Recommendation Letter From a Nigerian Lecturer

Recommendation Letter From a Nigerian Lecturer

A recommendation letter from a Nigerian lecturer for a UK or US master's has to answer one question a testimonial never asks: how does this student compare with others you have taught? LSE's page for referees asks it directly: "Would you offer this student a place on a similar programme at your own institution?"

This page is written for the lecturer, with one section for the student who has to ask. A testimonial, the letter that certifies a graduate's character and conduct and carries a department stamp, answers a different question. LSE says "personal or character references … are not acceptable." A letter that never compares the student with a group, never names a mark and never describes a piece of work gives the reader nothing to weigh. When the letter is drafted, choose the graduate recommendation letter rubric for a review; it looks for concrete examples and fair comparisons.

Every LSE, Duke, Boston University and Manchester page quoted below was checked on October 31, 2026. The referee pages state no admission cycle, so check the programme's own page before the letter goes in. For format and length across programmes, see the master's and PhD recommendation letter format and sample.

What the reader asks your referee

At LSE the referee does two things. "You will be asked to complete a short questionnaire and then upload an existing letter of reference from your computer (as a PDF)." LSE's Information for Referees then asks for four things:

• Marks, if transcripts are late. "If you are an academic referee from an institution which does not supply transcripts or mark sheets until graduation, and if the applicant is a current student, please, if possible, comment in detail on the applicant's progress at university, including all of their marks to date."
• Candour. "We would be grateful for a candid reference that speaks with as much specificity as possible to the candidate’s academic suitability for the programme(s) applied to, their intellectual strengths, and any limitations."
• Course content for quantitative degrees. For a degree "in a quantitative subject", LSE asks for "a synopsis of the course contents" or more on "their quantitative skills". An engineering or economics lecturer should name the courses and what they covered.
• The place question. "Would you offer this student a place on a similar programme at your own institution?"

The US programmes we checked phrase it differently. Duke's Graduate School asks applicants to choose "people best qualified to attest to your capacity for graduate work." Boston University's PhD programmes in Arts & Sciences go further: "The letters of recommendation should be written by faculty members in your proposed field of graduate study who are familiar with American higher education." If you studied or taught outside Nigeria, say so in one line; BU's sentence shows why it can matter.

Testimonial or reference: what changes

The left column is the habit of a testimonial letter. The right column is what the reader uses. Where a rule is sourced, the source is named; the rest is our editorial reading.

Our view: if a department issues testimonials, keep issuing them for jobs. Write the reference as a separate letter, from scratch.

The countercase: some programmes use only a rating form and a few short answers, with no uploaded letter. Then the comparison and the evidence go into the form's boxes, and the format advice here matters less.

Gmail, letterhead and the safe-links problem

Use your university email. LSE tells applicants to "use each referee’s academic/official email address". If you use Gmail anyway, LSE says: "If you are using a personal webmail account (e.g. Gmail.com/163.com) rather than an official academic/company account (e.g. .edu/.ac.uk/.org) to submit your reference, we may in future need to verify that you are the true sender of this reference." Duke says letters sent to a general account "will be more closely monitored". Boston University is stricter: "We do not accept recommendation letters sent from a Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc. account." If your university email is unreliable, tell the student now so they can check the programme's rule before nominating you. The recommender email and letterhead guide compares more programmes.

Writing from a Chinese university instead? See the recommendation letter from a Chinese professor, which covers 163.com and qq.com addresses.

Copy the link as text. LSE warns that portal problems "relate to the way hyperlinks are rendered 'safe links' by some email software at the receiving end." Its fix: "Please access the portal by copying and pasting the plain text URL from the email sent to you, into your browser."

Upload, do not email. Boston University "will not accept emailed or faxed recommendations as official credentials". LSE's process is the portal upload.

Expect a check. Duke says recommenders "may be asked to verify their authorship of the submitted recommendation letters" if the student accepts an offer.

Who should write it: project supervisor, HOD or course lecturer

LSE's rule for applicants: "Academic referees should have taught you during your university-level studies, preferably in relevant courses, at your current or most recent institution(s)." It also says "it is up to you to choose referees who know you well and are able to make relevant comments about you."

The HOD or professor guide covers that choice in depth.

For the student: how to ask

Visit the lecturer in person if you can, then follow up by email. Give them one page with your transcript, your project abstract, your statement draft, the programmes and each deadline. LSE's advice to applicants: "We strongly recommend that you contact your prospective referees before nominating them". A five-line request:

Constructed example, written by us, not a real email.

Dear Dr Adeyemi-Bello, I am applying for MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering at two UK universities and would like to submit both applications next month. You supervised my final-year project on biodiesel from waste cooking oil and taught me Plant Design. Would you be willing to write an academic reference? I attach my transcript, project abstract and statement draft. I can visit your office on any day next week to discuss it.

The guide to asking for a recommendation letter has timing and follow-up.

Asked to draft it yourself

If a lecturer asks the student to write the letter for them to sign, read the programme rules first. They are quoted in asked to write your own letter of recommendation. LSE's own line: "if we have cause to suspect that your references are not genuine, we will take reasonable steps to determine their validity, and your application may be cancelled."

What a lecturer can ask for instead is a facts sheet: course names and marks, the project title and your role, dates, and anything the student wants the letter to cover. The lecturer writes the judgement. GradPilot's letter reviews aren't for a letter you drafted for a recommender to submit as their own.

Constructed letter from a project supervisor, annotated

Constructed example, written by us, not a real recommendation letter. Context (invented): a Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at a Nigerian federal university writes for a BEng graduate with Second Class Upper honours applying to a UK MSc. The letter body, from "I am a Senior Lecturer" to "supervise him", is 353 words.

To the Admissions Committee, MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering

I am a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at [University], Nigeria, where I have taught since 2014. I supervised Chinedu Obi's final-year project from October 2024 to July 2025, and I taught him CHE 512 Plant Design in his final year. I write to support his application.

Chinedu graduated in 2025 with a BEng in Chemical Engineering, Second Class Upper, with a CGPA of 4.21 on our 5.00 scale. In CHE 512, a design course taken by all 84 final-year students in his set, he was in the top five. The course requires each group to design a small process plant, from material balances to a costed flowsheet. His group's design for an ethanol dehydration unit was the only one that year to include a sensitivity analysis on feedstock price, which he proposed and carried out himself.

His final-year project produced biodiesel from waste cooking oil collected from campus restaurants. The department's reactor was not available for most of the semester, so he rebuilt the experiment around a bench-scale stirred batch setup and changed the test plan to fit it. He ran eighteen trials, kept a clean laboratory record, and wrote the chapter on reaction conditions with very little correction from me. His thesis was among the three in his set that I recommended for the departmental project presentation.

He works steadily and asks good questions in supervision meetings. When his first yield results did not match the literature, he did not adjust them; he came to me with a list of three possible causes and a plan to test each.

One limitation. Chinedu is a careful writer but a cautious speaker. In his first presentation he read from his slides. By the final presentation he spoke from notes and answered questions from the panel directly, but he will need to keep working on it in a seminar-based programme.

Our department teaches the modelling and transport courses that his MSc will build on, and he took all of them. Would I offer him a place on a similar programme here? Yes, without hesitation, and I would want to supervise him.

Dr Funmilayo Adeyemi-Bello Senior Lecturer, Department of Chemical Engineering, [University], Nigeria [institutional email] · [date] · signed on departmental letterhead

What each part does.

• Basis for judgement (paragraph 1). Role, course, dates. The reader knows what the writer saw.
• A comparison that holds up (paragraph 2). A named course, a group size and a rank. The CGPA comes with its scale.
• Incidents, not adjectives (paragraphs 3–4). The reactor problem and the yield results show his own actions.
• One limitation (paragraph 5). LSE asks for "any limitations". One honest weakness, with progress, makes the praise easier to believe.
• The place question (paragraph 6). Answered in words a committee can quote.

Before the lecturer clicks submit

1. The letter is a PDF on departmental letterhead, signed and dated.
2. It names the programme the student is applying to, and the name is spelled correctly.
3. It is in English. LSE: "All references must be submitted in English." BU accepts English "or certified English translation".
4. It is sent from your university email if you have one, through the portal link copied as plain text.
5. It gives a comparison group, at least one mark with its scale, and one piece of work in detail.
6. It answers the place question.
7. It is submitted early. LSE says applications "cannot be considered until we have received a reference from each of the applicant's nominated referees".

For the length and headings Cambridge and York set, see the UK academic reference letter format and sample.

Questions about Nigerian recommendation letters

Does a UK university need the department stamp?

None of the LSE, Duke and Boston University referee pages we checked mentions a stamp or seal. A signature, letterhead and university email do the work. If a programme wants a stamp, look for that rule on its own page.

My student's transcript is not ready. What should I write?

The marks. LSE asks referees at institutions that do not issue transcripts until graduation to comment "in detail on the applicant's progress at university, including all of their marks to date."

Can one reference cover two LSE programmes?

At LSE, one reference covers two LSE programmes: "please ensure that your single reference applies to both programmes (we will not ask you for a second reference)." For different universities, change the programme name and the closing sentence for each.

What if I cannot write it?

Say so early. LSE asks referees who are "unable or unwilling" to "click the link within your email to decline this request", and the student is asked to nominate someone else. For the grade side of a UK application, see what UK universities publish for Nigerian degrees.

For wording, see how to decline a recommendation request without delaying the student.

For the grade sentence, see how to explain a CGPA on a 5-point scale without converting it.

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 Nigeria.

Writing for a public health applicant? The MPH recommendation letter guide covers SOPHAS and professional letters.

Writing for a European programme instead of a UK or US one? European vs American recommendation letters covers how calibration differs. More on the student's side of a UK application is in the UK master's personal statement guide for Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya and the development studies personal statement guide. The graduate school essays hub lists the rest.

Sources

Retrieved October 31, 2026.

• London School of Economics, Information for Referees (no year stated): questionnaire and PDF upload, marks to date, candour and limitations, quantitative synopsis, the place question, plain-text URL, webmail verification, declining, one reference for two programmes, deadline.
• London School of Economics, Supporting documents (2027/28 entry): academic/official email, who should be an academic referee, character references not acceptable, references in English, non-genuine references, contacting referees first.
• Duke University Graduate School, Letters of Recommendation (no year stated): who to ask, general email accounts, authorship verification.
• Boston University Arts & Sciences, PhD & MFA: Letters of Recommendation (no year stated): faculty familiar with American higher education, no Gmail letters, no emailed letters, English or certified translation.
• University of Manchester, Nigeria country information (no year stated): master's entry line of 2:1 or GPA 3.5/5.0.