personal email address. Toronto CS and UBC refuse free email accounts for referees. Use your institutional or company address in the applicant's form. Our page on LOR email domain and letterhead rules has more examples.
• Calibration. Committees read a percentile and a named comparison group literally. “Top 5%” should mean top 5% of a group you can name and size. For European programs, see European vs American recommendation letters.
• A program-supplied template. Some European programs, such as the ETH Zurich master's quoted above, supply their own template. Use it where it exists. For German programs and DAAD, see our DAAD and German university LOR guide.

Before You Upload

• The link came from the university, and you are submitting it yourself.
• Letterhead, date, signature and your title and official email are on the PDF.
• The applicant's formal name is spelled the same way throughout.
• The opening paragraph says how long, and in what role, you have known them.
• At least two specific incidents you observed.
• One comparison sentence with a named group, and it matches your rating grid.
• One clear endorsement sentence at the end.
• The program name is correct, or the letter is general enough for every program it goes to.

Writing a Common App teacher evaluation instead? See the Common App teacher recommendation letter guide.

Get a free review of your recommendation letter

Get a free Quick Review of your recommendation letter against GradPilot's academic recommendation rubric, written for faculty and supervisors recommending MS, PhD and law school applicants. It reads for how you know the candidate, incidents rather than adjectives, comparisons that name their group, evidence of graduate potential, and the strength of the endorsement. For letters to programs outside the candidate's home country, use the international academic recommendation rubric.

Sources

Retrieved October 27, 2026, except where noted.

• Stanford Graduate Admissions: Recommendations
• Stanford GSB PhD: Letters of recommendation
• Knight-Hennessy Scholars: Recommendation letters
• Harvard Graduate School of Education: Letter of recommendation FAQ (PDF, revised August 2023)
• Harvard Griffin GSAS: Letters of recommendation and right to inspect letters
• MIT Office of Graduate Education: Letters of recommendation
• Yale GSAS: Letter of recommendation FAQs
• NYU Tandon online master's: Letters of recommendation (re-checked October 28, 2026)
• Boston University Graduate Medical Sciences: Recommendation instructions
• University of Toronto Computer Science: How to apply
• UBC Graduate School: Reference letters
• EPFL: Master's online application
• Purdue Computer Science: Letters of recommendation
• Georgia Tech Graduate Education: Recommender FAQ
• ETH Zurich: MA Comparative and International Studies application
• US Department of Education: FERPA regulations and 34 CFR §99.12 on eCFR (re-checked October 28, 2026)